To be the first to hear about our latest blogs, whitepaper releases, hiring enablement podcast episodes and get exclusive event invites, join our Exclusive Hiring Enablement Community.
There are almost two million people with “recruiter” in their job title on LinkedIn.
And that’s not including the people who describe their jobs as “facilitating the optimum roles for individuals to complement them with superlative positions that fulfil their professional goals.” (You know the ones…)
It’s quite easy to become a recruiter.
There’s no qualifications needed to get into the industry and really, the only equipment you need is a laptop and you’re good to go.
But, what makes a good recruiter? We think we’ve come up with the definitive list…
For the record. We’re only looking at 180 recruiters here though – people who only place others in roles – because we don’t believe that 360 recruitment can be as effective. (Don’t come after us, it’s just our opinion!)
#1 – Excellent Communication With Stakeholders and Hiring Managers
The first and most obvious valuable recruitment skill is great communication skills.
After all, at the beginning of your relationship with the hiring company and hiring managers, it’s the recruiter’s job to find out exactly what both sides’ needs and expectations are.
Setting Goals and Expectations
At Solutions Driven, we do this with a scoping call where the Business Growth team member, the recruiter, and the hiring manager(s) sit down and figure out exactly what’s needed. What the timescales are, what skills the candidate needs, and how the process will go.
Relationship Building Skills
Through great communication, recruiters can ensure their goals and their client’s align, they can engage passive candidates, and those candidates are the right people for the job.
This gives recruiters a good look at everybody’s picture of a top talent. This may vary so this is a chance to put your listening skills in action and discuss where everybody’s expectations can meet and keep everyone on the same page.
And, at the end of the process, everyone comes away happy.
#2 – A Methodical Way of Working
The “Spray and pray” approach to recruiting – firing over CVs that roughly match what the hiring company is looking for – is dead.
Top recruiters need to be methodical. Using a process to find the perfect candidate for each role, every time.
Sure, if you play a numbers game you’ll probably get some success, but it’s much better to find steps that work, stick to them, and get the right person every time.
Our 6S Process
We call our process the 6S Process which consists of – Scoping, Scorecarding, Sourcing, Selecting, Securing, and Satisfying – and we use it to find the right candidates for our clients.
We believe it’s one of the most valuable tools we have in our recruiting skills toolbox.
And over the last 3 years we’ve had a 97% hire right, first time, success rate for our clients.
Having this process in place leads our customers to say nice things like:
“I appreciate the structured approach to search management. It was a very challenging search and we are happy to have the role filled and will now be able to move forward.”
#3 – Have a Tenacious Nature
Recruitment is similar to sales, in that sometimes, you just need to keep going.
With 76% of hiring decision-makers reporting that hiring passive candidates is a main challenge for them, recruiters must be able to contact and engage these types of candidates.
A Matter of Resourcefulness
If they’re finding it hard to engage with great candidates on the usual channels like LinkedIn, what other tools are available to them so they can dig deeper? If they can’t engage with a contact on LinkedIn, what’s their ‘plan B’ for reaching them?
Great recruiters won’t accept they might not find the perfect candidate and send over “almost right” CV’s.
They use their skills to dig deeper, use their process to examine the market, and they keep going.
#4 – Great Time Management
Usually, a hiring manager will have a limit for a candidate search. Either because someone is leaving or because having that role unfilled is having an impact on the way the company runs or its revenues.
The average time to hire, according to Talentlyft is 1-4 months, and most companies will want to keep that time as low as possible.
So one of the key qualities of a great recruiter is being able to keep to this time limit and to manage their time across multiple roles.
Time-keeping skills are essential, especially as the longer the time-to-hire, the longer a business is sitting with an open role.
Time is of The Essence
If this role is business-critical or in a position that can really propel the company forward, they’re losing money while waiting for the recruiter or recruitment company to fill the position.
But of course, while being on top of time, quality should never be compromised.
#5 – A Willingness To Learn
One of the key steps in our 6S Process is called Satisfying. (Ooh errr.)
It involves looking back over the process at the very end to ensure the best outcome was achieved for all sides — clients, candidates, and hiring managers.
Room For Improvement
It gives our team the chance to see if there’s anything they could have done better, like getting more information at the beginning, looking in different areas, or making changes to the candidate fit scorecard.
#6 – Good Knowledge of the Industry
And great recruiters should always have a good knowledge of the industry and role they’re hiring for. If they don’t, they need to spend some proper time doing some research for every role.
It will help them to gauge any potential issues with salary or location and allows them to dig deeper than just the surface of the talent pool.
As easy as it is to enter recruitment, it’s not quite as easy to stay in recruitment or to be successful. There are a lot of qualities needed to be a good recruiter, and even more so to be a trusted recruiter. While you might not need to be amazing at all of the above, some element of each is vital to keep getting clients the best candidates and candidates the best roles.
