The Hardest Job to Recruit For: A Guide to Hiring a Recruiter

According to a recent article from theWall Street Journal,hiring a recruiter has been the most challenging position to recruit for. 

In one article from June 2021, there were around 380,000 recruiter job postings on LinkedIn, and this trend has not slowed down. 

If you’ve found that your company is struggling to recruit other recruiters, you may need to revise your strategy. Keep reading to discover a few strategies that will help you attract and hire recruiters to grow your business.

Why the Job Market Is Hot Right Now

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people lost their jobs, and recruiting was one of the hardest-hit industries.  Due to the fact that many businesses were trying to save money, they laid off current employees and stopped hiring new ones. 

Doing that might’ve helped temporarily, but it put a lot of companies behind in hiring goals. This ultimately caused a delay in their growth plan.

Even now, some companies are still laying off their recruiters. However, other companies are ready to jump back into hiring.

Companies are now struggling to convince recruiters to come back after realizing the recession wasn’t as bad as some companies predicted. They are trying to make up for all the lost time when they weren’t hiring, and they’re trying to hire as many recruiters as possible to fill their human resources department.

First, companies have to hire recruiters to fill open positions. And with the Great Resignation impacting a lot of industries, recruiters are in high demand and short supply. 

Recruiter.com’s CEO, Evan Sohn, explained another reason why this might be the case: “It’s no surprise that the demand for recruiters has increased. We are currently transitioning into the job hopper economy, and I believe it’s here to stay. This means employees will be leaving their companies quicker and more frequently than ever before – in fact, 60% of millennials are willing to leave their job within the first year.”

However, a few strategies can help you attract recruiters to work in-house. 

Write Effective Job Listings

Since recruiters know the hiring industry and process very well, you’ll have to learn how to write good job descriptions that will show up in their job search.

You should revisit your job template and write a relatable job description to help you find the best candidate. Explain the job description as clearly and concisely as possible. 

Also include information about your company’s mission and core values. With a competitive job seekers’ market, you need to convince a professional recruiter that you’re the best place for them to take their talents. 

They may also be interested in the day-to-day expectations from this job. Include what requirements you need them to have, and make sure they are tailored to what you need. If you make the requirements too difficult for an entry-level job, you may never find applicants. 

Focus on Your Social Network

If you aren’t attracting any recruiters to your job boards , try tapping into your social network. Usually, many great recruiters will know each other and connect on social media. If you can hire one of them, they may recommend your business to their other connections. 

It would help if you were on social networking sites, like LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. You can reach out to other recruiters there, but if you send a message, try and make it as personal as possible. That way, your message won’t be marked as spam. 

Even if you connect with a recruiter who doesn’t accept a new job at your company, you still made a great connection who will help you get one step closer to finding the right recruiter for your company. 

Enhance the Candidate Experience

Even if you don’t hire a recruiter that a hiring manager interviewed, you may want to keep them in your talent pool and in case you need to fill a future opening. 

A good recruiter will value the candidate experience and know what to look for, so you’ll need to bring your A-game. You also don’t want them to have a bad experience and then spread the news to other qualified candidates. This could hurt your company’s brand’s perception, making it harder to hire any candidates, not just recruiters. 

Even if you don’t hire your recruiter candidate, always follow up to tell them if you didn’t choose them. Make sure that they still have a positive experience so that you can reach out to them with future opportunities at your company.

Update Your Interview Skills and Questions

If you don’t update your recruiting strategy during a competitive time in the market, you may lose out on the best talent for your company. One way to fix this is to update your interview process. 

You can start by analyzing what questions you ask recruiters when you interview them. 

For example, you should ask them if they use social media. If they do (and they should), what kind of criteria do they use when recruiting a candidate? 

This question is important because your recruiter should be tuned in with social media in order to be competitive and find the best talents. Recruiters need many tools in their arsenal to hire a candidate, and social media is one of them. For example, if a recruiter notices that a candidate is posting relevant content about their industry, they may reach out to the candidate to see if they’re interested in an open position.

You should also ask your recruiter candidate what they did when they had a situation where they weren’t able to fill a position. Or when their hiring decisions went wrong.

Listen for what they would do differently the next time and if they learned from their mistakes.

This question is important because recruiting can be challenging, and even the best recruiters have made a mistake at some point in their careers. But you want to find a candidate who will acknowledge the error, take responsibility, and try to find a way to avoid making that same mistake. 

Another question to add to your list is how recruiters manage their time.

They will have to wear many different hats, especially if your business is growing quickly. They will need to do tasks like holding phone screenings, scheduling interviews, and finding high-quality candidates. 

Because of these different tasks, they’ll need to be organized and manage their time well. If they can’t manage their time well, the hiring process might take longer than it should. This can frustrate hiring managers, but it will also hurt your candidate experience. 

When the candidate answers the question, listen to see if they list any specific strategies or have any examples that will show that they can move candidates quickly through a pipeline. 

Advertise Your Company

If you want to have the best recruiter join your recruiting team, you’ll need to get your business out there. Show candidates who you are with a fantastic headline and a great bio. 

The best corporate recruiters will research the hiring company before they accept an interview or a job offer from your company, so you’ll need to showcase all the reasons that your company is a great place to work. 

Show what your company has accomplished and link to blogs or articles that talk about your business. You may even want to include video testimonials from other employees explaining why your company is a great place to work.

Learn More About Hiring a Recruiter

If you’re thinking about hiring a recruiter, you’ll need to bring your A-game to attract the best talent to your job opening. 

But if you don’t have the resources to hire your own in-house recruiter at the moment, this is where recruiting agencies can come in.

Get in touch with us today at Recruiter.com to hire recruiters to fill the open positions at your company. We may even be able to help you hire your in-house recruiter!