A recruiter who’s good at recruiting doesn’t cut it anymore.
New tools and tech may be perpetually emerging to spot even the most covert candidates, but likewise, an increasing number of skilled people are finding alternate ways to communicate their abilities, get their resumes under more recruiters’ eyes, or to hide from them.
To make any hire these days, the modern recruiter has to think and behave like the modern candidate.
Check out these four knacks and hacks to look for when building your all-star hiring team.
Won’t romanticize a candidate’s achievements
Many employers are frequently dazzled after finding talent with an impressive professional profile and background who likely also interview well, rushing through the evaluation to get to the offer. Being optimistic and excited about an early-stage candidate is a good way to gain momentum sourcing people, but remember to thoroughly follow up and review all candidates, or risk hiring people who – you guessed it – over-promise and under-deliver.
Recognizes the line separating networking and recruiting
While the two go hand-in-hand, meeting with people for introductory interviews, at events and conferences with the primary purpose of recruiting them won’t help you make connections. Ever hear how people, for the most part, aren’t present in their conversations because they’re thinking of what to say next? Linking up others with an end goal of getting them on your team is similar – there’s a disconnect in your conversations and gives the kitschy impression of someone throwing out the hook, line, and sinker to no avail. Frame meetings with potential candidates as regular conversations with an end goal of starting a relationship and getting to know someone, keeping in mind they may be someone who could work with your company or connect you with another equally good fit. That way, your conversations are more genuine, fluid, and straightforward. Nix the gimme, gimme, gimme mindset.
Understands how to retrieve information, rather than relying on the traditional search string
Becoming a master at building Boolean strings is a good skill for identifying specialized candidates fit for the job description, but relying solely on a reasonably formulaic, automated, archaic search tactic limits the talent pools you’re sourcing to candidates who fit your competitors’ requirements, and closes you off from hireable talent whose compatibility goes beyond keyword matches. Learning how to mine talent – interpreting behaviors, deciphering the type of candidate you’ll find in different contexts, and organizing people’s information – is a far more useful, realistic search skill to have to find today’s top candidates.
Knows when to push back on hiring managers’ requirements
Seasoned sourcers and recruiters know hiring managers’ candidate criteria can sometimes be overly rigid, unrealistic, or ambitious. Finding a balance between a vision and reality can be especially difficult for recruiting and hiring teams who are just starting their ramp-up, feeling out their communication styles and expectations. Sourcers and recruiters who are keen to continually sticking to managers’ expectations can easily run into the common hitch of failed attempts to find people who fit a a desired cookie-cutter background. (On the other hand, a sourcer or recruiter who’s constantly pushing back on managers’ requirements can be indicative of someone who lacks the right search skills.) To successfully build employee criteria and source people, hiring teams should have ongoing communication and two-way feedback to create realistic, workable candidate descriptions.
What other skills did we miss on this list? Anything you keep an eye out for when hiring sourcers and recruiters that’s become a mainstay on your list of required skills? Share them with us in the comments or ping me at kathleen@entelo.com. We want to hear from you!
