skeeled Blog

Recruiters: 5 must-have skills to thrive

Written by Daniela Costa | Jan 17, 2018 4:09:13 PM

The recruitment industry is going through a major technological revolution and recruiters are in the center of it. Given the fact that this is a very competitive sector, it’s of utmost importance that recruiters are capable of understanding the changes taking place and rapidly adapt.

As a matter of a fact, recruiters now have a different role within companies that is intimately connected with marketing and employer branding. Recruiter’s tasks are no longer exclusively administrative and technology has been hugely impacting the way recruitment processes are being conducted. To thrive in this new era, recruiters need to have a truly multidisciplinary profile with a specific set of soft and hard skills. Of course any successful recruiter must be a team player, goal-orientated and have problem solving skills. But there’s more to it if you really want to stand out from the crowd and beat the competition.

In order to help you cope with these changes, we'll tell you in this article which skills modern recruiters must have in order to keep a relevant position in the workplace.

1. Ability to network and build relationships

One of the most crucial skills recruiters must have, is the ability to network and attract new clients and candidates. But even more important, they must be able to keep their connections by building strong relationships. For this to happen, it’s essential to be branded as a trustworthy, considerate and available employer. This means, for example, that your job is not done once you close a hiring process. The follow-up after the actual hiring is just as important as helping the new employee settle in and build relationships on his own.

2. IT and Social Media literacy

We have already written about the importance of technology and digitalisation in the recruitment process and how it is changing the industry and the workplace.

Fact is, recruiters that adapt to the new HR technology are able to source more and better candidates and are also more productive. Why? Because recruitment tools free you from boring and time-consuming bureaucratic tasks, allowing you to focus on the valid candidates that applied to a job offer.

Modern recruiters also acknowledge that social media has an important role in recruitment processes. These are low costs channels that allow you to easily target large pools of talents with just one click. At the same time, you can use it to constantly build and improve your employer branding and build a candidate community.

3. Data and Analytics understanding

The ability to use data to assess, through advanced analytics, the requirements for successful future hires is considered to be one of the key benefits of HR tech tools.

Recruiters who are putting their efforts into learning data science are wisely becoming indispensable to companies as they are relying more and more on analytics and KPIs to make hiring decisions.

Social media and recruitment tools are providing enormous amounts of data which can be used by recruiters as recruiting intelligence to source for the best candidates.

But in order to take advantage of this data, it’s necessary to be able to effectively process and understand it.

4. Sales and Marketing Expertise

Being able to sell is definitely a key skill for recruiters. The ability to build talent pipelines, nurture leads and close the right candidates is crucial. But recruiters can be even more efficient if you also have marketing skills.

Nowadays, the best way to sell any product is to tell a story and engage with your audience. Targeting candidates with a good story also does a lot for your employer branding.

5. Proactive Sourcing

The reality of the job market is that we are facing a talent shortage that negatively affects recruitment processes. Recruiters have become used to receiving dozens or hundreds of applications which don’t meet the requirements or only meet the minimum, which is not good enough to meet the hiring manager's expectations. In order to succeed, a change in the hiring process needs to take place. Recruiters have to do proactive sourcing to find and keep the best talent. This strategy is all about identifying and engaging with candidates instead of simply posting a job offer and wait for the perfect candidate to apply.

Skeeled offers you the perfect opportunity to bring innovation and digitalisation to your hiring. Check our website or our LinkedIn and Facebook pages for further information.

Thanks for reading and see you next time!

Your team here at skeeled