Recruiters are specialists in determining the unique needs of a company and finding employees that would match. Sometimes called head hunters, a recruiter will often need to get aggressive about their negotiation tactics.

What Is a Recruiter?

Recruiters work in a vast selection of industries, from talent to finances. Many recruiters will work for specific companies to identify talent that may lie within competing companies and bring them in. Other recruiters are hired on a consulting basis by companies that need to find solid employees but do not want to do the leg work required to get someone in the slot. Different companies will have different needs and different things they bring to the table.

A recruiter will often need to negotiate both on the employee’s behalf and on the company’s to find a good match. The employee will need to be offered a certain amount to take the position while the company’s goals will always be to secure solid talent while still remaining under budget. The recruiter may need to be fairly aggressive in their negotiations and may need to approach employees when they are not looking for another job. Recruiters need to be hard working and diligent professionals.

What Does a Recruiter Do?

Recruiters that work with consulting agencies will often be approached by a company to find them someone to work with. Many recruiters maintain complex databases of individuals that are searching for positions, and will attempt to fill the spot using their database. Other recruiters wait until employees come to them and try to match them with the perfect job. Most recruiting companies take a large fee, based on the person’s salary, for their services.

Many large companies use recruiters because they do not want to dedicate their own staff members to finding the perfect fit. To be considered successful, a recruiter should be able to find individuals that will stay with the company long enough to make the recruitment fee worthwhile. Due to this, the recruiter needs to be very conscientious about whether or not the person truly seems like a good fit. According to ERE, networking is extremely important within the recruitment industry.

How Do You Become a Recruiter?

Recruiting is a very broad field. While most will have a Bachelor’s Degree or greater, the education of a recruiter can be in business, human resources, marketing or sales. Recruiters usually have between one to five years of experience within the industry before they become a recruiter. Further, those that specialize in recruitment for industries such as the financial industry may be required to have more extensive training and knowledge.

The Society for Human Resource Management also offers a variety of specialized certifications including those that could be of benefit to a potential recruiter. Recruiters will need to show that they can be aggressive about negotiations and that they can deal well with people and network consistently.

How Do You Advance as a Recruiter?

Advancement as a recruiter is usually a product of certain success factors. Recruiters should be able to show that they can consistently fill and keep employees within their positions, and they should be able to fill many positions quickly. Beyond this, the recruiter should be pleasant to deal with by both the employees and the businesses they work with.

Recruiters will advance based on seniority and some recruiters will work on commissions. This makes it very important for the recruiter to remain successful throughout their career. Recruiters can also work in related fields such as in the entertainment industry or with the military as recruitment officers.