The recruitment industry is a constantly evolving sector, and the last decade has seen the pace of change increase exponentially. Despite this change, do the same core ingredients to success still apply or are the advancements fundamentally changing the role of a successful recruiter? 

Leveraging technology

Tech has changed recruitment considerably in recent years. LinkedIn was the first social resource to be tapped, with recruiters hunting through profiles to find the most capable candidates.  

However, social media resources have become a bigger part of recruitment. Many platforms allow recruiters to target specific demographics using appropriate channels. They also provide recruiters with a way to monitor any chat around their clients, opening up new opportunities and gaining additional insight into the specific requirements and challenges of every employer. 

Access to much more critical data is also allowing recruiters to be a lot more targeted when presenting an opportunity. This has increased the importance of good marketing when recruiting the best candidates. 

Furthermore, being forward thinking and having a mobile first approach has enabled us to stay ahead of the curve. With 53% of web traffic being mobile, it’s incredibly important to ensure job adverts are viewable on all devices.

Building the best team

The importance of building a strong team can’t be understated. Ensuring they all compliment each other’s particular skills and using incentives to keep them rewarded and motivated will help things to run smoothly. It also helps you to create an inclusive company identity that has everyone going that extra mile and pushing in the same direction. 

Regardless of their role, facilitating ease of communication between your team will help to ensure they are knowledgeable and ask the right questions. Successful recruitment requires hard work, and part of an employer’s job is to remove as many barriers as possible, allowing recruiters to invest the time and dedication required to finding the best match for any given role. 

At The Sterling Choice, we live and breathe recruitment, along with the sectors we specialise in. It’s a must in this industry if you’re going to provide a quality service to your clients. We avoid pigeon holing, instead matching the right role to the best candidate, and increasing the candidate and employer’s satisfaction while increasing the likelihood they’ll stay with the company for longer. This will often require challenging a client’s brief on who they think they need to recruit, ensuring they are advertising for the right person. This requires honesty and transparency.

We have to know when to say no. We work with candidates to offer sound career advice, to help them understand and develop their career path. This often requires us to steer them in a different direction they were originally headed for, but it’s all in their best interest, along with the company recruiting them. 

The individual character of each recruiter is also more under the microscope than ever before. Their social media posts will be seen by candidates, colleagues, and clients, so must not contradict the core values of the recruitment company. Social media potentially makes every employee an ambassador of the brand. This also provides individual recruiters with the opportunity to use their own profiles to harness the power of the Internet and engage with more people. 

Great customer service 

A good recruitment agency is essentially a growth partner, and the more comprehensive their understanding of your business is, the more fruitful and successful the relationship will be. Further to this, they will spend time with clients and candidates to understand the whole picture and remain in communication with everyone throughout the entire process. We will only then match people up with the right role at the right time as they don’t always come along right away.

We work with each client to understand their requirements and will often have to explain why they won’t find someone if they’re advertising for a role or person that doesn’t exist. Clients can even offer too much, which can have a negative impact resulting in the applicant moving on to another role or company sooner than expected. As such, we look for a long-term solution and help clients shape roles that allow people to evolve.

Candidate centricity

Just as physical retail stores and technology businesses are becoming increasingly customer centric, a good recruitment agency will understand how to give candidates the best possible experience. Posting job openings is no longer enough. Recruiters are expected to nurture top talent and assist them to provide an enjoyable and seamless experience designed around the specific needs of the candidate. 

With many technical sectors facing a shortage of talent, the better your reputation is with candidates the more they will trust you as a recruiter. This requires thinking from the candidate’s perspective, analysing the journey they are on, and removing obstacles and adding value wherever you can. 

Increase collaboration

The more involved a recruiter is in every aspect of the process, the better the results will be. Rather than simply posting vacancies as instructed, they can build a specific talent strategy to not just get you the best people now but help to ensure you’re well placed to keep recruiting the best talent in the future. 

They will also use the same mentality when dealing with potential candidates. This allows them to guide candidates through the process, fine tuning the candidate experience, and providing tips and advice specific to the client. 

Conclusion

Recruitment requires a consultative approach. Many of the core skills required to be successful in recruitment remain the same, but the ability to deploy these talents in a successful way requires a much broader range of skills. From technology to marketing, the role of a modern professional recruiter is multi-faceted and only for those with drive and the passion to succeed.