Staffing Firm Sales: What Qualities Make a Great Recruiter?

What qualities make a great recruiter? When it comes to a successful staffing firm sales strategy, it’s important to remember that the role of a recruiter holds a large part in that success. Recruiters must have a range of qualities to be successful in their role. Listed below are the most important qualities of a recruiter. We’ve spoken with leaders from across staffing as well as recruiters to get the best answers.

Confidence
Working as a recruiter involves a lot of interaction. Cold calls, emails, and networking take up much of a recruiter’s day. It’s very important that a recruiter has the confidence to interact with many different people and complete the everyday complex tasks of the job. At times, it is discouraging if potential candidates don’t respond to your calls or emails, but your confidence in your role is what keeps you persistent and motivated to achieve greatness.

Good Listener
Being a good listener is a crucial quality of a recruiter. The truth is, the job of recruiting starts and ends with the ability to listen. Recruiters must be able to listen carefully to a client’s requirements and a candidate’s needs in order to make the perfect match. If you’re unable to listen, then you won’t deliver the tasks at hand.

Communication, People, and Networking Skills
If you didn’t already know, recruiting relies heavily on communication, making this one of the greatest qualities of a recruiter. It’s important that a recruiter is able to communicate both face-to-face as well as over the phone and through email. The recruitment process involves a lot of updating and keeping both the candidate and client always in-the-know, making strong communication skills essential.

People and networking skills are also essential qualities of a recruiter. Part of being a recruiter is the ability to create relationships with the candidate. A great recruiter needs to know the candidate beyond their resume. It’s important to get a sense of who they are as a person and pinpoint exactly what they are looking for in their career. Networking is a skill that allows you to create new relationships as well. Relationship building and the ability to foster a connection with people is a quality that provides success to both the recruiter and the business.

Strong Sales Skills (Yes, I said Sales)
This may be a no-brainer, but it doesn’t make it any less important. Recruitment is a huge part in your sales strategy as they are essentially selling people on a daily basis. We consider recruiting to be “Inside Sales” and it requires a recruiter to sell themselves to the candidates, to sell the job to the candidates, and to sell the candidates to the clients, making strong sales skills a must-have! Strong sales skills include communication skills, self-motivation, persuasiveness, empathy, and great listening skills. All of these together make a strong recruiter.

Detail Oriented
Being a recruiter means that you must be detail oriented. It’s important to remember that clients and candidates work with recruiters because they want the hiring process and job search to be easy and efficient. This requires the recruiter to pay attention to every detail and requirement so they are able to provide a quality service for everyone involved. Are there gaps in the resume? Are the key skills being defined? What about follow up? The devil is in the detail and recruiters need to be on top of every moving piece in the hiring process.

Good Understanding of Technology
In today’s technology driven world, it’s a requirement for a recruiter to be tech savvy. There are many recruiting tools, applicant tracking systems (ATS), automation tools, and more that make recruiting very efficient and successful. One of the greatest qualities of a recruiter is having an understanding of these technologies or having the ability and motivation to learn them.

Sense of Timing and Patience
Patience is key. Recruiting is a job where things might not always go according to plan. In this case, one of the greatest qualities of a recruiter is to have patience. Another quality to have is a good sense of timing, or a sense of urgency. When in the midst of the interview or hiring process, a recruiter must be timely. The process must continue to move forward at a good pace for everyone in order to be successful.

Process/Target Driven and Organized
Drive. This is one of the qualities of a recruiter that must not be overlooked. A great recruiter is process driven and target driven. Recruitment is a competitive industry, so it’s important that a recruiter sees their end goal, is timely in their processes, and always hits their targets. Being organized is also key in these processes. Without organization, where would we be? Having the right tools in place and staying on top of processes is what makes recruitment successful.

Trustworthy and Motivational
It’s important that not only you have trust in your recruiters, but clients and candidates do as well. Being honest, trustworthy and motivational is what attracts candidates. Hiring and finding the perfect job is hard at times, so it’s important for recruiters to be motivational by providing interview preparation advice, hiring process tips, and just motivational talks when things are difficult or stressful.

Multi-tasking Abilities
A great recruiter is able to take on a lot of responsibility at one time. At times, recruiters are working with multiple clients and candidates at once, so it’s important that they are able to juggle each task successfully.

Ability to Discern and Decipher
These are qualities that allow the recruiter to be able to pick the right candidate for the role. The ability to discern between applicants to determine who is best for a job is important. A recruiter should also have the ability to decipher client and job requirements and decide what are must-haves and what are nice-to-haves. All of these have the candidate and client’s needs at the forefront, which is something a recruiter should always keep in mind.

There are many qualities of a recruiter that help to make staffing firm sales successful. If you have any questions regarding staffing firm sales strategy or staffing firm sales training, give us a call.

Sources:
https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/qualities-good-recruiter/
https://www.interseller.io/blog/2018/07/09/10-qualities-of-a-recruiter/
https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2015/03/the-9-essential-qualities-of-modern-recruiters

About S.J.Hemley Marketing
S.J.Hemley Marketing is a marketing and sales consulting firm focused on driving tangible results for professional services firms. Brand matters, but not without ROI. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience within staffing and recruiting, we have helped to drive successful branding, sales training, lead generation activities as well as defining marketing strategy for top organizations. www.sjhemleymarketing.com