15 Recruiting Skills Every Recruiter Must Have

Certain skills are essential for a recruiter. These recruiting skills can help the recruiter source suitable candidates and onboard them to the workforce.

 

The life of a recruiter is hard. There are many tasks they need to perform to bring a candidate to their workforce successfully. To effectively achieve this, they need a bunch of recruiting skills to keep up with the job market and help them stay at the top of their field.

The primary way to distinguish recruits is by the nature of their employment. 

If a recruiter works just for one company and takes care of their hiring needs, they are internal recruiters.

If a recruiter does not work for just one company and handles multiple clients and their recruitment needs, they are external recruiters.

Regardless of the type, the following are the skills that every recruiter should possess to stay on top of their tasks: 

 

 

1. Attention to Detail 

A recruiter handles multiple candidates at any given time. This means they must keep track of all their data and engage with their talent pool.

A recruiter must be attentive and understand every detail of the candidate. Mixing up the details can cause the recruiter to lose their reputation, which can heavily impact their company.

 

2. Communication Skills

Communication skills are the basic skills that are required for almost all jobs out there. Especially those that are collaborative.

A recruiter must have strong communication skills, since they engage with candidates, communicate with them about the job, and manage their expectations. 

They also need to converse with the hiring manager to understand their requirements and help them in sourcing suitable candidates.

The recruiter acts as the bridge between the candidate and the company. They have to ensure that the candidate understands the company, the role, the responsibilities that come with it, and the company’s values to ensure no discrepancies.

 

3. Relationship Building Skills

A recruiter should never depend entirely on a single source to find suitable candidates. There are many ways to source candidates, and the recruiter must use every possible way.

When it comes to recruiting skills, relationship-building skills are essential. This is because the recruiter needs to build a network who might become hired in the future.

This is especially true when the recruiter contacts a candidate and adds them as a part of the talent pool. They should stay in contact and have a good relationship.

 

4. Multitasking Skills

A recruiter’s job consists of many tasks executed in an orderly manner. It starts from posting a job through various job boards and ends only after the candidate onboard as an employee.

They need to handle multiple candidates with each candidate at a different stage of their recruitment process. A recruiter must manage various candidates and meet their requirements in a timely manner.

 

5. Time Management

Multitasking and time management are two recruiting skills that go well together. As mentioned earlier, a recruiter’s tasks are aplenty. They need to prioritise and work on their tasks in a short time.

Some open roles in the companies need to be filled quickly. The recruiter should consider this and work towards that to fill urgent requirements.

Meeting deadlines and ensuring that their candidates are not waiting too long is all part of the job. A skilled recruiter should handle their time efficiently to meet the company’s hiring needs.

 

6. Reliability 

A lot goes into the recruitment process of a company. Both time and money spent on recruitment are necessary for the company’s growth. It is an investment for the workforce.

With so much at stake, reliability is a necessity for a recruiter. The company entrusts the recruiter to act on their behalf and represent them with the candidates.

The recruiter works towards finding the perfect candidate, and plays a critical role in the company’s future. This is why reliability is a mandatory recruitment skill.

 

7. Confidence

Recruitment involves talking with a lot of people. They might speak of a candidate to the hiring manager or about a job to the candidate, regardless of the conversation.

Recruiters should have a confident look at their job. They might not understand everything about the role, but they need to have confidence in their ability to make the right choice.

After bringing in the candidate for the job, they should be able to back up their choice when questioned. When a recruiter is confident and  good on their word, they can expect the employers to become trusting of their skills.

 

8. Marketing Skills

Recruitment is all about selling the right job to the right candidate. Marketing and sales skills are among the most crucial recruitment skills every recruiter should have. 

A recruiter needs to think and act like a marketer. This helps them push the job into the right channels and attract top talent for their open roles.

When marketing and recruiting skills meet, the recruiter can attract the best candidate in the market and stay ahead of their competitors. This will help them promote the job and the brand of the company.

 

9. An Aptitude for Learning

Recruitment is a constantly changing field. Recruiters must stay sharp, continuously learn to evolve their skillset, and give their best.

A recruiter might need to learn more about a job role to find the most suitable candidates. This can require them to learn about the role before bringing the candidate to the interview stages of the recruitment process.

An aptitude for learning can help the recruiter adapt easily to the market trends so they can gain more recruiting skills that are critical for them.

 

10. Adaptability

There are many changes that a recruiter has to face while performing their duties. The job market changes rapidly, and the requirements of the employer or the client might differ and change constantly.

There may be new tools that can help in recruitment, and the recruiter should learn them quickly. To handle all this, the recruiter must be flexible and adaptive to the situation.

Recruiters are always prone to face rejection. They must plan for the situation accordingly and use proactive hiring methods to recruit the best candidates.

 

11. Patience

Recruitment is all about finding the most suitable person for the job. This might mean that you have to go through all the stages of recruitment with multiple candidates until you find the candidate who is the perfect match for the organisation.

Sometimes, the candidate may still reject your offer and choose a different role in another company. This could require you to start the entire recruitment process over with a different candidate.

The necessary recruiting skill to handle all these is patience. The recruiter must go through various candidates until they find a suitable one. Even after multiple failures, the recruiter should be persistent and look for the right candidate to fill the role.

 

12. IT Skills

Technology has made the recruitment process more manageable. Recruiters inevitably depend on tools, such as applicant tracking systems to complete tasks more manageable.

To use such tools, the recruiter needs to learn them quickly and implement them in their daily work. A recruiter is expected to understand new technologies and use them efficiently easily.

Recruiters leverage these tools to handle their tasks, manage their talent pool, send timely messages, and provide a good candidate experience.

 

13. Curiosity

A recruiter contacts candidates and tries to learn more about them during the pre-screening process. They need to understand more about the candidates and go beyond their resumes and cover letters.

Curiosity plays a huge role in helping a recruiter learn more about a candidate. They should ask the right questions and learn as much as possible about the candidate to ensure that they are a perfect fit for the job and the organisation.

To improve as a recruiter, they need to have a curious mind and use this to engage with the candidate.

 

14. Listening Skills

As a recruiter, you communicate with multiple people involved in the recruitment process, such as candidates, employers, hiring managers, and other recruiters. Strong listening skills are required to get the most out of all their communications.

Listening to the employer and the hiring manager, you can get more information about how you need to approach the candidate to assess their skills and successfully find a suitable candidate.

Listening to the candidates’ attitudes can give you more ideas. This can help you make an informed decision and help with the negotiation.

 

15. Negotiating Skills

When interacting with candidates, you need to understand what they need from this job, even if the candidate does not have a clear idea.

Negotiation is a necessary recruiting skill, especially during the final stages of the hiring process. Recruiters must keep the candidate and the employer happy by finding common ground.

If the candidate expects something the company cannot offer, recruiters must come up with alternatives that may make the candidate happy. 

It all comes down to how well the negotiation takes place without compromising the candidate’s experience.

 

Final Thoughts

A recruiter with a passion for finding the right candidate and excellent communication skills can still perform well. The skills mentioned above can help the recruiter handle all their task efficiently and make them the top recruiter. A positive mindset and the willingness to learn can help the recruiter hone their skills and improve their performance.

 

 

LogicMelon

Award-winning recruitment software that will find, attract, hire and analyse the way you want to work. At LogicMelon, we have experienced software recruitment marketing specialists to help you build effective recruitment solutions supported by the best customer service you’ll find anywhere!

Email: sales@logicmelon.com or call LogicMelon (UK) +44 (0) 203 553 3667 (USA) +1 860 269 3089

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