How to become a recruiter with no experience
Recruiters are in higher demand than ever before, and it’s getting harder for companies to find who they’re looking for. So, we love when someone asks this question because that means you’re at the beginning of a brand new chapter. Whether you’re just getting started in your career or considering pivoting into recruiting, where you’re at right now is an exciting place to be. We’re glad you’re here.
Like any career “we all start somewhere,” but that’s not exactly what we’d call helpful advice.
In this modern world full of applicant tracking systems mistakenly disqualifying top candidates and missing out on potential great-fit candidates, recruiters are poised with great opportunities to help companies streamline their hiring processes and find the top talent they’re searching for. Most of the candidates we find are happy in their current roles, and maybe not even looking to make a career move. We find them, listen to them, and attract them to an opportunity that we know they are already likely qualified for. We hand-pick the best of the best.
So, how do you become a recruiter with no recruiting experience?
Lean into your industry expertise
You can easily explore recruiting in the industries you have experience and expertise in.
Do you have experience in IT, fintech, software development, or other tech-related fields? Technical recruiting might be a great option for you.
Do you have experience in healthcare, medical device sales, or other areas of the medical field? Medical recruiting might be a great option for you.
Do you have experience in marketing, media production, or other creative fields? Creative recruiting might be a good option for you.
Are you seeing a pattern here? Using your industry-specific expertise can help position you as a skilled recruiter in your field. If you already know the ins and outs of the industry, what makes a growth marketer a good one, how they work within marketing and sales, you’re going to be able to discern talent in these areas better than someone who is a business analyst from a completely separate field.
To go a bit deeper, if you’ve ever been a hiring manager – or better yet, a leader – you’ve been building teams and organizations from the inside. You know what you were looking for in those roles, so you can carry that expertise to the other side and use it in recruiting. This is helpful not only in coaching candidates but also in shepherding the hiring organizations and decision-makers at your client companies.
But what if you don’t like your current industry? Or what if you don’t have quite enough industry experience to consider yourself an expert? What then?
Download Now: How to become a recruiter.
Lean into your skill set
Regardless of industry, certain skills are highly valuable in recruiting. You don’t have to have insane amounts of technical knowledge to become a recruiter. You don’t have to have three degrees and seventeen certifications under your belt to be “qualified” to recruit.
You need people skills
You need to be able to talk to people, to connect with people, to make them feel comfortable in speaking openly and honestly with you, and to communicate effectively. The vast majority of recruiting involves talking to people: candidates, organizational leaders, hiring managers, industry experts, other recruiters, and anyone else in your network who might have a connection to someone else worth (you guessed it) talking to.
You need organization skills
An effective recruiter knows who they’re connected to at all times. When any opportunity becomes available, recruiters should know “I have a candidate in mind for that,” or “I need to find a candidate for that.” Keeping your network organized is going to help you find success in recruiting faster and more efficiently.
You need the ability to sell and influence
Now before you click back to wherever you came from, this doesn’t mean you need to have held a sales position or be a dancing TikTok star with all the latest choreographed dances committed to memory.
This doesn’t mean you’ll be asked to sell your interviewers a pen during the interview process of becoming a recruiter. This also doesn’t mean that you have to have proven sales tactics and a portfolio of impressive growth in your previous roles.
What this does mean is that you have to know how to make people want what you have – in this case, a highly-qualified candidate who would be the perfect fit for their open position. You have to be able to “sell” your candidate as the best candidate for the job. While we’re at it, you also have to sell yourself as someone who can find the person they’re looking for.
It also means you have to know the art of persuasion. Influencing people
What other skills can you lean into to set yourself up for success as a recruiter? Check out our blog on skills that translate from any industry to recruiting.
Leverage your connections
LinkedIn is a powerful tool for recruiters, but it’s not the only tool. You can utilize connections on industry slack channels, discord groups, different social media platforms, previous coworkers (and their connections, too), acquaintances from marquis industry events, your kid’s friend’s mom’s sister… If there’s a connection to be had, leverage it. We’re all familiar with the six degrees of separation. It truly is a small world, so use this small world to your advantage. Every connection you make holds the potential to be the key to a candidate you couldn’t design better yourself.
Learn the recruiting industry
We have a limitless amount of knowledge at our fingertips. The internet is an incredibly powerful tool (you found this awesome article on it, right?) that allows you to become an expert without much formal education or training. Sure, there will be things that you’ll want to and need to learn once you’re inside the recruiting world, but a lot of the legwork can be done before you ever apply for a recruiting job.
Familiarize yourself with recruiting terms you’ll need to know.
Learn the hiring process, policies, and procedures.
Educate yourself on resume best practices.
Learn how recruiters work with companies.
Understand how compensation works for recruiters.
Look into which recruiting path is right for you
Saying “I want to be a recruiter” is equivalent to saying “I want cereal for breakfast.” Do you know how many types of cereal there are on the average grocery store shelf? 250. (Yes, we actually looked it up.) Now, there might not be 250 different types of recruiting opportunities for you to choose from when starting your career, but it’s pretty close.
You can choose to go in-house and work for one company to recruit for their hiring needs. You can work at an agency that specializes in any number of different industries or positions. The possibilities are quite literally endless. You can work remotely or in person. You can work as an hourly or salaried employee, as a salary plus commission employee, or as a straight commission employee. You can be a W-2 employee or a 1099 employee, OR you could even go the self-employment route and start your own agency.
You can specialize in an industry, at a career level in that industry, or on a specific organization. Explore your options, see what you feel called to, and throw your hat in the ring.
Now, here are 5 things you can do immediately to get started
If you’ve made it this far, awesome. We are recruiters and we love people who are excited about recruiting. So what now? We’ve compiled a list of five things you can do immediately to get yourself off to a great start.
We’re glad you’re excited, and just to triple-check that you understand what recruiters do… Read our blog “What do recruiters do?” to familiarize yourself with what a day in the life of a recruiter looks like.
Update your LinkedIn profile. Make sure it’s complete and up to date, showcasing applicable skills and experience.
Start building your network of connections.
Make a list of skills and knowledge that you have to help you clarify what specialties you might thrive in.
Polish your resume. Cater it to highlight your transferable skills and knowledge from that handy dandy list you just created. Get it saved somewhere accessible so when you find a recruiting opportunity that suits your fancy, you can apply before you talk yourself out of it (we get it, change can be hard).
Any career change can be scary. But it can also be exciting. When it comes to recruiting, mindset is a very powerful thing. Continue to educate yourself, weigh the pros and cons, find the right role for you, at the right agency, in the right format, and run towards your goals.
Leave your self-limiting beliefs at the door
If you believe that you can be a great recruiter, take the leap. Self-limiting beliefs are only going to hold you back from achieving your true potential. A huge part of being a successful recruiter is having the confidence to go for it.
Update your resume. Reach out to that company. Network with a recruiter that you know. Ask questions. Get started.
