Recruiters are sometimes unsung heroes. Their job is to help you find your next amazing colleague or team member.
They have to find someone with the skills, ability, and experience you need and make sure that they’re someone who will thrive in your workplace.
Even in normal times, this can be a big ask, but in the context of the Great Resignation, it can be a herculean effort.
Almost one in five employees in the UK plan to leave their jobs this year. And the cost of living crisis doesn’t seem to be slowing this trend at all.
We’re still looking at a candidate-led recruitment market, and recruiters have to work harder than ever to help you find the team members you need.
A challenging recruitment market doesn’t mean you can’t recruit new staff. It just means you might need to find the best recruiters to find great talent.
But, what makes a recruiter stand out from the crowd? And what skills do they need to display to find you new employees with the skills you need?
What makes a good recruiter: eight good recruiter attributes to look out for
When you’re looking for the best recruiter, it can be hard to know just what you’re looking for. Here are the most important qualities a recruiter can have and how they can show you their skills.
1. Great communication skills
Great recruiters are, without fail, great communicators. They need to be able to convey important, detailed information in a way that is both clear and persuasive.
The best recruiters can discuss issues with everyone involved in your recruitment, explain the other person’s point of view, and help the parties come to an agreement that suits everyone.
They are also able to use their communication skills in a variety of different media. Not only do they need to be compelling in face-to-face conversations, but they also need to be effective in emails, over the phone, and even on social media and via text messages.
Great communication skills aren’t just about what you say. When you communicate can be almost as important. Knowing when to notify unsuccessful candidates, for example, can help a recruiter to stand out from the crowd and build your employer branding.
2. Open-minded
Outstanding recruiters are those who approach each job role and each candidate with an open mind. They’re looking to understand each perspective rather than adopting a one-size-fits-none approach.
An open-minded recruiter doesn’t assume they know what you’re looking for. They’re also comfortable admitting when they get something wrong and are keen to learn from their mistakes.
One of the most important ways an open-minded recruiter can help your business is through their efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Improving DEI is demonstrably better for your business. Diverse teams are more innovative, productive, and profitable. However, creating diverse teams isn’t always easy.
Improving diversity often means changing the way we’ve been working so far. This might mean writing more inclusive job adverts, adapting our interview processes, and finding different ways to evaluate candidates.
A great recruiter understands the importance of DEI and is ready with suggestions and insights to help you achieve diverse teams.
3. Detail-oriented
Someone who doesn’t sweat the small stuff might be fun to hang out with socially, but they’re not well suited to working in recruitment. A great recruiter has to focus on getting the details exactly right.
Getting the details wrong in recruitment can be a huge deal. There are legal implications at every step of the recruitment process, from posting the job advert to signing the contract. Getting these right is something we can’t leave to chance.
The best recruiters have an eye for detail and are quick to spot anything that doesn’t look right. Importantly, they also have the confidence to immediately bring any issues to your attention.
4. Keen to learn
None of us are perfect, and any good recruiter must constantly look to update their skills and stay abreast of any major changes within the industry.
The job market can change rapidly, even without dramatic events like the pandemic. Changing demographics and economic conditions can shift the balance between employers and workers.
Understanding and adapting to these changes can give on-the-ball recruiters a decisive advantage in finding and securing top talent.
5. Strategic thinker
Recruitment can often be reactive. Companies only start to look for a new hire when they already have a gap that needs to be filled. Especially with the current job market, this can make it difficult to find the right person quickly enough.
Great recruiters don’t wait for a role to become available to start thinking about recruitment needs. They’re already building relationships with potential candidates, considering roles that might become available soon, and working on employer branding.
Proactive, rather than reactive, recruitment can involve elements of headhunting and traditional recruitment techniques.
The best recruiters will also bring this strategic mindset to your overall recruitment strategy. They’ll highlight potential pinch-points or problems with your pipeline, allowing you to streamline the process.
This kind of strategic overview helps everyone. You’ll typically receive a wider pool of applicants, and candidates will have a smoother, more pain-free application experience.
6. Resilience
Recruitment isn’t for the faint of heart. Employment decisions can be momentous for both the employer and the employee. Everyone involved has a good reason to care about the outcome, and that can lead to intense emotions on all sides.
A great recruiter must ride the ups and downs of working in such a high-stakes environment. They need to be able to tell an applicant that they’ve just been turned down for the job of their dreams as easily as telling another that they’ve been accepted.
Similarly, a recruiter may be presented with a stressed hiring manager or team leader desperate to find their next new hire and tactfully explain why jumping at the first acceptable candidate is risky rather than waiting for the right person for the role.
The best recruiters can balance caring about their companies and candidates with being able to let go of work at the end of the day.
7. Empathy
We’ve already touched on how a great recruiter needs to understand different perspectives and deal with other people’s emotions. This highlights another important skill for recruiters — empathy.
Empathy is the ability to understand and respond to the way other people are feeling. It’s about being able to put yourself into someone else’s shoes.
Recruiters need to be able to truly understand how a particular situation appears to each of the parties involved. This high degree of empathy can often help find a win-win solution for everyone.
Ideally, recruitment shouldn’t be adversarial. Companies are trying to find great workers, and workers are trying to find great companies.
Effective recruiters can understand the needs of both and create a feeling of cooperation that transcends negotiations over pay and starts building a collaborative relationship from day one.
8. Organised
This should probably go without saying, but recruiters need to be highly organised to succeed.
Recruiters typically juggle many different roles and potentially hundreds of candidates at any time. This juggling act needs to be flawless. No one wants the ideal candidate to slip through the net because their application was inexplicably misplaced.
Get recruitment help from the experts at crooton
Now, it might sound like great recruiters need to be professional superheroes — and honestly, that’s not too far from the truth. Luckily, at crooton we have more than our fair share of recruitment superheroes!
We’ve sourced a team of the friendliest, most capable recruiters we can find, with a passion for helping you find great candidates.
Our team is available today to help guide you through your recruitment process, so get in touch!
Don’t forget to keep reading the crooton blog to stay updated on the latest recruitment news.