A Day in the Life of a Recruiter
I have been a recruiter for 7 years now and until this day, when people ask me what my job is and I answer – “recruiter” – for some of them it is difficult to understand what it actually means. Sometimes I try to answer with – “headhunter” – which sometimes helps. So if you want to know what a day of a recruiter looks like or you perhaps consider choosing a career in this field, maybe this article will help you to understand better.
Well, my day starts the same as it is by many jobs out there. And this first step is very, very important. COFFEE. I make sure to make a cup of coffee in order to have the kick that I need, to have a productive day. I consider myself as semi-organized person and I always try to have my schedule for the week in my calendar. This sometimes doesn’t happen and let me say, it makes things a little more complicated. So I definitely recommend to have a structured approach to work.
I check my emails first thing in the morning to catch up on my open vacancies, communication with the clients and checking new applications. After this, I typically schedule my interviews for the mornings so that I can prepare the profile of the candidate right after, when my impressions and candidate notes are still fresh in my mind.
A big part of being a recruiter is the research. In Germany the unemployment rate is fairly low, so the hunt for the candidates and building up the pipeline is crucial. This takes a good chunk of my day – about 2 to 3 hours every single day. There are various ways on how to network with candidates. Social networks, Applications or good old telephone conversations – which is more and more difficult these days, but most rewarding.
If I had to sum up my job as a recruiter – it is all about the communication. The whole day consists of interactions with colleagues, clients and candidates. This is fun for the most part, because every hour of every day is different, but sometimes it can be truly exhausting – because we as recruiters are mainly on the listening side of the conversations. And we have to be good listeners. Imagine, if you zoom out of the conversation, there is nothing that you can work with later.
Big part of the personality traits that a recruiter has is resilience. Many things have changed in the 7 years since I have started in my first job as a recruiter. The tools and people´s awareness of recruiters being out there. But one of the things that did not change and probably never will, is resilience. When your candidate jumps out of the process in the last minute, or when your client decides to take an internal candidate and not yours – the frustration level is high. You have to start all over. And this is where resilience comes in handy. You have to shake off the anger, sadness and all other feelings and start again.
But nothing beats the feeling of a successful process, when the candidate signs the contract and after they start – you get the feedback that they love their job and you are the one responsible for their great candidate experience. Or when the clients call you again and again because they know that you will deliver on a high level.
I believe being a recruiter is not an easy job, but definitely not a dull one. If you are open to learn something new every day, get to know the people and their journeys, suit up and convince the clients that you are the one who they should work with and if you want to have fun whilst doing all the above, then you should become a recruiter. For some people this job might sounds like any other office job. But for me, it is the best job that I could have chosen for myself. I learn and develop my skills each day and for that I am very grateful.