Recruitment

Recruitment isn’t a 9 to 5 job, it’s 24/7

The work of a recruiter goes beyond the expected nine-to-five hassle of corporate life. Most recruiters put their sweat and toil into getting the right candidate. It’s no surprise that many recruiters begin each day well-planned, only to end up in complete disarray as many unexpected activities spring up and nearly drive them insane.

Unfortunately, many job seekers see recruiters as annoying or unnecessary intermediaries for their next job. But the reality is quite different. Although the recruiting process looks like merely matching people with available job openings, a lot of strategic, personal and analytic skills go into managing thousands of resumes and correctly fitting in that candidate with a prospective employer. To understand a job seeker, recruiters need a good amount of emotional intelligence too.

And if you are still not convinced, here are nine why reasons recruiters aren’t sleeping on the job:

1. They are struggling to keep up with the trends

Recruiters that are not at least trying to follow the latest trends will lag behind. We live in a fast world that can’t seem to stop changing. Every new year brings new opportunities for us but also new tools, methods, and processes. From dusk to dawn, recruiters strive to understand their clients’ business and candidate trends.

Apart from endless meetings and calls with candidates and clients, the recruiting process requires a continuous drive to carry out and analyze research. It involves pooling knowledge to understand growing industry trends. And all research takes a lot of time and dedication to remain updated on new technology trends, local and international government regulations, and market trends.

2. Growing domain and sourcing experience

Acquiring domain experience means understanding, to the smallest detail, the industry and the specific areas of business. On the other hand, getting sourcing experience means knowing exactly where to find the best candidates.

Recruiters strive to grow their domain and sourcing experience. The desire to gain industry insight, broaden reach, and find a new source of candidates is not just necessary but compulsory to survive in the battle for talents.

3. Always bringing in empathy

An arrogant or cold fish recruiter will be out of a job in no time. Empathy is a valuable aspect that many people in the corporate line fail to harness. Candidates are people too; they want to be treated accordingly. But the hard part for most recruiters is getting into the candidate’s head.

These are people with different emotional and educational backgrounds, different ambitions, fears, social responses, and behavior. Recruiters have long realized that to make a successful hire; half the battle is won when you understand the candidates’ mindset.

4. Beating competition

Recruiters with a better reputation and personal brand can attract and secure top talent. Top-tier recruiters can put a company ahead of its competitors. In fact, keeping up with the current fast-paced labor market is hard. Therefore, recruiters work around the clock to track their client’s competition.

Knowing how to beat the perks and benefits a competitor is offering to talents might be what separates a successful recruiter from an incompetent one. But all of these require a great deal of time.

5. Managing an overwhelming database/network

Delivering that right candidate requires a continuous effort of meeting up with the requirements of companies whose expectations sometimes could vary from understandable to staggeringly absurd.

Therefore, when companies outsource their staffing responsibilities to freelance recruiters, a useful database or good network of contacts is needed, especially if the company is expecting quick results.

And building a vast database of contacts requires time. And it goes beyond running the best recruitment software. Recruiters are continually extending their database by pursuing candidates through effective offline strategies and excellent candidate experience and building their network in the online and offline worlds.

6. The need to churn out results

Companies want the “best,” no employer wants anything less. But in the real world, the best talents aren’t seeking jobs. What we have are are the “scarce best” in the market. However, all the same, a recruiter’s top motivation is to snap up that “best” against all the odds and never let go.

A primary target for every recruiter is to serve job seekers and companies just what they are looking for: that perfect culture fit, work ethics, skillsets, employee experience, etc. That’s why most recruiters are always on the lookout for the mythical candidates that we call unicorns.

7. Working with clear focus

For any recruiter, nothing is as important as the end goal: bringing that sought-after talent as quickly as possible. A great amount of information needs to be processed in the hiring process. Focus is needed when meeting new people, forming lasting alliances and networking with other recruiters.

To hold their own against the competitive market, recruiters work with a tremendous amount of focus whenever they meet people and attend trade fairs, job fairs, expositions or industry exhibitions.

8. Never-ending communication

Candidates want reassurance about their applications. Who doesn’t? The psyche of a job seeker is quite a delicate one, and recruiters understand this very well. To be successful, a recruiter needs to be a fantastic speaker and a great listener.

Explicit communication involves the timely distribution of information, which is key to everything in recruiting. Even when handling unpicked candidates, communication should never stop between the candidate and the recruiter. Ensuring tailored messages and delivering timely feedback are always the bedrock of a target-driven seeker of talents.

9. Mixing speed and patience for a better outcome

Deadlines and angry candidates can destabilize any recruiter at any time. An open position is a deficit for any company. Moreover, some job seekers are desperate to land a job fast. This is where speed and patience come into the recruiting process. Of course, they look like unlikely traits. Yet speed and patience are two qualities that work together to grease a creaky hiring process.

Good recruiters know that having the utmost patience and flexibility is needed to survive. There will always be last-minute rescheduled meetings, interviews, and new demands from candidates and clients.

Overcoming the shortage of time is very important. Job recruiting involves being hard at work to provide fast and expected results as soon as possible.

Final Point

Even if recruitment is not rocket science, it requires dedication and lot of time that goes beyond a 9–5 job, especially when candidates tell you that they are open to discussing a new opportunity with you after their 9–5 job. That’s why some recruiters’ jobs start after 5 pm.

The productivity and overall success of a company are primarily dependent on the recruiters. Night and day, they labor to take the talent burden off the shoulders of companies and find the right people who will help their company grow.

Any recruiter worth his or her salt must work tirelessly to provide end-to-end recruitment success that ensures the provision of the right candidates, and simultaneously save hiring costs and time.

Being a recruiter is great but, if you want to succeed, you need to realize that it’s not a 9–5 job.

Last Updated on January 10, 2024