How to stand out as a recruiter in a busy hiring month

What characterises an excellent recruiter? Good recruiters go above and beyond the call of duty. They ensure that their business consistently recruits and retains talented and skilled employees. However, HR professionals are not required to be recruiters. Good recruiting abilities can be developed through experience. Here are a few qualities all hire-worthy recruiters should share to perform in a busy hiring month efficiently.

Revise Your Job Descriptions

Consider ruling out years of experience: You will need to change your hiring criteria if you still state in your job description that candidates “must have 10-20 years of experience.” You will need to update your job description requirements now that Generation Z is working.

If you want to score applicants with promise, the appropriate abilities, and the flexibility to fill those jobs, you’ll need to modify your idea of the ideal candidate.

The bottom line is that you do not need to rule out the importance and requirement of professional experience completely. However, it would be best if you rethought the idea of your ideal candidate. 

Avoid mentioning gender in your descriptions: You should check your description for any terms that are not gender-neutral in addition to updating your experience expectations. Superlatives like an expert or superior tend to deter female applicants who are more cooperative than competitive.

Not to add that certain job titles still contain the word “man,” which subtly discourages female applicants. For better results, change job titles like “salesman” or “assemblyman” to “salesperson” or “assembly member.”

Keep the list of needs to a minimum: You should list the essential requirements for a position, but be adaptable. Make the transition from “must-haves” to “nice-to-haves” when stating requirements. Why is this modification required? According to the Harvard Business Review, research demonstrates that men will still apply for employment even if they only meet 60% of the standards.

In comparison, women only apply for positions if they are 100% eligible. In other words, if you don’t modify this, you might miss out on a sizable pool of suitable applicants.

Highlight diversity and values: Declare the principles of equality and diversity that your organisation upholds. This allows you to achieve your DE&I criteria while attracting a wider range of qualified individuals. Candidates’ concerns go beyond the job itself. Equal compensation and inclusive workplace culture are important considerations for candidates.

Personalise your recruiting  

Be open and honest from the start: Avoid wasting time and having messages ignored by providing candidates with information about the business, the sector, expectations, and the wage range in advance. Keep in mind that your market is candidate-driven.

Early in the process, candidates will need more information if they want to be considered for the best opportunities quickly. Candidates will rapidly lose interest in the position if they feel like they have to demand information from the company.

Keep applicants updated: Even if not all candidates fit the current position, it is still helpful to let them know that their skills might be better suited to another one. This allows people to apply for positions that are more suitable for them and saves you time while looking for candidates. This is because you will already possess the talent for the next role that is a fantastic fit for them.

Think ahead

The best recruiters always look for candidates before a position is even advertised. They begin creating pipelines and maintaining contact with prior applicants if they foresee a job opening in the near future. They build a strong network and engage inactive applicants.

They are aware of the best areas to hunt for experienced individuals and how to find new talent in unlikely settings. They don’t hesitate to investigate and take advantage of social media recruiting. When they observe a department expanding, they work with management to project its staffing requirements. To stay current on hiring trends, they go to HR events.

A smart recruiter considers that HR is all about development for people and businesses.

Play well with hiring managers

Conflicts of interest between hiring managers and recruiters must occasionally be navigated. A competent recruiter must devise strategies to deal with these discrepancies and strike a balance between hiring managers’ requirements.

Everyone discusses the hiring process. However, hiring manager experience is also crucial. Remember that hiring supervisors might not have the time or expertise to comprehend the hiring process fully.

Good recruiters use their knowledge to draw attention to issues that may be difficult for hiring managers to identify on their own, such as oblique indications that an applicant could be a potential toxic co-worker who undermines their team.

Good recruiters also make an effort to comprehend each manager’s mentality. Recruiters should perform in-depth screening interviews and ensure that there won’t be any key deal-breakers later because some hiring managers might want to choose between a few top applicants.

Another recruiting manager might favour a quick self-evaluation of resumes. In this situation, a smart recruiter focuses on finding suitable applicants and defers to the hiring manager’s independent assessment and interviewing.

Keep an open mind

Effective recruiters know the dangers of judging a candidate or a book by its cover. Undoubtedly, a practising lawyer can produce a strong résumé. But does that necessarily imply that they do a good job? Or should a recruiter turn away a developer with a résumé that isn’t properly formatted?

Recruiters should look beyond the surface to find evidence that candidates’ qualifications meet the position’s requirements.

The use of operational and behavioural interview questions can aid in the selection of qualified applicants. To evaluate how their candidates handle job responsibilities, recruiters may ask for specific information or assign projects.

However, recruiters who favour variety over conventional standards stand out. Even if the candidate doesn’t come from a stereotypical background, they recommend them because they believe they are enthusiastic enough to provide fresh perspectives to their team.

A smart recruiter will take into account a candidate who is a “cultural add,” not a “culture fit,” rather than employing another “beer buddy.”

Empathise

To better comprehend and relate to someone, you must put yourself in their situation. That also refers to “everyone’s” shoes. To fully comprehend the demands of hiring managers, good recruiters must delve deeply into those needs. Employing managers would rather receive five perfect resumes than fifty that don’t fit the bill. However, recruiters must also consider the perspective of a candidate.

They must comprehend what is important to prospects and what an organisation may provide if they want to draw in top talent. If recruiters try to dominate the conversation by overselling positions and emphasising how amazing their organisation is to work for, they won’t be able to get to know their candidates genuinely.

Recruiters should extensively investigate each position they fill with standing out. A thorough search entails more than merely reading the job description or asking the hiring manager for a list of necessary abilities. To hire web programmers, good recruiters don’t need to be experts in JavaScript. Still, they might benefit from taking a fast online course or shadowing an IT department member to understand better what a programmer performs and what other attributes they should be searching for.

Self-improve

There is no such thing as a bad experience for good recruiters. Making mistakes teaches us important things. When they don’t get the outcomes they were hoping for, they investigate what went wrong and how to fix it moving forward. They rejoice over minor and major accomplishments, such as immediate hiring or securing a candidate for an open position.

But they also look for methods to get better all the time. They must keep up with all recent HR advancements if they want to stay ahead of the competition.

How can HR technology boost employees’ productivity? What are the most recent trends in hiring? What are the best techniques for recruiting on social media? How are they changing their sourcing practices in light of new rules like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU?

These are the queries that successful recruiters ask themselves and research. Since HR entered the commercial sector, it has advanced significantly and is still changing. The recruiter must keep their industry knowledge up-to-date to transform obstacles into opportunities and mistakes into cautionary tales.

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