Stop Winging It: Why Your Hiring Managers Need a License to Hire

We train salespeople before they pitch. We train engineers before they write the code that runs your business. We even train interns before we trust them with the coffee machine! But, when it comes to the people making some of the most high-stakes decisions in your business – your hiring managers – we just… let them figure it out?

No guidance. No practice. No structure.

Just a calendar invite and a vague instruction: “Ask some good questions.”

We’ve turned interviewing into improv theatre. And it’s costing us – in quality, in speed, in diversity, and in candidate experience.

The Quiet Crisis in Hiring: Everyone’s Winging It

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard something like this:

“The interview panel loved the candidate, but we’re not sure if they’re the right fit.”

Most interviewers, it’s safe to say, are improvising. Not necessarily because they’re lazy or disengaged, but because no one’s ever shown them how to do better. So they fall back on what they know:

• Gut feelings
• Chatty small talk
• Recycled questions from a Google search
• A quick debrief from the recruiter

Meanwhile, candidates are trying to decode the experience like it’s a cryptic escape room, and recruiters are left to tie it all together with a tired smile.

None of this will be news to any TA leader as this isn’t a niche issue. It’s the issue. A real moment of truth in hiring. And it’s the one organizations most consistently ignore.

Why Interviewer Training Hasn’t Stuck

Now, before you roll your eyes and mutter, “We’ve tried training, Johnny,” let me guess how it went (if it wasn’t with SocialTalent of course!)

• 90-minute webinar.
• 47-slide deck on bias and legislation.
• A handy PDF follow-up no one reads.
• Completion rates hovering somewhere between “meh” and “please make it stop.”

It’s not that companies haven’t tried. It’s that they’ve tried the wrong things. Generic, preachy training that is overly long and so disconnected from the actual moments that matter.

And I think we forget that most managers would want to be able to hire well as it’s in their best interests to be able to select the best talent for their teams. A checklist and hope just won’t suffice.

What a ‘License to Hire’ Really Means

I’ve always loved the phrase “License to Hire” – outside of the 007 connotations, it speaks to overcome a lacking legitimacy in the hiring process.

A License to Hire program is essentially a mindset and a mechanism. It’s about giving people the skills, structure, and confidence to run interviews that actually work. Interviews that are:

• Structured.
• Relevant.
• Fair.
• Repeatable.
• Candidate-friendly.
• Aligned with what your business actually needs.

The best programs aren’t heavy-handed compliance initiatives. They’re smart, scalable, and tailored to the way people really learn.

Short videos. Real examples. Authentic, respected experts. Practice and feedback. Tools they can actually use.

And yes – it’s possible to build one without a seven-figure budget and a change management war room!

Ericsson: Proof That It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Work

We held the most extraordinary webinar on this exact topic a few weeks ago with Maria Gerleman, the Global Head of Strategic Talent Acquisition Programs at Ericsson.

They hire around 20,000 people a year mostly in complex, technical roles. Their TA team knew the inconsistency in hiring manager readiness was a problem. So they built something from scratch.

They didn’t start by choosing a vendor solution.

They started by mapping what hiring managers actually do. Eleven clear “jobs to be done” across the hiring process – from opening a req to giving feedback. They even filmed their own Ericsson-specific content on iPhones in a basement using a trash can as a tripod (I’m not even making that up!)

They then paired that homegrown content with the expert-led, modular training from the SocialTalent platform – interactive, bite-sized, and designed to let managers practice, not just listen.

They piloted with 250 managers across a global business unit and then drove adoption through internal marketing, peer influence, and the program’s intrinsic quality.

The result?

100% of the pilot managers interviewed said the training should be mandatory. They got global buy-in and have begun scaling it across the org. And managers started showing up to interviews with actual prep and structure. Imagine that!

“We wanted to create something really, really meaningful and bespoke. The strength with License to Hire is that we started with the needs. We walked in the shoes of our hiring managers to really understand their realities – and that was the starting point.” — Maria Gerleman, Ericsson

If You Want to Fix Hiring, Start Here

What I love about the Ericsson example is how repeatable it is. There’s learning to be taken for organizations of every size. The same broken interview habits show up everywhere. The same handoffs between TA and hiring managers are missed. The same assumptions go unchallenged.

So if you want to raise the bar – really raise it – here’s the blueprint:

• Start with What People Actually Do

Map the moments that matter. Don’t guess. Interview your interviewers.

• Keep It Short, Sharp, and Honest

You don’t need a 10-hour course. You need hyper relevant content that respects people’s time.

• Let People Practice

Simulate real interviews. Give feedback. Let them fail safely.

• Enable Recruiters to Be Coaches

They’re the glue – give them visibility and tools to support.

• Scale with Support, Not Mandates (at first)

A great experience sells itself. Create something managers want to talk about.

Closing Thought: You Can’t Fix What You Don’t Train

The interview is where it all comes together – or falls apart.

It’s where alignment gets tested, candidate experience gets real, and decisions get made that ripple for years. And we leave it to chance.

Let’s stop winging it. Start with your hiring managers and give them a real foundation and watch everything else – time-to-hire, quality, experience, retention – start to shift.

And, if you want to see what a License to Hire program can look like in your business, you know exactly where to find me!