How to hire a recruiter

If your business is expanding, hiring a recruiter can make all the difference between struggling to build a skilled workforce and filling your team with the right talent quickly. 

But how do you go about recruiting a recruiter? Let us reassure you: Finding a talented recruiter is easy if you know what to look for in candidates.

Ultimately, your hiring decision should be guided by your company’s unique needs. Before you begin your recruiter hiring process, assess whether you need to hire a temporary or permanent professional and whether you look to acquire general staff or highly specialized talent. 

In this article, we’ll discuss the details of recruiter recruitment, including the top skills you should assess in candidates and a how-to guide for picking the right one. You’ll also find: 

• A sample recruiter job description

• Information on the average recruiter salary in the US

• Ideas for questions to ask during the interview process

• Tips on which pre-employment skills tests to use to screen your candidates, such as our HR fundamentals and Communication skills tests

• Advice on how to fairly compare your candidates’ soft and hard skills apples-to-apples

But first, let’s start with the basics. 

What is a recruiter? 

A recruiter is a professional who seeks to match fitting candidates and job offers. An effective recruiter takes the time to understand each organization’s hiring needs and context, creates an attractive job description, and screens out unqualified candidates.

A good recruiter should give a special focus to the company’s long-term vision. In other words, they need to see the big picture behind filling specific positions, as you’ll work together to build a strong team that can ideally empower your business for years to come. 

Recruiter hard skills

The first step of your hiring process should be to analyze your business needs and list all of the must-have hard skills you’d like your recruiter to have. Below, you’ll find some of the most important skills to look for. 

Familiarity with HR software

Experienced recruiters will have extensive experience using various HR software within the recruitment process. 

You might want to look for a person who’s already familiar with the specific software your company uses. This way, you can quickly target a highly specific pool of candidates who, once hired, can get up to speed quickly.

Alternatively, you might simply consider candidates’ general proficiency with different applicant tracking systems (ATS) and their willingness to learn, instead of concentrating on one platform in particular. This will give you access to a wider talent pool.

Data-driven decision making

Good recruiters will collect data on various key performance indicators (KPIs) and the execution of specific stages within the overall recruitment process. 

Such a data-driven approach helps teams quickly identify opportunities for improvements and adjust their operations accordingly.

A strong drive to learn

With regularly changing employment and hiring procedures, companies might prefer to look for recruiters who are willing to learn new technologies and business processes. Cognitive flexibility is an essential skill today — and, arguably, even more important than specific technical skills you can learn on the job. 

Ask your potential hire about their willingness to learn your tech stack and consider new approaches to building effective recruitment processes. 

Marketing and sales 

Pay special attention to how effectively your prospective recruiter can communicate the benefits and value that your company offers to candidates. 

While your next recruiter shouldn’t come across as overly salesy, they should be able to clearly articulate what your company has to offer in terms of culture and growth opportunities. Promoting your employer brand will drive recruitment results.

A highly effective recruiter will look for additional ways to engage candidates and have a strong understanding of the benefits they can discuss with applicants either in writing or verbally.

Recruiter soft skills

Although technical skills are important, recruiting especially requires strong soft skills. 

Recruiters take charge of building your unique employer brand and presenting your business in negotiations with candidates. For this reason, they have a major impact on how effective your pitch is and whether it resonates with the candidates. 

Let’s dig into the specifics. 

Communication skills

In their day-to-day work, recruiters constantly interact with various stakeholders, such as candidates, hiring managers creating hiring requests, and decision makers with the final say over the hires.

For a recruiter, it’s better to over-communicate rather than stay in their own corner. Recruiters need to perfect the art of reaching out to industry actors, consistently building bridges to individual connections and potential corporate partners.

Experience in sales, PR, and similar fields can be really helpful, differentiating high-potential recruiters from the competition. Effectively selling the company’s vision can drastically increase hiring rates and reduce the cost per hire.

Patience

Candidates might frequently get scooped up by competitors, so all HR specialists need to be ready to start the recruitment process from scratch.

Multiple rounds of interviews, alignments, and discussions can be trying and therefore call for a commitment to playing the long game in a way that can consistently generate positive outcomes. Recruiters should also keep at heart the interests of the company, never giving in to temptations to pitch a loosely fitting candidate.

Confidence

Recruiters should score high on confidence and leadership skills. Upbeat personalities who are able to tackle unexpected challenges and quickly react to unforeseen events fare exceptionally well in the position. 

Offer brave recruiters ample advancement opportunities, and you’ll likely find a home-grown future leader in your ranks. 

Good listening skills and empathy

Pay attention to how a recruiter reacts to your feedback when trying to find a perfect hire for your team. 

Proficient headhunters never try to make the other party buy into their version of the story. Instead, they know that listening intently to what the other party has to say opens the way to offer a customized solution driven by their wishes and aspirations.

Empathy is an underrated skill of the capable recruiter. Always striving to understand the needs and wants of candidates and companies alike, recruiters should be able to look at the world through other people’s eyes.

Time management and reliability

Hiring is hectic. The more manageable your future recruiter makes the hiring process for your team, the more value your business will generate.

Your recruiter will need to be adept at juggling multiple action plans, sifting through hundreds of applications, scheduling interviews, and picking the best-fit candidates for each one.

Without a knack for time management, it’s easy to lose track of actions and prioritize them incorrectly.

Being able to be on time, return calls, and manage multiple projects without getting overwhelmed will bring reliability to your company’s recruitment procedures — and guarantee your ability to forecast hiring outcomes. 

How to test your future recruiter’s skills

Knowing the top skills you should look for in candidates is one thing, but being able to quickly test for them is of real significance — and that’s what will enable you to actually hire the best person for the job.

TestGorilla offers pre-employment tests that allow you to quickly gauge a recruiter’s skill set, identify skills gaps, and spot key topics to discuss during the interview phase. TestGorilla allows you to combine up to five tests and set up a reusable test pack for an effective structured recruitment process.

Below, you’ll find the five pre-employment tests we recommend to accelerate your recruiter recruitment process:

• Communication skills test. Quickly measure candidates’ communication skills (both verbal and written) and see how they measure on active listening and non-verbal cues. A must-have on your list, this test will enable you to quickly identify high-potential communicators. 

• Problem solving test. Part of our cognitive tests, this test allows you to take a step back from your specific industry and determine how good a recruiter is at solving workplace problems, reacting to quickly changing data, and even moonlighting as your office firefighter. 

• Leadership and people management test. If you’re hiring an internal recruiter, see how successful they’ll be at leading others. With time, your growing business will probably look for an HR manager to guide advanced training, team-building, and the overall development of human resources. A strong move is to join hands with somebody who can grow into those boots from the bottom up. (And yes, if you’re wondering, a hiring manager’s and a recruiter’s roles are different.)

• Culture-add test. The true blockbuster of our personality and culture tests, this test calls for your team to fill out a quick survey. Help your candidate gain insight into the values and behaviors you seek to promote in your company and see whether their culture aligns with yours. In short, this test enables you to articulate your vision and invite candidates to see how they align.

• HR management test. This specialized test allows you to assess your next recruiter for HR skills, aptitude for relationship management, and ethical leadership. Combined with the above tests, the full assessment will paint a detailed picture as to the candidate’s relevant skills and aptitudes. 

You can use pre-employment tests to find and hire candidates with the right set of skills and capabilities. Asking potential recruiters to take these tests will also help you fight against unconscious biases and promote diversity.

Where to find a recruiter for your business

Broadly speaking, you might hire your next recruiter either externally or in-house. Here’s a look at the pros and cons that both options offer.

Hiring an external recruiter

Your company may contract with a staffing firm that will retain the recruiter on their payroll and offer you an opportunity to hire them for the needed number of hours.

Pros

• Staffing firms will take care of legal matters, documents, and more

• You’ll have access to high-quality services

• You can hire a recruiter for a limited number of hours, thus reducing the overall costs 

Cons

• An external recruiter may not be willing to undergo a testing process

• Outsourced recruiters usually juggle multiple customers and may not be fully invested in your company

• There are no guarantees that the external recruiter won’t move to another staffing agency, thus reducing your incentive to develop them as a key player in your company 

Hiring an in-house recruiter

If you decide to hire an in-house recruiter, your company will be the employer on record and you’ll interact with the recruiter directly.

Pros

• You have the ability to run a fully-controlled recruitment process that includes embedded API-connected pre-employment testing, structured references, background checks, and more

• It guarantees that the hire will commit fully to your business

• The recruiter will be able to join efforts with you to adjust your recruitment and other HR processes to changing needs and business conditions

Cons

• Hiring in-house comes with an obligation on your part to provide the recruiter with the salaried job, office space, health insurance, and other benefits

• Potentially, a big effort and time are needed to recruit on your own, unless you run effective pre-employment screening

Despite those disadvantages, if you have important hiring needs on the horizon, hiring in-house might be your best bet. 

Recruiter job description template

Your potential hire creates, analyzes, and improves job descriptions for living, so trying to dazzle them won’t work; staying concise and on point will draw valuable candidates. Being succinct and close to your culture is the best approach to writing any kind of job description.

Make sure that you let your culture and employer brand shine through, helping recruiters see how they will fit within your organization.

Below are some recommendations for crafting a title, job summary, and lists of responsibilities and requirements.

Keyword-rich title for your job description

Enrich your title with anchor words to grab the attention of potential hires. Specify the niche of your company (e.g. “supply chain”, “software development” or “event management”). 

Additionally, consider including the software you’d like your future recruiter to use. Candidates with matching experience will pay attention.

Sample titles for your stellar job description:

• Recruiter in supply chain with experience in [XYZ software]

• Remote recruiter in software development with experience in PERN/MERN

• Recruiter in fashion with experience in [clothes design]

Concise summary that sells your job role

Hook your candidate with an enticing offer. Pinpoint key differentiators and bring out the most engaging and attractive sides of your team.

Example summary for the recruiter’s job description: 

[Company X] values our diverse and supportive team. We’re looking for an effective recruiter who’ll help us source, hire, and develop talents in [fashion and design]. Previous experience in clothing and sportswear is strongly desired, as is a willingness to adapt to the vibrancy and unpredictability that fashion brings. 

Engaging list of responsibilities

Aim to describe the role’s day-to-day activities while also showing the big picture and opportunities for advancement.

Example of the bulleted responsibilities list: 

• Develop detailed and extensive job specifications, and create catchy job ads

• Post job ads on various platforms, as well as social media and targeted niche forums and groups

• Run pre-employment testing and efficient screening procedures

• Leverage HRIS and CTS software to automate routine tasks and free up time for more impactful activities

• Coach and guide employees throughout their career journey

An inclusive list of requirements 

Focus on the must-have requirements to potentially attract a diverse set of candidates with unique skill sets. Instead of excessively limiting your scope, it’s better to screen unqualified candidates via pre-employment testing from platforms like TestGorilla.

Here’s an example of a recruiter requirements list: 

• 2+ years of experience in human resources or similar fields

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

• Working knowledge of HRIS systems

• Strong drive to source and hire the best-fit talents in [fashion, clothing]

How much does a recruiter cost? 

So, how much will it cost you to hire a recruiter?

The average base salary of a recruiter in the US is $80,000, plus $10,000 in bonus pay.

How much it costs to hire a recruiter for your company depends largely on how specialized your niche is. Expect your candidates to ask for a higher pay in IT, medical, and legal recruitment.

Top interview questions for a recruiter

As a benefit of using pre-employment testing, you’ll be able to glean a number of interview questions based on the testing outcomes. Delving into the shown strengths and weaknesses of your highest-performing candidates will help you identify important topics to discuss and questions you might want to ask.

Your future recruiter should excel at presenting your employer brand, which can be a great starting point for the interview. Such a test quickly sets the atmosphere of your interview and reveals your candidates’ creativity. Some questions you might ask include:

• How would you present our company and how would you focus on the major selling points that we bring as an employer? 

• Which questions do you have about our company and the processes we run, based on any pre-interview research you’ve done? 

• How would you react if a high-potential candidate refuses your offer right before signing a contract? 

The last question brings you to the important area of problem solving, that you might’ve tested for in advance. Problem-solving skills, coupled with negotiation skills, are the bread and butter of successful recruiters. Double down on this with more questions: 

• What have been the hardest jobs to fill and how did you manage to find suitable candidates for them? 

• Have you ever been fed up with the recruitment industry, and why? 

• In which ways can you “expand the pie” during the negotiation process, building value together with the candidate? 

Questions about negotiations can be expanded into more specific queries over the recruitment process:

• How do you track candidates within the recruitment process? 

• Which software do you use to optimize your hiring process? 

• Which KPIs and measurements are most important to you, and why? 

• Which improvements will you make to your recruitment process?

Start with these interview questions and follow up with more focused queries based on the candidate’s answers. Avoid turning the interview into an interrogation, and be ready to answer any questions they have for you.

Hire the best recruiters with the right recruitment process 

Sourcing and hiring a recruiter can be easy if you have a well-designed recruitment in place. Consider using pre-employment tests to quickly identify the best-fit candidates so that you can run in-depth interviews. 

TestGorilla offers a free trial for you to see how effective pre-employment screening is. Focus on finding a candidate that expands your culture and brings something new to your team. The diversity and vibrancy of your recruitment team will send the right signal to future candidates so your business can continue to grow.