What does a recruiter do?
The most infamous question of 1998: What is Chandler Bing’s job? No, he wasn’t a transpondster (he wasn’t a recruiter either). He actually worked in “statistical analysis and data reconfiguration.” But understanding the job description of a 1990s sitcom character is not why you’re here.
You’re here because you want to understand what it is that recruiters do. Do they simply troll LinkedIn every day, spending endless hours cold-messaging people they don’t know in the hopes they’ll be interested in working at a company they’ve never heard of?
Ideally, no. Yes, that’s true in some places, but the recruiters who wake up excited every single day to go to work do not do that.
Instead, they are the shepherds of people who are wildly brilliant, walking them through some of the biggest changes of their lives. They provide access to opportunities that might otherwise go unseen. They coach candidates through the interview process. They educate companies on what changes need to be made to stay competitive in current job markets in ways they haven’t been able to before. They do so. much. more. than steal your favorite co-worker, Kevin, away from you for an amazing opportunity so now you have no one to talk to on Slack anymore. We’re really sorry, Kevin has just taken an important next step in furthering his career.
Two words of note before we dig in:
First – “recruiter” and “recruiting” are very much blanket terms that cover a lot of the employment industry as a whole. You’ll also see “Talent Advisory” and “Talent Advisor” used. While “recruiters” and “talent advisors” are similar, they do have some key differences. In short, your standard run-of-the-mill recruiters are the ones you first think of when you hear “recruiting,” who place people in jobs and go about their day with the next candidate.
Talent advisors, on the other hand, are the ones who go deeper. They’re the ones who go above and beyond, who hold a more consultative role with both their candidates and their clients, coaching – well, “advising” them to success.
Second – this is not your grandmother’s article about what recruiters do. For the purposes of this article, we’ll be using “recruiter” and “recruiting” as general terms, but the reality is there is a distinct difference between what all-star recruiters (talent advisors) do – the kind we hire and celebrate here at People Obsessed – and those who, well, are perfectly content with being average. So, below we are going to outline what the all-stars do.
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As a recruiter, you must master the hiring process
This likely will not come as a surprise to you, but as a recruiter, one of the core competencies you must possess is a deep understanding of how the hiring process works, from start to finish. However, this isn’t as straightforward as you might think it is.
The hiring process encompasses so much more than interviewing, presenting an offer, and having a candidate accept. Those are all important and exciting milestones, but those are only the beginning.
To truly be an expert in the hiring process is to understand its nuances:
How to craft job descriptions that are both accurate and enticing for the precise types of candidates you’re looking for.
How to help both candidates and hiring managers to understand the essence of the opportunity.
How to convey the value a candidate or a particular career move will have in the short and long term.
How to effectively and efficiently screen initial applications for both duds and diamonds in the rough.
What questions to ask in an interview setting to determine a candidate’s true competencies, as well as their fit for your organization.
Navigating the complexities of the negotiation process once an offer is delivered.
…just to name a few.
The bottom line, the hiring process is like an iceberg. There’s so much more beneath the surface that you likely haven’t noticed before, which is what makes it such a rich and rewarding career for the right person.
You’re also the first line of defense against bad-fit candidates
If you’re a recruiter working with a company (in-house or otherwise), they are going have a few baked-in expectations of what will happen when they work with you:
The candidates you send them will be qualified.
You will not send them people who will waste their time.
The candidate you send them will mesh with their company culture.
This is where understanding the hiring process becomes so essential. You will not be able to meet either of those expectations without it. The best recruiters out there understand this. The best recruiters also understand this is where their value lies because, once more with feeling, not all recruiters operate at the same level of standards.
In fact, one thing we’ve heard multiple times from a meaningful number of our clients is that, with previous recruiters, they were frustrated with the knowledge that some of the candidates presented were not the right fit. The last thing any company wants to do is waste time interviewing poor-fitting candidates who wouldn’t last six weeks in their organization. They want the top candidates pulled to the top of the pile, to hear first-hand from you, the recruiter, what makes these candidates great, and to be empowered to make good, informed decisions quickly.
You are the best advocate for their candidates
When candidates look at a job description, there’s a fairly high likelihood that they’re not going to check every single box.
A resume is just history; it doesn’t necessarily predict the future. Candidates shouldn’t limit themselves to the roles where they check all the boxes – if they did, they’d never get where they want to be in their career. Right? Every next move should have the right learning curve and stretch someone out of their comfort zone. If it doesn’t, it’s not a big enough move (in our opinion).
We help candidates realize their true potential and understand what they are capable of, realistically. We aren’t selling them or convincing them – we’re helping them see it in themselves and find the confidence they need to make the move.
We do the same on the other side, helping hiring teams see the value, potential, and future of a person’s resume and skill set. As a recruiter, you have the opportunity to talk through the “gaps” and “missing skills” to get a better picture of what a candidate represents.
Advocating for your candidate can sometimes look like pushing back on internal hiring managers when they are requiring previous experience or industry expertise that isn’t necessary. Say you’re recruiting for a well-known SaaS company, working to place their next CMO. The internal hiring team wants to see at least 10 years of experience in marketing in the SaaS industry. You have a candidate with 15 years of off-the-charts, top-performing marketing experience in a different field, and 2 years in SaaS, who is highly qualified in all other requirements.
This candidate is passionate, has used this software for years and knows it inside and out. Are you going to let that internal team overlook your candidate because they didn’t check every single box? Of course not. You’re going to tell them that Sarah is the person they need for the job and make them experience some major FOMO if they don’t schedule an interview with her by Tuesday.
You introduce your candidate to the right people
As a recruiter, it’s your responsibility to be selective and targeted when marketing your candidates. We help to make sure that the right leaders and hiring managers within our networks are aware of the top talent we’re working with. It’s not plastering our candidates everywhere, hoping someone will bite. It’s targeted and effective.
Rather than putting candidates “on blast,” we will have a few companies in mind where we think the person’s experience and skills are a particularly great fit. Then (and only then), we’ll proactively share. We don’t want the hiring managers we work with to feel like we are selling candidates (many recruiters do this and this is where that difference between recruiter and talent advisor comes in). When you’re making connections as a recruiter, they have to be super targeted and personal, or you become no better than a used car salesman trying to sell a family of six a two-door convertible with no back seat.
You coach candidates in becoming a competitive applicant.
Getting your candidates seen is only half the battle. Then comes securing the role. Being a recruiter is great fun, until none of your candidates are matched with the opportunities you’re working to fill. This dream job can become a nightmare very quickly. No matched candidates = no commission. No commission = unhappy recruiters.
The best in the business make great money because they are successful at bringing the interests of all parties together in the right way. We coach our candidates to become the best versions of themselves. This includes resume updates – formatting, contents, and organization, portfolio compilation, interview skills, and follow-up etiquette. From first contact with a prospective employer, all the way through to accepting an offer, recruiters guide their candidates through the entire hiring process to give them the best chances at landing the position.
You translate job offers and aid in negotiations.
Your candidate has an offer on the table! Hooray! Let’s pop the champagne! But not so fast. Is it a good offer? As a recruiter, it’s your job to vet the offer being presented to your candidate.
Is it in line with market averages?
Does it reflect your candidate’s experience and expertise?
Is this the right career move?
Is everything that has been previously discussed outlined clearly?
Are there stipulations to employment that should be explained to your candidate?
Are there any red flags that need addressing?
If you (as the recruiter) were presented with this offer, would you accept it?
Offer letters come in many forms. We’ve seen everything from a one-paragraph email with a single-page attachment, to a thirty-page document in 8 pt font (SINGLE SPACED). Translating offers to the candidate, digesting the fine print with them, and then negotiating any changes is all part of the job.
You are educators of your client companies
You read that right. As an external recruiter, you have a front-row seat at the circus that is today’s job market. You get to see firsthand all kinds of job descriptions, interview processes, and offers. Internal hiring managers don’t get this same luxury. They see “the way they’ve always done things,” the comments their colleagues make on LinkedIn, and the articles in the local news about The Great Resignation, Gen Z entering the workforce, and how the pandemic has impacted the job market. But all of this is subjective.
As a recruiter, you have the privilege of knowing what’s happening right now. You can tell organizational leaders that their offer is garbage (respectfully, of course), that their job description is out of date, that their interview process is too long – or is missing something important. You have the power to shape and mold how a company grows, and that is pretty cool.
Recruiters connect people and opportunities.
Without a doubt, this is the best part of the job. Recruiters build their networks of incredible people with unique skill sets, passions, and stories to tell. Recruiters work with companies who are looking to find the person who’s going to make a difference for their organization, who recognize that they’re not equipped to find this mythical creature of a human on their own. When you match incredible people with great organizations, magic happens.
Yes, that might sound a little cheesy… but is quite rewarding to witness. When you have the perfect-match candidate in your pocket and a company comes to you to fill an open position, butterflies in your stomach are the only logical response.
So yes, recruiters do a lot. They might steal your work bestie, Kevin, and his famous break-room chocolate chip cookies, for a job opportunity he simply couldn’t turn down. They might annoy you with a LinkedIn message about an opportunity you weren’t looking for, only to help you realize that it’s an opportunity you should be looking for. They might not leave you alone until you schedule an interview with Sarah because they know deep in their gut that she’s going to make all your wildest business dreams come true. Recruiters might even place a top performer at your closest competitor – but then again, that’s your loss for not reaching out to us first.
