It’s hard out here for a recruiter. Talent acquisition pros catch a great deal of heat, seemingly from every 
direction. From your boss’s perspective, a recruiter’s performance is slippery to quantify—especially in the short term. Further, you’re likely to be blamed for hiring a poor performer, even though you probably weren’t the one who did a deep assessment of their ability or made the final call on whether they got the offer. To make matters worse, there are a handful of dithering sourcers whose methods are aggravating talent and giving a bad name to the honest, hardworking, thoughtful recruiters.
Yikes.
Despite often falling to the role of undeserving punching bag, good recruiters are constantly providing value to their organization as a whole as well as to individual co-workers. In addition, if you get the timing right, you’re doing a great service to talented job seekers. The War for Talent rages on, bloodier and more exhausting than ever. Let’s take a moment to remember why we fight.
Build Great Teams
It cannot be stressed enough: your company is not your product, it’s not your valuation, your office, or your mission statement. Your company is defined by people. It’s the unique skills people bring to the table, the personality they bring to the break room, the work ethic they demonstrate and inspire in others. As Steve Jobs said, “a handful of ‘A’ players will run rings around 50 ‘B’ players”. You’re the one finding the talent who make companies, and not just from a sense of setting and hitting goals. As a recruiter, you have the opportunity to define a culture and set in place the cornerstones that will serve to hold up something big.
Not Hiring Hurts
Too much focus is placed on the impact of a bad hire, and not nearly enough on the cost of missing out on a great hire. While bad hires can cause more immediately visible and dramatic damage, missing a truly talented addition will have ripples immeasurable. Think about how the limitations of a team hold back the company. Without the bandwidth to both service your product and work on developments, your company’s tools never evolve and new products never ship. Pass on a stud marketer? Your traffic plateaus and there are no new leads proclaiming they want a peek at what’s on the truck. Lose out on a consistently over-performing salesperson, and you’re not bringing in new deals. Especially in the early to medium stages, a company’s growth can be severely clipped by missing out on great talent.
Help a Career, Change a Life.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by open reqs and stacks of resumes. In light of this, the human element of recruiting can fall through the cracks. Never lose sight, though, of the way talent consider and approach job opportunities. In many cases, people aren’t merely looking for a paycheck, but the next stop in their career. Talent want to be engaged, working on interesting projects, surrounded by smart, exciting people. You can give them that. When the stars align and you find someone who loves your company and your technologies and is truly thrilled to work there, you’re not merely filling a req or helping a company, you’re enriching a life.
When you’re taking heat from the higher-ups, or when you see a raging post by an engineer who has been inundated by impersonal messaging from a lazy recruiter, remember that your job is as challenging as it is unique: build the team that will build something great.
