HOW TO BECOME A RECRUITER
Your definitive recruiting career guide
So, you’re considering a career in recruiting
I am genuinely glad you’re here – no really, I am! I never imagined in the early years of my career that I would be in the recruiting industry with my own talent advisory firm, but here I am. It was the fulfilling path I never knew was waiting for me.
In fact, since my passion has always been to help people and businesses thrive in ways they never knew were possible, I even considered recruiting as an option at a few points throughout my career – but I was too scared to change my identity or deviate from the professional reputation I had cultivated. So, for years, I played it safe.
Today, however, is a different story. I am the owner of People Obsessed (a talent advisory and recruiting firm), with decades of experience in both the United States and globally in hiring, building and scaling organizations, and empowering teams to thrive in cross-functional environments.
And that’s exactly what I created this guide …
A recruiting career may rock your world, you just don’t know it yet
Whether you’re at the start of your professional career entirely – welcome to the rat race, we have membership jackets! – or you’re an established professional in a specialized industry considering a switch, this guide is for you. I’m going to give you the crash course of what it takes to become a recruiter that I wish I had available when I first started out in my journey.
By the end of this guide, you’ll understand:
What a recruiter does (really)
The different types of recruiting career paths
Essential skillsets of the best recruiters out there
In-house (sometimes called corporate) vs. outsourced recruiting career paths
Recruiter salary expectations and variables
How to become a recruiter with no experience
Yes, that’s a lot of information before we actually tackle how to break into recruiting as a career. But there is a reason for that. If you’re new to the field, there are numerous considerations you need to take into account to make the right decisions for you about which recruiting roles you go after, if at all. (After reading this, you may think that recruiting isn’t right for you after all, and that’s totally fine! I’m a big believer in people only going after roles that are right for them.)
OK, enough chit chat. Let’s dig into the good stuff.
Part I. What a recruiter does (really)
We’re going to start with the most basic definition here before we start diving down the rabbit holes that exist in this field. Fundamentally, recruiters exist to help companies find and hire the right people they need, from customer service representatives in a call center to C-suite executives.
They do this, generally speaking, by:
Understanding the market and landscape of companies in the space.
Understanding the skills, experiences, and backgrounds that would make a candidate the right fit.
Researching and sourcing candidates to fill roles.
Screening, first-round interviews, and initial evaluations of potential candidates.
Providing recommendations around the candidates you should speak to.
Depending on what type of recruiting you go into, your work may also include developing job descriptions, as well as offering support during salary negotiations, offer, and reference check phases.
And this is where get recruiting gets interesting, because you have a lot of options of how and where you can be a recruiter:
You can work in-house at a company as a recruiter, sometimes called a corporate recruiter.
You can work as a recruiter at an agency or talent advisory firm.
You can work as an independent headhunter.
You can be more of a generalist recruiter that sources candidates across a wide variety of roles.
You can specialize in the type of recruiting you do by function– e.g., technical recruiting, HR recruiting, sales recruiting and/or you can focus on particular industry like advertising/media, fintech, martech, and so on.
You can specialize in the level of roles you reruit for – e.g., an executive recruiter who only works on executive level searches, or VP and above.
I could go on, but you see my point. “Variety is the spice of life” in the recruiting world.
Recruiters vs. talent advisors in the outsourced world
Additionally, how deep your work extends, as well as how embedded you get in the hiring process with your clients will depend heavily on where you work as a recruiter (specifically on the outsourced side of the fence).
To illustrate this point, I want to talk for a moment about why some recruiting firms choose to call themselves talent advisory firms instead – People Obsessed included.
A third-party talent advisor does everything we’ve already talked about that recruiters do (researching, screening, and so on), but the great ones go deeper. They don’t settle for transactional relationships where only the immediate hiring goals are in view. They lean in and develop a “fluency” in the companies they support:
What is their mission and vision for the future?
What are their products and services today?
What is their product/service roadmap for the years ahead?
How do they stack up competitively in the market?
What is their current position their industry?
What is their culture?
Talent advisors also go out of their way to dig into a company’s hiring processes for points of failure, provide strategic guidance on the internal hiring process, ensuring they are seeking the right people, compensation is competitive in the market. and ultimately, that they are irresistible to the right candidates, and more.
It’s this intentional and purposeful integration into a company’s culture and operations that elevates a talent advisor from a mere transactional recruiter to an indispensible strategic partner for their recruiting clients.
However, while I am throwing around “recruiter” and “talent advisor” as opposing terms, what I’ve shared here is more about mindset rather than label. Every recruiting agency, headhunter, and talent advisory organization has their own way of labeling and talking about themselves.
For example, we call ourselves talent advisors here at People Obsessed, because we believe in the approach I outlined above. Of course, there may be agencies and individuals who think of themselves as “recruiters” (rather than “talent advisors”) out there who operate in a similar way.
So, if what I’ve shared here speaks to you, don’t evaluate a potential recruiting firm or role by label alone. Ask questions about their processes and how they develop relationships with their clients.
Part II. Essential recruiter skills
In-house or agency, specialized or broadly focused, all recruiters need the following skills:
People and communication skills
Recruiting is a people-focused industry, so yes, you do need to be able to talk to people and truly connect with them. You also need to have a temperament and approach that makes others naturally feel comfortable, so they feel at ease and safe in being completely honest with you.
In short, you have to love people and be a native communicator, because you’re going to spend most of your time talking – to companies and candidates.
You need to be highly organized
As a reruiter, you’re always on. You need to be able to make quick, smart decisions whenever the phone rights or an email pops up in your inbox. That means you need to be on top of your companies, candidates, and opportunities around the clock. This is not a role where things can slip through the cracks.
You need to natively understand what makes people tick
Our business is a very human one, which means it’s ripe with emotions, unspoken needs, and goals. On top of that, these are big decisions being made – company leaders on how to move their organization forward, and candidates on the next phase of their career.
That means you’ll need to be someone who just “gets” people, who understands on how to talk with candidates about positions you believe will take them to the next level in their career on their terms, and companies on the candidates you know will soar in the role – again, on their terms.
That means you need to understand what makes people tick, how to influence people, and persuade, when necessary.
Other specialized skill considerations
What other skills you may need will depend on how much you are thinking of specializing in your recruiting career path. If you’re just getting started in a more generalized recruiting role, the above list (along with any relevant professional history you may have) should satisfy requirements for entry-level or lateral positions.
On the other hand, where you want to specialize will (obviously) dictate any other skills you may need.
For instance, if you’re considering technical recruiting – a very lucrative option since they are high in demand right now – experience in relevant industries will help you stand out in the hiring process and excel in the role.
This is what makes recruiting such a fantastic opportunity for those of you who have established careers in other industries or roles. If you have the raw materials of what it takes to be a great recruiter – people skills, the ability to persuade, tenacity, and so on – you can translate your work history into a niche area of recruiting.
Part III. In-house vs. outsourced recruiting
One of the key considerations you’ll have as you look at a potential career in recruiting is whether or not you want a recruiting role in-house for a specific company or if you want to go to an agency or third-party recruiting/talent advisory firm.
There is no right or wrong answer, in-house vs. agency for recruiting. It’s all about your personal preferences:
Do you want to be solely focused on growing a single company or would you rather have new challenges every single day?
Do you want to manage client relationships like you would in an agency or talent advisory firm environment, or would you rather be more focused on “doing the work”?
Beyond those and other similar questions you will want to ask yourself, if you’re thinking about working in an agency environment, there are a few additional variables you need to know about.
Agencies are exciting for the right individual because you get to work across a lot of different projects and, in many cases, different industries. However, some agency or talent firm environments may not be very fulfilling, depending on what you’re looking for.
For example, Brad Lindsey (who works for People Obsessed) used to work in media advertising sales before he looked toward recruiting as a career. After he switched to recruiting, he struggled to find a recruiting firm that truly fulfilled him and made him excited to wake up each day:
“In a lot of recruiting roles, you can end up stuck working with companies who unreliable, boring, or both, as well as candidates who aren’t interested in the roles you’re trying to fill. [At People Obsessed], we have deeper client relationships than you’ll find anywhere else, we work on the best projects, and there’s never a dull moment.”
Moral of the story? Ask targeted questions of any recruiting or talent firm you’re applying to, to make sure it’s exactly what you want. Life is too short to work somewhere that makes it hard to wake up in the morning.
OK, there is another option – going out on your own!
Going out on your own as an individual recruiter or talent advisor is scary – trust me, I know this from experience. And there is a lot to think about, including establishing your own infrastructure, possessing the ability to build your own pipeline of projects and companies, insurance, contracts … all of that fun business stuff, the list goes on!
It is challenging to manage a business and do the actual recruiting required, but for the right person, this can be immensely rewarding.
Part IV. Recruiter salary expectations
So, any time you talk about salary for any role – recruiter, software engineer, lion tamer – you’re going to be speaking in ranges and variables that drive salary up and down. That’s why, if you do any amount of searching online about the topic, you’re going to find average salaries for recruiters as low as $35,000 and as high as $75,000.
But even those run-of-the-mill averages you can find online don’t paint a full or accurate picture. Not just because they don’t explain why the range is so wide, but also because I’ve seen those salaries for in-house recruiters go as high as $100,000 to $125,000, plus a 10% to 15% bonus.
Google and Salesforce pay their recruiters $159,290 and $134,000 respectively, with Uber isn’t far behind with $126,000 for their senior technical recruiters, and neither is Amazon, whose recruiters can make $100,000+.
In short, your earning potential as a recruiter can be quite high. But, of course, there are variables that will influence your take-home pay:
If you’re a contract recruiter, your salary will be based on your negotiated retainer amount or commission structure.
At an agency, you will often be dealing with a situation where you’re paid a base salary plus commission. On average, that can be 15% to 20% of a placed candidate’s starting salary.
If you have a great network and are well-suited for the agency recruiter environment, that can increase your earning potential, because your network can often be your best asset in this field.
Where you’re located can also influence your earning potential. Although remote work is becoming more common, there are companies out there who will adjust offered compensation up or down to meet the standard of living where you call home.
If you’re specialized by industry or role as a recruiter, that will also have an effect on your salary. If you’re recruiting for higher placed roles (e.g., executives), you’ll likely be paid more. The same holds true if you’re a recruiter for highly specialized or in-demand roles (e.g., technical recruiting).
Finally, there are the basics of your own hard-earned experience, which is a determining factor for any role you may be looking at, recruiting or otherwise. For instance, if you bring specific industry experience to the table, that will be a vote in your favor at the right place. If you’re just getting started in your career as a recent graduate, your initial salary won’t be as high, which is to be expected.
Part V. How to become a recruiter
OK, so this is the meat and potatoes of this guide, right? This is why you’re here. Or, after reading all of the considerations that came before this, you’re hopefully here because you still think that recruiting sounds like an amazing opportunity for you.
So, how do you break into recruiting if you have no experience as a recruiter? Let’s talk about it:
Lean into your industry. If you’re coming from a specialized industry or role, look at recruiting opportunities specific to that. Your experience can be a fantastic foot in the door.
Emphasize any ways in which you excel in the basic required skills you have for recruiters; people skills, selling skills, organizational skills. If you don’t have any professional experience yet, emphasize these areas.
Learn about recruiting. Really, do research. Learn the terms, learn the industry, etc. Yes, once you actually land a recruiting role, you’ll learn so much more. But you’ll want to bring at least a base-level of knowledge to the interview table, along with any other experience that you have.
Once you’re ready to pull the trigger on your recruiting job hunt, here are a few things you can do to get your search started:
Update your LinkedIn profile based on what you’ve learned in this guide to make you shine as a potential recruiting candidate.
Build and strengthen your network. (And also check your network to see if you know anyone already in the recruiting field.)
Do a little soul-searching and list-making. What makes you a standout candidate for any potential recruiting roles? Write it down and practice talking about it.
Update your actual resume to be optimized for recruiting roles.
Take a look at our People Obsessed careers page. (Hey, I’ve got a talent advisory firm here, and if you’re the right fit, I want to talk to you!)
Alright, everybody! We’ve come to the end of this guide. If you’ve made it this far, I hope this has helped you in some way. Or, if you have any questions you’d like to see addressed in an updated version of this guide or directly, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Best of luck to you!