9 key qualities of the perfect recruiter:
Personality – To be a good recruiter, you need to have personality. You need to be confident, charismatic and passionate. If you are going to engage people and win them over, you need to be able to charm them. I always think it’s good to be upbeat and bring some wit and humour into someone’s day! You also need emotional intelligence because you do have to deal with difficult conversations and negotiations and all these conversations need to be pitched at the appropriate level.
Relationship Builder – It goes without saying that you need to be a people’s person if you want to get into recruitment. You can’t hide behind your PC in this industry – you are talking to clients and candidates constantly. You need to be friendly, professional and attentive whilst building up and nurturing your most important assets – your business and candidate relationships!
Good communicator – In this business, you are constantly communicating various different messages to a number of different audiences, so you need to be clear and concise in your communication style. And you need to be able to adapt your style to your audience. Asking the right questions and listening is also so important because you need fact find and gather important information in order to put all the pieces of your recruitment jigsaw together.
Patience – The recruitment cycle often presents you with a waiting game. Waiting for clients to get back to you on key decisions, waiting for candidates to get back to you with their feedback. You get people cancelling or rearranging at the last minute – you have to be able to practice your patience skills!
Resilience -Recruitment can be tough – candidates letting you down, walking out on the job, clients pulling campaigns at the last minute. But you have to be able to stay positive and focused so that you can move forward, keep calm and carry on. That’s how you make progress in this industry – a negative outlook will manifest into a negative output.
Organised – There’s a lot of multi-tasking and organisation in recruitment. You might have a variety of campaigns to juggle all at different stages. This industry can be fast paced and forever changing so you need to be on top of your game. Systems need to be in place to monitor all activity and attention to detail is also key. You are meeting clients and candidates, setting up interviews, sending over crucial paper work. A successful recruiter is flexible to change and has excellent time management skills. Clients and candidates want prompt reactions and an efficient and reliable service.
Knowledge – A good recruiter needs to be smart and intelligent. You need be an expert in your field in order to provide credible consultative advice and support to both clients and candidates. A good recruiter needs to understand the hiring process and have a good knowledge of employability skills in order to support clients with identifying good talent and when guiding candidates through the selection process. The more effort you put into a campaign, the more results you will get out of it. And as well as the people side of the process, you need to build up your knowledge of the industries and companies that you are working with. Recruiters need to be constantly researching and fact finding in order to keep up with the industry and the latest trends.
Sales, marketing and promo skills – A lot of recruitment revolves around sales and marketing. You need to be able to work out your target audience for business development and candidate attraction. You need a good marketing strategy and a strong sales pitch! It takes time to craft those important adverts, messages and work out the best communication platforms and channels to execute them. There’s a lot of competition in recruitment, so you need to have a good brand behind you and interesting content if you want to stand out in the virtual world of online advertising and social media!
Competitive – And finally, it’s always good to be target driven and have the desire to win in recruitment. It just increases your commitment, dedication and keeps you motivated and driven!
Recruitment is exciting and although is can offer many challenges along the way, there’s never a dull moment and it is so rewarding – both financially and personally.
Recruiters are bringing people together and changing lives whilst making a good living!