Behind the Scenes of Corporate Recruiting

Filling job vacancies within your own company can be a tedious, if not stressful endeavor, and in some cases, the results are less successful than anticipated. It can often be difficult to find that perfect fit for a open position, and employers sometimes find themselves hiring and rehiring candidates for the same job. Moreover, when the job opening is a corporate or high level managerial position, the stakes can be even higher.

Unfortunately, most executive business leaders do not have enough time to sort through the hundreds of resumes submitted by hopeful candidates, in addition to conducting and sitting through hours of job interviews. This is why hiring a corporate recruiter can be a valuable executive decision.

By discovering your exact employment needs and requirements, a corporate recruiter is able to perform the necessary searches to find and screen relevant, top level candidates for your company. As hiring and HR managers know, this can certainly be a challenging job, which requires a great deal of daily planning, organization, networking, research, and even instinctual knowledge.

Here, we will take a glance at exactly what goes into the busy day of corporate recruiter.

Daily Grind of the Corporate Recruiter.

“A typical day in my world is working on 10-20 positions at any given time, with all being in various stages of the process,” said Expedia’s Senior EMEA Recruiter, Margaret Buj. She also stated that trusting “your gut/intuition” is an important component when isolating the right candidate for a job.  If something doesn’t feel quite right, perhaps it is not.  However, she added that basing your entire opinion of a candidate upon your initial impression, and using this impression to form comparisons with your other candidates, is not a good idea.

Recruiters must get to know their candidates equally, and it’s clear that, among other expertise, a noticeable portion of their work is based upon intuitive skills.

It can be a long process to find that perfect new employee for any organization. Recruiters are known to spend multiple hours, simply sorting through stacks of resumes; a large portion of which many not even be from candidates who are qualified for the specific job opening. When the search has been narrowed down to a manageable number of candidates, it is then time to begin the second stage of screening, as well as scheduling initial interviews with the company’s hiring or HR manager.

What Makes a Successful Recruiter?

• Strict planning and balancing. Without an organized daily plan, recruiters not only risk falling behind schedule, but possibly even choosing an unsuitable candidate. Recruiters must proactively plan ahead in order to find a sense of balance between gaining and establishing working relationships with new clients while still meeting the needs of current established clients.
• Consistent daily searching and networking. Social media sites, such as LinkedIn, offer an excellent resource for recruiters to search possible candidates. In fact, LinkedIn, in particular, actually offers a “Recruitment” subscription service, providing users with an even more extensive array of searchable job candidates. Nevertheless, a significant portion of each day should be spent researching potential employees for your clients, seeking feedback from within your professional network, as well as discovering new talents that may be of interest to your clients.
• Proper judgment and skills assessments.  Once a recruiter has located a promising match for client’s job opening, they must now take the opportunity to meet with the candidate in order to discover their true potential and qualifications. Providing the candidate with a skills and competency assessment is a useful way to help reach a decision. In the case of high-level leadership positions, a competency assessment can assist the corporate recruiter in ascertaining the candidate’s ability to properly manage and lead others. However, it is not enough to simply administer these types of assessments; a trained corporate recruiter must evaluate the results within the context of the job requirements, while gleaning an in-depth understanding of the potential employee and how they would fit within the client’s organization.  If the recruiter has a specific job in mind for the candidate, they will often provide them with further specifics on the position and culture of the company with which they may potentially be placed.  A skilled corporate recruiter may also use this opportunity to provide the individual with resume tips and advice on successful interviewing.
• Thorough verification of credentials and information. Another persistent, yet extremely important, task is verifying credentials of potential candidates before scheduling any interviews with your client. This is also an opportune time to follow up on recommendations, and expand upon candidate background checks.
• Smart scheduling and coordination. Once a candidate’s background and qualifications have been verified, it’s time to start coordinating and scheduling an initial interview with your client’s hiring manager. It is important that the candidate is prepared to accommodate the date and time of the interview, as scheduling is based upon the availability of the client.   The recruiter should remind the candidate to dress in accordance with, or slightly more professionally than, the company’s basic dress code when attending the interview.

Why Corporate Recruiters are in Demand.

It seems as though time management may be one of the more obvious reasons that corporate recruiters are such a valuable component in a company’s search for talent, as their presence allows business leaders to concentrate on other vital tasks within the company.  However, the benefits of hiring a corporate recruiter to assist with your candidate search exceed even this.

Recruiters have the access and capability to locate and sort through the hundreds of applications to find the ones most suitable. Since they most likely possess employment contacts, connections, and leads that a hiring manager — or even an HR department — may not, they are capable of conducting pertinent high-level searches, even reaching out to individuals who may not have otherwise been aware of the job opening.

An experienced corporate recruiter has a developed skill for recognizing and isolating a candidate’s most relevant traits and talents, specific to the requirements of the client company; and will spend every moment of their working day to ensure they are meeting the employment needs of the companies who trust and rely upon their expertise.

Fred Coon, CEO

Stewart, Cooper & Coon, has helped thousands of decision makers and senior executives move up in their careers and achieve significantly improved financial packages within short time frames. Contact Fred Coon – 866-883-4200, Ext. 200