5 Essential Qualities of Successful Recruiters

The truth is: the staffing industry is competitive and not all recruiters are created equal.  

But that’s okay. They are defined by the matches they make and the candidate experience they deliver. This is where successful recruiters stand out from the rest — they not only yield ROI-generating placements that make candidates and clients happy, but their excellence draws quality applicants that keep the pipeline full. Recruitment isn’t an easy career, but they implore strategic approaches to deliver exceptional value to candidates every time. 

You can do it, too. Here’s how.

1. They are intentional about relationship building.

Candidates don’t want to feel like just another name on a list.

With over 69% of candidates never reapplying to an organization with a negative candidate experience, how you interact with them during the recruitment process will spell the difference between seeing you as their recruiter of choice or jumping over to a competitor. That’s why top-notch interpersonal skills are essential in succeeding as a recruiter — it’s the key to building strong relationships. Successful recruiters know that authenticity coupled with the human touch is powerful. 

Small things like sending a personalized email or giving their evaluation results by call instead of a text message are what will set your recruitment brand apart. In a candidate-driven market, candidates are evaluating you, too. Your qualities and behaviors play a part in drawing them to your brand or going for a competitor. 

Building relationships with candidates is essential to build brand loyalty, whether you’re hiring them or not. They don’t settle for disposable connections, but go the extra mile and get personal. It’s the secret weapon to delivering a candidate experience that candidates will gravitate to.

2. They value connections and proactively maintain a quality talent pipeline.

Unlike others who wait for positions to open before they start sourcing, successful recruiters prepare for their client’s talent needs beforehand. They do this by building quality talent pipelines that they can tap into any time for any position they need to fill. This allows them to recruit more efficiently and lessen recruitment costs.

The key here is using a multi-channel strategy that will allow you to meet candidates where they are and build positive candidate engagement. Instead of just using traditional channels like job boards and waiting for the applications to come in, go out and engage the talent pool in different ways. 

Here are good places to start:

• Leveraging social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for content marketing and job advertising.
• Attending online events or joining forums and sharing tips on recruitment trends to connect with passive candidates.
• Researching platforms that are popular with specific niches and interacting with talents there. For example, you can use GitHub to look for developers, Reddit for tech candidates, and Twitter for marketing talents.

In the staffing world, a strong network can be an asset. So, be proactive and creative when looking for candidates. 

3. They know that innovation and automation are essential for successful recruiters.

The days of manual screenings are long gone, automation has paved the way for better execution of recruitment strategies. That’s why being tech-savvy and technologically relevant is essential to leveling the candidate experience you deliver. You can optimize your recruitment process to its full potential unless you have the right tools in place. 

Here’s a couple of the most useful tech stack you can leverage:

• Applicant Tracking System (ATS): One of the most useful tools to streamline your process. You can easily collect and sift through applications, use artificial intelligence to filter candidates based on specific requirements, and even automate some aspects of your communication all on a single platform.

• Recruitment Marketing Tools: This makes advertising jobs and attracting candidates easier and more efficient. With a reliable recruitment marketing tool, you can manage your landing pages, improve the accuracy of your job ads’ audience targeting through analytics, and even create a more positive candidate engagement through automated content and email marketing campaigns.

• Experience and Online Reputation Management Software: Giving you more control of your online reputation, this software captures reviews at specific interactions during the recruitment process so you know the kind of candidate experience you’re delivering. This helps you to have a better idea of their perception of your recruitment brand and optimize your recruitment process to deliver well beyond their expectations.

Whatever your needs, there’s bound to be software designed to help you meet them. So, the best thing to do is to review your recruitment strategy and find the software that can help you achieve your recruitment metrics better.

4. They are excellent communicators and manage candidate expectations well.

Inaccurate job descriptions and over-glamorized information about the position will result in confusion and backfire in the form of negative reviews. Even worse, they can lead to turnovers when your candidates jump ship as soon as reality fails to meet their expectations. As a recruiter, these are nightmares that you need to prevent from happening. 

The distinction of successful recruiters from the rest is that they guide the candidates through each step of the recruitment process and communicate their client’s requirements accurately. Candidates aren’t left guessing where they are in the recruitment process because they are kept updated in a timely manner. Even better, great recruiters represent their client expectations with utmost transparency, so applicants know exactly what they’re getting into and can make informed decisions on their next step. 

It doesn’t take much for you to improve your communication strategies. Making sure you keep your recruiter responsiveness high with timely replies and messages on point with authentic and truthful information will already go a long way in boosting your reputation.

5.  They implore data-driven strategies to achieve recruitment goals.

A survey shows that approximately 74% of companies end up with bad hires. The cost of such a mistake? A whopping %15,000. That’s why successful recruiters don’t leave their strategies to guesswork. They make smart decisions that are aligned to the staffing firm’s objectives to yield an optimal return on investment (ROI). 

Data-driven recruitment is when you use tested information as the basis of your recruitment decisions. Data is a powerful tool that is often under-utilized in the recruitment world; learning how to use it properly can give you access to the goldmine of insight it holds. 

Here’s how you can do it:

• Identify your recruitment metrics. What is it that you want to measure? The four common metrics in the staffing world are quality-of-hire, time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, and candidate experience scores. Just make sure that the metrics you choose support your business goals.

• Gather the data. Depending on the recruitment metrics you choose, you need to collect the data you need. Remember those recruitment techs earlier? They can make the process more efficient. You can use an experience management platform to gather candidate reviews, recruitment marketing software for engagement and sourcing analytics, and an ATS for candidate skills and profiles.

• Organize through data visualization. Executing a data-driven strategy is pointless if you don’t understand the data you have. This is where recruitment data visualization is helpful — it can display relevant trends and patterns through simplified charts, graphs, and visual maps.

Once you’ve got the insights you need, make it a point to integrate them into your recruitment strategies and monitor the progress regularly. Calibrate as needed and grow continuously.

EQUIP YOUR TEAM WITH THE INSIGHTS THEY NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL RECRUITERS

With Great Recruiters, you can equip your team with the insights they need to continually grow in their careers. Our experience and online reputation management software captures candidate reviews automatically and provide an evaluation of your recruiters’ performance on an easy-to-use dashboard so you can track their interactions, identify areas for growth, and provide training as needed.

Are you ready to invest in your team and gear them for success? Request a demo today.