What does a recruiter do all day? What is the workload like? What kind of skills do they need?
Whether you’re a company who hires recruiters to find people to work in your business and you’re curious what a recruiter does for you, or you’re a job seeker wondering what your recruiter does behind the scenes, or you’re interested in changing careers and becoming a recruiter yourself, here is the break down on a day in the life of a recruiter.
What a Typical Day Looks Like
If you’re someone who enjoys change, then you’ll love being a recruiter because no two days are alike. Each and every day is completely different from the last. However, the list of your to-do tasks and responsibilities will be the same.
To start the day, a recruiter will prepare for the day and manage their calendar, which can consist of interviews with potential candidates, check-ins with employers, internal meetings with the team, or one-on-one conversations with your manager.
Once you’ve accessed your calendar for the day, next is responding to emails. Recruiters answer hundreds of emails over the course of a month. You could be answering a question from a fellow recruiter to asking for feedback from an employer to giving directions to a job seeker for an interview location. To start, you answer all the urgent emails first and put out any “fires,” then answer the top priority emails, and then it trickles down from there.
After responding to emails, recruiters work off their list of open requisitions. This includes a variety of tasks: running searches of potential candidates through databases, reviewing resumes, setting up and conducting interviews, preparing job seekers for interviews with the employer (and sometimes sitting in on those interviews), following up with candidates, providing feedback, and (the best part) extending offers.
Other daily responsibilities include: posting jobs, changing job requirements, searching for candidates and building a talent pipeline, engaging with passive candidates, working on brand management and crafting content, and attending team meetings.
Every day is very full, but no matter what happens, you need to stay on your feet because it can be a very demanding yet rewarding job.
Skills Recruiters Should Possess
To be in this line of work, a person needs a particular set of skills that will help them succeed.
1. Communication is probably the number one required skill to have as a recruiter. You are connecting with so many different people throughout your day, from hiring companies to job seekers to your own team members and managers. You must be able to juggle communication with multiple candidates, multiple roles, and multiple internal stakeholders.
You also need to remember that you’re constantly building rapport and trust with these relationships, so you need to keep in contact with people. It can be easy to miss an email in your long list, but attention to detail is vital.
2. Organizational and time management are other critical skills to have because there is a lot of multi-tasking that happens every day. You must know what is going on with each company and candidate at all times. Every day you’re managing multiple calendars and scheduling. It can be quite challenging to juggle so many things on your to-do, but the rewards are so worth it.
3. Innovation and creativity can go a long way for a recruiter. You are competing with many other recruiters and staffing agencies; therefore, you need to stand out amongst them vying for the talent’s attention. You need to craft creative job postings because there are thousands listed out there. You must also learn how to write compelling emails so candidates open them and respond to you. Knowing trends, tricks of the trade and other helpful hacks help to put you ahead of the competition.
4. Being able to deal with rejection and disappointment because it comes with the territory of this type of job. It can be hard spending so much time with a candidate, building a relationship, only for them to change their mind or decline an offer, and walk away. It’s also difficult to hear from a hiring manager that they are passing on your applicant, and then you have to relay this feedback to the job seeker.
Therefore, if you’re someone who likes to feel in control all the time, then this may not be the right career for you. However, if you can roll with the punches, and at the end of the day, remind yourself that you did the best you could to help someone and that things happen out of your control, then you’ll do well.
5. A few other skills that will help you thrive in this industry are: confidence, ambition and drive, integrity, problem-solving, being resilient, and being a team player. Those who are naturally proactive and work hard will absolutely reap the benefits of this career.
The Best Part of Being a Recruiter
Knowing that you helped someone find their dream job, and at the same time, knowing you also helped a company find their dream employee can feel completely satisfying and rewarding. It’s a win-win!
You’re changing lives when you match the right job seekers to the right positions. A person’s professional career affects their livelihoods, their families, and their life. It can also feel gratifying to hear from a candidate that you placed a few years back and how they have developed in the role they were placed in and hear them express their gratitude. Recruiters can have a huge impact on people’s lives.
On the other hand, from the side of the hiring company, you may go on an arduous journey with them to find the perfect candidate, but in the end, you’ve built a strong relationship with them. They may even start coming to you for advice outside of recruitment, which may ultimately be your goal – to become an advisor for clients when it comes to HR-related support.
So, if you like a fast-paced work environment, having a variety of tasks to do, meeting new people, talking with various companies and people, and impacting lives in a positive way, you may want to think about becoming a recruiter.
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