So - You Want To Become A Recruiter?

There are a lot of people that ask on LinkedIn "how did you get into recruiting?" I know hundreds (if not thousands) of recruiters. Of them all, only two that I personally know have ever CHOSEN recruiting as a career, and that was because both of them had parents in the field. My own story is not that unique. I was a contractor at Microsoft in a couple of support roles (among other early career contracts I held). I was hired by the agency I had been working for where I learned the ropes. Then I went into corporate recruiting. I took the sourcing route, which means I concentrated on candidate generation for a few years before moving into full-lifecycle roles. My Mom was actually a healthcare recruiter when I was young. I wanted to forge my own path for a long time, but finally realized it was a good path for me. (I did a stint in health care recruiting - the irony is not lost on either of us.) My Mom became a nurse recruiter after she got her degree in psychology after a decade in nursing. (She went on to get her MSW and became a social worker until she retired.)

Here are a few of the most common ways to start a career in recruiting:

Agency: If you look at most corporate Recruiter job descriptions, they all say "agency experience preferred". This means staffing/employment agencies (think Robert Half, Manpower, Kelly Services etc.) The reason for that is most agencies train recruiters in sourcing, which is finding candidates, evaluating them, engaging with them, and then being able to distill that knowledge into an overview of their skills as it relates to a specific job, all in an extremely fast-paced environment. Money can be very good, but it is definitely a sales job and can come with some pretty aggressive goals.?

Entry-level: usually an administrative role such as Recruiting Coordinator. This is a good step for someone coming from either an administrative, customer service, or receptionist background. This role usually has a 6-12 month shelf life, and can lead into recruiting itself or into a related role like TA (Talent Acquisition) Operations. Another way to get into recruiting is as a new grad from a college or university.?

Internal Hiring Manager: if you hire a lot at your company, you are already half way down the skill set to become a recruiter. At a fairly recent FT job I held, we hired one of our internal partners into a recruiting manager role; they are now a Director of TA.?

HR: sometimes an HR professional will come into recruiting because it is part of their job at a small company; often recruiters will get into HR. They are not the same, but they are definitely related.?

So, the next question generally is, what does it *take* to be a recruiter? (And for the record, a college degree is NOT on this list.)?I would say that there are a few attributes successful recruiters need:

1) Accountability and follow through - recruiting is cyclical - every position and every candidate go through a fairly standard set of workflows.?

2) Strong communication skills - AND that means being comfortable spending a SIGNIFICANT amount of time talking to people, including on the phone. Candidates, hiring managers/interview teams. I spend at least half of each day talking to people. There are introverts that make good recruiters, but they know how to structure their time so that they don't get overwhelmed. I can conduct a max of 6 phone calls (30 minutes each) in one day - but that is too much for a lot of people.?

3) Comfortable dealing with a LOT of data in databases/email/IM- and being organized enough to track it effectively and being ok following processes (many are in place for legal reasons) UNDERSTANDING those legal reasons will become absolutely core for your job, and you will be on the hook for following local and federal laws (wherever you live.)

4) Dealing with a constantly changing landscape - no day is exactly the same, and there will be days that you will think you have it planned out and something throws a wrench in it; if you need routine and get flustered by not having a fairly predictable schedule, this is not the field for you.

5) Good at problem solving and being autonomous ("self starter") enough to do so. Having a love of "finding" things - knowing how to leverage resources available to you to actually problem solve.?

6) Excellent time management skills; I live by my calendar - every recruiter does. You will also understand the term "sense of urgency" - because when you have an offer to get out to a candidate, you will do whatever it takes to get that offer approved and delivered and then keep in touch with that candidate throughout the process.

7) Having "hard conversations". If you are not able/willing to have difficult conversations with people (and I mean verbal conversations) when you need to decline someone after interviews (or, if you are looking to get into HR specifically employee relations issues and conducting layoffs), then HR/TA is NOT the right field for you. Being conflict avoidant in 1:1 situations is not a good trait for either anyone in HR/TA OR anyone interested in getting into people management.

8) Subject to economic downturns probably the most difficult part of being a recruiter is the knowledge that when the economy heads into a downturn, not only will your job be on the proverbial chopping block, but so will a significant number of your industry colleagues. The few jobs that ARE available are all being chased after by tens of thousands of unemployed recruiters. Wages also may go down. The upside is that often agency recruiters do much better; roles still need to be filled, and it may be more economically sensible to pay the agency fee than worry about hiring recruiters. It's usually a decent time to make a pivot to career services if you are so inclined: resume writing/reviews, interview practice, job search strategies...because chances are a lot of OTHER professionals outside of recruiting are impacted as well.

I wrote an article on good interview prep, and here is the exact information I received prior to my own interviews with Twitter a couple of years ago (and yes, I got the job - pre-Musk). It tells you exactly what the expectations are for a Senior Technical Recruiter in terms of skills and knowledge.

Finally: make SURE you are networking effectively. That means you are contacting Recruiting, Talent Acquisition, or Staffing Managers or Recruiters that hire our discipline: look for the term R4R as a keyword. While yes, I am a recruiter, I hire *software engineers*. I may or may not be able to point you to the internal recruiter working on general RECRUITING positions.

I hope this helps. Any of my recruiting colleagues want to add anything??