How can I become a recruiter?
Recruiters are the people sifting through resume after resume to identify top talent, but writing your own resume as a recruiter can be a challenge.
Even if you know what to look for when reviewing a resume, sometimes it’s hardest to write your own document because it’s difficult to look at personal accomplishments and qualifications with an unbiased eye.
If you’re sitting down to write your resume for a recruiter position and are overwhelmed, relax!
Read on to learn some tips for writing an effective resume to help you land that recruiter role. Stick around for free resume templates to show you what it looks like in action.
What Is a Recruiter + What Do They Do?
Recruiters are magical creatures (often found in the human resources department) who can make the job application process a whole lot simpler by aligning prospective candidates with job opportunities.
If you’ve ever worked with a great recruiter, you know what a positive impact they can make on the application process.
On the flip side, a recruiter who doesn’t communicate or doesn’t have a good handle on the recruiting process can make the process miserable.
In short, recruiters are key partners that work with both companies and candidates to handpick the perfect professionals from a high volume of candidates—and they do this on repeat.
They work to identify top talent and match this talent with job opportunities to ensure that there’s a good culture fit, applicable work history, skill fit, and alignment of goals among personnel.
What differentiates a good recruiter from a great recruiter? We're glad you asked. A great recruiter will do all of the above—and deliver candidates with higher retention rates. That makes the employer—and employee—very happy.
Additionally, recruiters may create job descriptions based on skill requirements, and then manage the application process between the employer and potential employee.
Types of Personalities Who Thrive as Recruiters
The most coveted personality trait for a recruiter to hold is an extroverted nature in order to build relationships and establish rapport.
To put it simply, if you’re going to work as a recruiter, it’s essential that you like talking to and building relationships with others. For this reason, you'll want to feature your communication soft skills when you're applying for a recruiter role.
Introverts need not fret. What you might lack in extroversion can be easily eclipsed by a strong set of empathetic soft skills. This is your ability to connect with potential candidates and relate the open position to their interests and abilities. When recruiting a candidate that has the right experience and expertise, your empathy will allow you to make smart and appropriate negotiations as well.
It’s those key relationships (with both candidates and companies) that can help top recruiters identify a perfect match to flawlessly fill a role. If you’re a connector and love making connections between industry contacts, friends, or family members, this role might be the perfect opportunity to align your skills and interests.
Additionally, it is essential that recruiters pay attention to the little details, as regulations are constantly changing. Someone who doesn’t stay abreast of current industry trends and regulations may not be suited for a recruiting role.
In order to succeed, recruiters should also be familiar with local and federal labor laws that may affect the hiring process or a candidate’s viability as a possible hire. To that end, an ideal recruiter visits the Bureau of Labor Statistics website on a weekly basis.
Types of Recruiters
While people often know what a recruiter is, it’s not as widely known that there are several different types of recruiters and areas of recruiting. For a full breakdown of all areas of recruiting, check out our Recruiting 101 article.
Internal Recruiters or Corporate Recruiters
These recruiters source top talent for the company they work for. Because they work for the company, internal or corporate recruiters often know exactly what to look for in candidates so that they can place individuals who will thrive within the corporate culture and meet specific job requirements that may be unique to the role.
These recruiters can be great resources to learn more about what the job will focus on beyond the job description, what work-life balance might be like at the company, and what you can expect from the company culture there. When reaching out to inquire about a job, internal recruiters often have the most in-depth knowledge of the role because they are in-house and have direct relationships with the hiring managers and teams that are looking for candidates.
Due to their extensive knowledge, internal recruiters can also make referrals that are the perfect fit—whether from within the company or from a pool of external candidates.
Contingency or Agency Recruiters
These recruiters are independent recruiters who might work for a larger recruiting or staffing company. Contingency or agency recruiters are hired by a company to source candidates for a given role. These recruiters are not paid by the company that’s hiring unless they actually place the candidate, so they are often very motivated to fill the roles they are assigned.
While they do not work at the company they’re hiring for, they should still have a good sense of the role and company culture, as agency recruiters often work with the same companies repeatedly.
Freelance Recruiters
Freelance recruiters are often seasoned recruiters who have industry connections. These relationships make it more plausible to run a freelance recruiting business. While freelance recruiters are not as common as internal or agency recruiters, if you can establish a good pipeline of clients, a freelance recruiting role can end up being very lucrative.
Headhunter
Headhunters are recruiters for hire—and they are usually filling executive roles or “head” of office positions, hence the name.
Headhunters often scout employees from other companies and entice them with new opportunities based on their track record or established reputation. This type of recruiter often doesn’t fill as many positions concurrently, but in this specialty, it’s all about the quality over the quantity, as the placement fee is much more substantial.
Technical Recruiters
A technical recruiter might fall into one of the aforementioned categories, but it’s worth pointing out that this type of recruiter does often need more industry knowledge than other specialties.
Every recruiter should understand the job at least on a surface level. However, technical recruiters are often required to understand more of the job requirements because there are so many technical skills that go into ensuring that a candidate is qualified for a role in the realm of software engineering, data analysis, technical writing, or anything else along those lines.
Recruiting Manager
Recruiting managers are those who not only assist with helping people find jobs, but they also manage teams of recruiters and often lead and implement a company’s talent acquisition or recruiting strategy.
A recruiting manager will often either be an internal or agency recruiter because they have a team of employees working under them. Recruiting managers may also work with executives to learn more about what kind of employees they want to attract, what kind of employee growth or succession planning tactics they want to implement, and to ensure that the corporate vision is realized.
Transferable Skills for Your First Recruiter Job
When you’re applying for your first job as a recruiter, keep in mind that you can always learn how to place candidates according to industry standards, but there are plenty of skills that will be transferable from a multitude of different roles.
Your ability to communicate with others both via email and direct message (written communication), as well as your ability to establish rapport with others in person, via Zoom, or on the phone (verbal communication), will be essential to your success. The foundation for a good recruiter is their ability to build relationships.
Empathy is an often underrated skill that can be highlighted on your resume. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another, particularly when dealing with candidates who might be stressed or uncertain during their job search, can be a very useful skill as a recruiter. This can help recruiters build trust between all parties involved.
Additionally, highlighting your adaptability will show how you will succeed within changing deadlines, hiring regulations, or changing requirements for the role that you’re trying to fill. While the following list is not exhaustive, here are some transferable skills to consider highlighting on your recruiter resume:
- Strong Communication Skills
- Relationship Building
- Adaptability
- Time Management
- Empathy
- Feedback Evaluation
- Leadership
- Creative Thinking
- Problem Solving
- Project Management
Key Recruiter Responsibilities
A good recruiter is a strong communicator.
As mentioned above, communication is key in recruiting. A recruiter is often a liaison between multiple parties—think candidates, executives, hiring managers, and external partners. Clear communication and setting expectations are key to a successful placement.
A good recruiter builds and cultivates lasting relationships.
Sometimes a recruiter may find a great candidate without the perfect opportunity, or vice versa. Building and cultivating relationships can help recruiters build a pipeline of clients to fill positions quicker than having to source and vet new candidates for every single role. Additionally, building trust with the client can help the recruiter influence decisions and promote a client for a role, even if they have underlying characteristics that might make the hiring manager think twice.
A good recruiter can roll with the punches and adapt to shifting priorities.
Between changing job responsibilities, changing budgetary requirements, and shifting market landscapes, the only constant about being a recruiter is that everything will change regularly. Showing that you can adapt as needed is essential when writing your recruiter resume.
A good recruiter knows how to manage their time so that they can meet deadlines and prioritize projects as needed.
Scouting candidates, reviewing resumes, and discussing requirements with clients/executives requires prioritization and time management. If you’ve managed schedules or prioritized projects according to deadlines, these are responsibilities you’ll want to highlight on your resume.
Recruiter Skills to Highlight on Your Resume
There are a lot of different types of software and tools that recruiters use today, and this list is always changing. These are going to be part of the hard skills that you'll want to highlight in your resume and resume summary.
However, if you have experience with the following software applications and tools, you’ll want to be sure and list them on your resume:
- Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
- LinkedIn Recruiter
- Indeed Resume Search
- Intello
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
- Smashfly
- Job Boards (e.g., Monster, ZipRecruiter, Indeed)
Some other skills or experience to highlight may include:
- Database management
- Cold-calling best practices
- Business development experience
Compensation for Recruiters
Compensation for recruiters varies widely based on the placement rate for each role. For contract roles, recruiting companies often charge a markup rate.
For example, the company hiring the contract worker might pay the recruiting company a 35% markup rate (135% of the contractor’s salary), and the recruiting company will pay the worker. The recruiter will then receive a set percentage of commission, usually anywhere from 10%-20% of the markup rate.
As mentioned above, headhunters receive a much more substantial placement rate than internal or agency recruiters, as headhunters make fewer placements overall.
According to Glassdoor, the national average salary for a recruiter is $52,657 per year in the United States. Base salary changes according to location, but the salary estimate is based on 28,658 salaries submitted anonymously to Glassdoor by recruiters.
When applying for a recruiting role, it is essential to highlight strong communication skills, adaptability, the ability to problem solve, and the ability to cultivate trusted relationships.
Additionally, if you have prior experience in recruiting, be sure to list notable placements you’ve made, companies you’ve worked with, your placement rate, or any other metric that articulates what you’ve accomplished in your career. If you're applying for your first recruiter role, think hard about your transferable skills—like experience in customer service and a solid understanding of the interview process.
Furthermore, if you have experience working within any or all areas of the hiring process (e.g., employee onboarding or interviewing), this is great information to include on your resume. At the end of the day, the goal is to show your prospective employer why you will succeed as a recruiter.
Recruiter Resume Templates
And here's one more resume to use as a model for your recruiter resume—specifically when you're looking for a management role within recruiting.
