What the role actually covers
| Stage | Hiring manager | Recruitment |
|---|---|---|
| Requirement | Defines the work, the must-haves and the level | Challenges it against the market and the budget |
| Approval | Makes the business case for the headcount | Confirms the band, the engagement type and the structure |
| Sourcing | Names target organisations and refers people | Runs channels, screens and manages the pipeline |
| Assessment | Judges capability against the competencies | Ensures the same process is applied to every candidate |
| Decision | Selects, and owns the outcome | Records the basis and the rejection reasons |
| Offer | Sells the role and the team | Constructs and issues the offer within policy |
| Joining | Stays in contact through notice, prepares the first week | Runs documentation and onboarding |
The row managers most often skip is the last. A candidate serving a two or three month notice period who hears nothing from their future manager is deciding about a counter-offer with no reason to feel committed.
Where the process stalls
Time to hire is usually measured against the recruiter and caused by the manager. The specific stalls are predictable.
- The requirement is a wish list assembled from three previous job descriptions, so the search has no centre and every shortlist is wrong in a new way.
- Interview slots are offered a fortnight out, while the candidate is running processes that offer slots this week.
- Feedback is not given until chased, and then arrives as a one-line verdict that cannot be conveyed to the candidate or used to adjust the search.
- The manager waits for a better candidate without defining what better means, and the pipeline ages while they do.
- The decision is deferred to a skip-level manager who was never part of the process, adding a round nobody planned.
Two service commitments fix most of this: feedback within a stated number of working days, and interview availability offered inside a stated window. They work only if the recruiter is allowed to escalate a breach, which is a decision the organisation makes rather than the recruiter.
What is not the manager's decision
Managers own selection. They do not own everything adjacent to it, and the distinction is worth stating explicitly before a dispute.
- The pay range. An offer outside the band affects everyone already in it, and a manager solving a hiring problem with an out-of-band offer creates a pay equity problem for the whole team.
- The engagement type. Whether the role is permanent, fixed term or filled through a vendor carries statutory consequences and is not a hiring convenience.
- The questions asked. Marriage plans, pregnancy intentions, caste, religion and health questions unrelated to the role cannot lawfully inform the decision, and a manager improvising is where they appear.
- Accommodation. If a candidate requires an adjustment in the assessment or the role, the obligation to consider it is the organisation's and is not waived by a manager finding it inconvenient.
- Reference and verification standards. What gets verified, by whom, and to what standard is a policy question, not a matter of how much the manager likes the candidate.
Verify the non-discrimination provisions in the Code on Wages, 2019 and the reasonable accommodation obligations under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 when briefing managers, since these are the areas where an unbriefed manager creates exposure in a single sentence.
Making managers better at it
- Brief before the first interview, not after. Fifteen minutes on the competencies, the question set and the rating scale is the highest-return training in recruitment.
- Give each manager their own numbers: time to feedback, offer acceptance, joining ratio and attrition at six months for their hires. Aggregate hiring metrics change nothing; a manager's own do.
- Have them write ratings before the debrief. The first opinion voiced in a panel discussion otherwise becomes the panel's view.
- Show them the rejections. Managers rarely see how many candidates their requirement excluded, or that the must-have they insisted on removed the whole available pool.
- Include the cost. A vacancy carried for four months has a cost, and so does a hire who leaves in three, and managers who see both make faster decisions.
- Close the loop on early attrition. Where a hire leaves within six months, the review should cover the brief and the interview as well as onboarding.
What the Code on Wages, 2019 replaced
4 enactments stand repealed under s. 69, in force 21 November 2025 by S.O. 5322(E).
- Payment of Wages Act, 1936
- Minimum Wages Act, 1948
- Payment of Bonus Act, 1965
- Equal Remuneration Act, 1976
Across all four labour Codes, 29 enactments stand repealed. A policy or handbook that still cites one of them by name is describing rules that no longer exist.
Statutory reference
- Act
- Code on Wages, 2019
- Section
- Code on Wages, 2019: prohibition of discrimination in recruitment and in wages on the ground of gender in respect of the same work or work of a similar nature, which constrains both the questions asked at interview and the offer made. Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016: non-discrimination in employment, reasonable accommodation in the selection process and in the role, and the requirement that selection criteria relate to the actual requirements of the post. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023: interview notes and assessment records as personal data. In force 21 November 2025 for the Code on Wages
- Key limits
- A hiring manager cannot ask questions or apply criteria that could not lawfully inform the decision, and cannot decline to consider a reasonable accommodation. An out-of-band offer to solve a hiring problem creates a pay comparison with existing employees doing the same or similar work. Verify the non-discrimination and equal remuneration provisions and the accommodation obligations before briefing managers who interview. Under notification G.S.R. 843(E) dated 13 November 2025, sections 3 to 17 - the grounds for processing, notice, consent, the general obligations of a data fiduciary and all of the data principal rights - take effect eighteen months from that date, on 13 May 2027. Only the definitions and the Data Protection Board and penalty machinery are in force now. Separately, processing for employment purposes runs on the section 7(i) legitimate use and not on consent, and the erasure duty in section 8(7) yields where retention is necessary for compliance with any law, which is the position for statutory payroll and register retention. Section 20 non-discrimination in employment, the section 20(2) duty to provide reasonable accommodation and a barrier-free environment, the section 20(4) protection of an employee who acquires a disability in service, the section 23 Grievance Redressal Officer and the section 34 four per cent reservation all bind government establishments only. What binds every establishment, private included, is section 21, notifying an equal opportunity policy and registering it with the Chief or State Commissioner, and section 22, maintaining records of persons with disabilities open to inspection. For the private sector section 35 provides government INCENTIVES towards a five per cent workforce target, not a quota. The general prohibition that does reach private conduct is section 3(3), and it carries a defence where the act or omission is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Reasonable accommodation is defined in section 2(y) as excluding what would impose a disproportionate or undue burden.
Frequently asked questions
What does a hiring manager do?
Owns the vacancy, defines the requirement, assesses candidates against the competencies, makes the selection decision and lives with the outcome. Recruitment supplies process, sourcing and market information, but the decisions that stall a process usually belong to the manager.
Why is our time to hire so long?
Most often because interview slots are offered too far out and feedback is not given until chased. Both belong to the hiring manager, which is why the fix is a stated feedback window that recruitment is permitted to escalate rather than a new sourcing channel.
Can a hiring manager offer above the band?
That is not their decision to make alone. An out-of-band offer changes the pay comparison for everyone already doing the same or similar work, so it needs to be resolved as a structure question rather than as a one-off exception.
What should a manager not ask a candidate?
Anything that could not lawfully inform the decision: marriage plans, pregnancy or childbearing intentions, caste, religion, and health or disability questions unrelated to the role. These appear when managers improvise, so give them a question set before the first interview.
How do we improve manager hiring quality?
Give each manager their own figures for feedback time, offer acceptance, joining ratio and six-month attrition. Aggregate recruitment metrics change nobody's behaviour, and a manager's own record of hires who left early usually does.
How Engage keeps managers accountable
Engage shows each hiring manager their own numbers: days to feedback, interview slots offered, offer acceptance, joining ratio and attrition at six months for their own hires. Ratings are recorded before the debrief rather than after it, and a stalled stage is visible as an ageing candidate rather than as a recruiter chasing by email.
See recruitment in Engage