When it comes to a career, many opportunities can bring you success. However, if you want something that calls for ambition, people skills, and a strong work ethic, you should consider recruiting. You might think that a recruiter’s job is easy, but this is not always the case. On the contrary, people working in this field fight a lot for their paycheck. At the same time, the opportunities for advancement aren’t too many. This article discusses what you should do as a recruiting beginner and how to get a good start in this job.
What Is a Recruiter and What’s Needed to Become One?
A recruiter or a headhunter is someone who works in the HR department of a company. His or her job is to identify and pursue candidates for all sorts of job openings. Recruiters can work either for a business or organization; or, they could provide their services to a third-party organization. Their main objective is to fill the most important job positions where competition is very strong. In other words, headhunters are people who help others get jobs for well-deserved salaries. At the same time, they need to make sure that they are helping their company build the best working teams for developing future projects.
The recruiting career path is not too straightforward, but the best news is that anyone can do it, regardless of their background. In other words, it doesn’t matter what work experience you have had; even if you are a generalist, you can still become a recruiter. And since this industry requires having experience with facing clients, you can get your first job easier than you can even imagine. Previous experience in sales can help a lot because you would know how to approach people.
And there’s more good news, as you don’t need to have a standard education as a recruiter, either. However, some employers do prefer headhunters with a bachelor’s degree. This degree could be in the fields of Business Management, Human Resources, psychology, or communications. Recruiters could also join the SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) or another organization, as this would help them boost their resumes. Besides, they would get to interact with others who are active in their industry, and this would offer them more employment opportunities. Below are six tips on how to become a successful recruiter.
Build Strong Relationships and A Network of Professionals
As mentioned, recruiting has a lot to do with sales, but this doesn’t mean it has to be impersonal or have a transactional nature. For example, you can’t think that if you hire someone to fill a vacancy, you’re going to make X sum of money. While the basic concept is indeed like this, you still can’t do quality recruiting if you don’t build strong relationships and make sure that your clients like the candidates you are sending their way. Recruiters are their candidates’ advocates and their clients’ most trusted partners. These roles they are playing are based only on empathy, communication, and trust. So, if you want to become a recruiter, you need to develop an honest and real rapport with the people you’re working with. This will help you find candidates more easily so that you can build your network and develop a powerful talent pipeline for your client’s future business plans.
Be Honest with Yourself and Others
Not all recruiters want to have the same job for a lifetime. Some people in this industry are only at the beginning of their professional road or could be taking a break from another career, whereas others are only interested in paying their outstanding bills faster. It doesn’t matter why you have chosen this career path; it’s very important that you are honest with yourself and understand why you became a headhunter, to begin with. Keep in mind that recruiting is a complex, competitive, and challenging industry that takes years to master. So, be clear about your career perspectives. Reflect and think about what the job you have chosen means. Determine if it makes you feel fulfilled, and, at the same time, adjust your timelines and expectations so that you don’t burn out before you start making some good money.
Find Your Mentor
While recruiting rewards those who start a career on their own because they want to build a business from scratch and can deal with pressure, it’s not the best option for those who need mentorship along the way. Unemployment rates have been quite high lately, and it seems that talent is more and more difficult to find. For these reasons, the hiring market is ultra-competitive, and recruiters are more looked for. Now, senior recruiters understand how important it is to share networks and to gain a competitive advantage in this tight market. If you want to capitalize on this entire situation, go ahead and look for senior recruiters who would agree to teach you what they know. You can discover and learn how to take your head out of the water at some point, as you would have the invaluable advice of someone who made it in the same professional area.
Use Technology
Using technology and different networking apps helps you save more money too. With applicant tracking systems, you can cut down on the many tedious tasks that impede you from interacting and communicating with candidates. Besides, you can update actively on their hiring status. LinkedIn is the place where you can find the highest numbers of professionals. This platform works as a factory for adding candidates to recruiters’ networks. Before starting to use LinkedIn, make sure that you have a well-designed profile and that your search habits are optimized. While calling people and going out for lunches are still elegant methods of recruiting, you still need to leverage technology if you want to advance in your career as a recruiter and be able to make more money. For example, the SignalHire tool, which is widely popular in the recruitment niche, has an extensive range of functionality that works on LinkedIn. You can click here to begin professional sourcing and start your career in recruiting with it.
Write Job Descriptions
If you write clear job descriptions, you are going to attract only qualified candidates because they will understand what the employer’s demands are. Use templates for job descriptions to find inspiration. Customize requirements and duties according to the responsibilities that will have to be fulfilled for each role. You can always check job ads that you have published for similar positions. In fact, you can just update older job descriptions that brought you success. However, make sure you change the benefits, tasks, and other requirements if these have changed. Don’t use jargon and buzzwords because these bring candidates down. Make sure you phrase your description clearly, mentioning if the job needs candidates to have a diploma or a certain number of experience years in the same position.
Source Some Passive Candidates Too
Sourcing passive candidates too can reduce a lot of your time and overall hiring costs, so take your time to do this by browsing LinkedIn profiles and searching on professional networks. The recruiting emails you are sending to the potential candidates you’re interacting with should be personalized and interesting. Your sourcing should also be diversified, so use as many channels as possible, depending on the jobs you’re trying to fill in. For example, GitHub is the place where you can find developers, whereas Behance is the destination for designers. Sourcing should be made easy with software tools that can help you keep the profiles of candidates in the same place, according to their experience.
Conclusion
Becoming a recruiter might not be too complicated, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take this career seriously. You will need to work hard not only on developing your talents and skills but also on finding clients and candidates who will want to work with you whenever they need talent or to get a job. Besides, the recruiters’ job is hardly ever done when a vacancy is filled. More and more recruiters today use welcome email templates to help candidates adjust to their new roles in the company, and HR departments are often responsible for supervising both newcomers and older employees. So, while it is relatively simple to get a start in recruiting industry, there is no limit on perfecting your hiring and people’s skills.
