Recruit the Recruiter: Guide to Building a Kickass Recruitment Team

Recruiting is not an easy task. It requires a lot of skills, knowledge, and experience to identify and evaluate the right candidates for the right roles. It also involves a lot of challenges, such as competing with other companies, dealing with diverse and changing needs, and managing expectations and feedback. That’s why recruit the recruiter is a very important and strategic decision for any company.

But how do you find and hire the best recruiters for your company? What are the differences between recruiting and HR, and how do they work together? What are the challenges and best practices in recruiting the recruiter? How do you build a kickass recruitment team that can deliver the best results for your company? In this article, we will answer these questions and more.

Recruit the Recruiter 101: Things to Look For

Before you start your search for a recruiter, you need to first understand the role and responsibilities of a recruiter. You will want someone who:

• Embodies your company’s vision, mission, values, and goals: A recruiter must not only comprehend but also embody and articulate the essence of your company’s vision, mission, values, and goals to potential candidates, forging a meaningful connection.
• Navigates the intricacies of your industry: A savvy recruiter is well-versed in market dynamics, industry benchmarks, competition landscapes, and emerging opportunities. Armed with research and analytical prowess, they utilize insights to refine and elevate the recruitment strategy.
• Cultivates a robust network with adept networking skills: Beyond a mere rolodex, a recruiter cultivates and nurtures a dynamic network of potential candidates, adeptly tapping into diverse sources like social media, referrals, events, and job boards. Their skill lies not just in connecting but in engaging candidates throughout the recruiting process.
• Conducts interviews with finesse: A recruiter masters the art of diverse assessments, employing techniques such as resume evaluations, phone screens, online tests, and video interviews to meticulously gauge candidates' skills, qualifications, fit, and potential.
• Navigates the hiring-to-onboarding continuum: Beyond securing a commitment, a proficient recruiter excels in negotiating and finalizing offers while ensuring meticulous compliance and documentation. Collaboration with hiring managers, the HR team, and other stakeholders ensures a seamless and positive experience for both candidates and the company.

What You Should Do Before the ‘Recruit the Recruiter’ Journey Starts

Before you start recruiting the recruiter, here are some things that you should know and do:

1. Define your recruiter profile

The first and most important step is to define your recruiter profile. You should have a clear and detailed description of the skills, qualifications, experience, and personality traits that you are looking for in a recruiter. You should also have a crystal and realistic expectation of the recruiter’s role and responsibilities, and the challenges and opportunities that they will face.

2. Identify your recruiter sources

You should have a diverse and effective mix of sources and channels to find and attract the recruiter candidates, both active and passive. It’s a good idea to leverage your existing network and pipeline, such as your current recruiters, your employees, your clients, your partners, etc., to get referrals and recommendations. Also, use social media, events, job boards, and so on, to reach out and connect with the recruiter candidates, and showcase your company and its culture.

3. Design your recruiter assessments

Come up with a comprehensive and consistent process to screen and interview the recruiter candidates, and evaluate their skills, qualifications, fit, and potential. Use various types of assessments, such as resume reviews, phone screens, online tests, or video interviews to measure and compare the recruiter candidates’ abilities and performance.

4. Hire and onboard your recruiters

You should design a smooth and successful process to hire and onboard the recruiter candidates, and ensure the compliance and documentation of the hiring process. As part of the company, a recruiter is also an employee, so goes without saying that you should have a solid onboarding process and training program for the new recruiter to help them seamlessly integrate into your team. Keep in mind that it’s also important to motivate and reward the recruiters, and foster a culture of learning and development.

Questions to Ask a Recruiter

When you recruit the recruiter, you should also ask them some questions to make sure that you have the best recruiter for your company. Here are some examples of questions that you can ask the recruiter candidates:

• Why do you want to work for our company?
•  You should look for recruiter candidates who show enthusiasm, passion, and alignment with the company’s vision, mission, values, and goals.
• What are the skills and qualities that make you a great recruiter?
•  When asking this question, look for recruiter candidates who demonstrate the skills and qualities that match your recruiter profile, such as market and industry knowledge, network and pipeline building, screening and interviewing, hiring and onboarding, etc.
• How do you source and attract the best talent for the company?
•  You can use this question to evaluate the recruiter candidate’s strategy and process for sourcing and attracting the best talent for the company. Look for candidates who use a diverse and effective mix of sources and channels, such as social media, referrals, events, job boards, etc., to reach out and connect with potential candidates, both active and passive. You should also look for candidates who use creative and personalized approaches, such as sending customized messages or sharing relevant content to attract and persuade talent to join the company.
• How do you screen candidates?
•  This question is designed to help you examine the recruiter candidate’s strategy and process for screening and interviewing the candidates for your company. Recruiter candidates who offer various types of assessments to measure and compare the candidates’ skills, qualifications, fit, and potential are the ones to keep on your list. It can be resume reviews, phone screens, online tests, video interviews, and so on. It is also a good idea to keep an eye on the recruiter candidates who mention constructive and timely feedback and follow-up process.

Recruit the Recruiter Like an Expert with Manatal

Aside from asking the right questions, having the right tool can also help you ensure a team of kickass recruiters faster and easier. One of the tools that you can use is Manatal, an AI-powered Applicant Tracking System.

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Manatal comes with many features that can help you shine a spotlight on the right recruiters for your company within a few clicks, such as:

• Candidate Sourcing: Not only does this feature enable you to share your job ads across 2500+ channels in one go, but once you have applicants coming your way, it also helps you get to know them from deeper angles beyond their CVs by importing candidates’ data from their available online profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter into a single database, allowing you to make informed decisions when it comes to selecting the right recruiters for your team.

• AI Recommendations: Manatal leverages its AI engine to recommend the best candidates for your team of recruiters. It scans job descriptions and extracts the core skills and requirements needed for candidates, then cross-references results with your talent pool to recommend the most fitted candidates for the job.

• Branded Career Page: You can also reach out to the best recruiter candidates out there and showcase your company brand, core values, and what makes your company stand out via Manatal’s Branded Career Page feature. You’ll be able to design a fully customizable career site from scratch and integrate it into your existing website. From text, images, graphics, to videos, all can be uploaded within a few clicks.

Conclusion

Building a kickass recruitment team is not an easy task, but it is definitely worth the effort. A strong recruitment team can help you attract, hire, and retain the best talent for your company, and give you a competitive edge in the market. By following this guide, you can build a recruitment team that will not only deliver results but also create a positive candidate experience and a strong employer brand. Remember, your recruitment team is the face of your company, and the quality of your hires reflects the quality of your team. So, invest in your recruitment team and make it a priority to recruit the recruiter.