3 Ways You May Be Underutilizing your Recruiting Coordinators

I’ve worked with a lot of recruiting coordinators.  I find that they’re often the most overlooked resource in recruiting, but without them, the recruiting function would struggle, if not fail. Since I joined Zenefits, I have had the luxury of not only working with some of the best Recruiting Coordinators I’ve known, but we’re all sharing the trials and tribulations of scaling our Engineering team at a pace that’s mind-blowing and has made me realize how capable they are of really useful things that you might not traditionally rely on an RC for.  Obviously the lion’s share of their job will still be scheduling and candidate interaction, but everyone needs a little development and variety and there are a few ways to accomplish this in a way that provides major impact to the overall team.  

First, Inbound sourcing

You know all those leads that you get from existing employees?  I’m not talking about referrals.   I’m talking about the leads that come from employees - the people they don’t know and can’t really vouch for but “refer” anyway.  That pool of talent can be a rich source if utilized appropriately.  You shouldn’t allow it to bog down your recruiters and keep them from getting to the strong referrals, but you should also have a path for reviewing and actioning that pool of talent.  Enter the RC!  This is a great way to make the best use of that talent pool, and also help ramp your RC for the natural next step in the recruiting career, which is often the “sourcer” role.  Sourcing is a critical tool in any good recruiters tool belt, and this is a great way to utilize your RC more effectively, while also giving them some professional development that will benefit both you, and them, later.

Second, Project work

Recently, our RC’s recognized that they were spending an exorbitant amount of their time on scheduling and rescheduling travel for candidates.  In theory this is a major part of their job.  Unfortunately, figuring out how to resolve that was a low priority for me at the time.  Our RCs banded together and came up with two solutions, did all the legwork to make a recommendation for the one that would be more cost effective, and would also save them the most time, and presented it to the entire team in our all-team meeting.   It was a brilliant solution to their problem, and they did all the work.  It dawned on me that I could be more effectively utilizing them by highlighting issues and opportunities for improvement, and tasking them with researching and working with the team to recommend solutions.

Finally, and most importantly, Give them a voice

Recruiting Coordinators by nature often “touch” candidates more than recruiters do.  They interact with them at multiple points during the hiring process and usually greet them when they come onsite.  They also interact regularly with your interviewers - usually more than most recruiters do, and they also interact with hiring managers.  Because of this, they’re often the front face; the “go-to” person for challenges, reschedules, last minute changes, etc.  

As such, they often recognize kinks and bottle-necks in the process but can usually only speak anecdotally about issues.  They should be trained and empowered to understand how to track things that are happening so they can use data to push back appropriately on managers and interviewers when they need to.  If you don’t arm them with the the power to understand how to track and utilize their data, you’re probably not utilizing them appropriately and likely slowing down process improvement.

As I said before, Recruiting Coordinators are an amazing resource, usually made up of smart, resourceful people.  I’d love to know any out of the box ways you’ve leveraged your RC's to make the process and recruiting function stronger. Feel free to email me at [email protected]