5 skills you need to be a good recruiter
- October 31, 2016
We usually use this blog as a platform to offer advice, tips and updates on our specialist sectors including care home nursing, logistics and finance. However, Clayton as a business is also always on the lookout for the next generation of talent to work with us, which is why we’ve outlined our top tips on how to be a successful recruiter.
Fill yourself with confidence
You’ll need to be able to hold your own with people who are experts at what they do, and don’t appreciate their time being wasted. Nobody wants to be consulted on a potentially life changing job move by someone who they suspect might not know their specialist field as well as they say they do. You need to be confident enough to take on new areas of expertise, but also be able to portray that confidence to clients and candidates. In addition, you’ll have to be comfortable picking up the phone and engaging with people who don’t know what your credentials are and likely to be at least mildly sceptical about what you’re doing. Working at Clayton takes a confident self starter who is willing to become a subject matter expert.
Be a great communicator
Along similar lines, you’ll need to be an effective and concise communicator and get your point across quickly. You’ll probably be speaking to people who are busy in their current roles and don’t want to waste hours of their lives chatting to a recruiter. You’ll also need to be able to master your email communications and online marketing on platforms like LinkedIn. After all, you’re not going to have much success if your job advert iz ritten lyk dis, lol.
Be resilient, target driven and motivated
It’s not just applicants who face rejection, recruiters do too and you need to be able to take the bumps in the road and still be able to perform to the best of your ability. You’ll have good days and bad – that’s a given – but the secret is being able to prevent the bad days from affecting your output. At the vast majority of firms, you’ll have certain KPIs to work to. That’s an approach that’s not suited to everyone and while not all organisations have the same model, people who are motivated by the idea of working to specific goals will do well here. More autonomous, freewheeling types who are set on recruitment may have to delve a little deeper to find those few businesses with a softer, more consultative approach.
Be a multi-tasker
As a job applicant it’s unlikely you’ll have used just one recruiter to help your job search and organisations are the same and will look to multiple sources for their own talent. This means that if you can move quickly and efficiently, then you’ll be able to beat your competitors. However, you’ll also have a lot to do at once and will likely be dealing with a lot of vacancies and therefore multiple companies and even more candidates. Consequently, you must be able to juggle multiple projects and tasks simultaneously. You’ll have to keep in mind the details, experience and motivators of a large number of people and this requires a lot of organisational competency. If you can master the idea of ‘less haste, more speed’ (i.e doing things quickly, but well) then you should be ok.
Obviously, there a lot more skills required to be a successful recruiter and the job requires you to have the ability to think on your feet and to back your own ability and knowledge. If you’re looking for a career in a challenging and fast-moving, but also highly rewarding, industry and want to join a successful, supportive and rapidly growing organisation, then get in touch with one of our expert consultants for a chat.