Recruiter

What does a recruiter do

A full cycle recruiting role covers the whole path from open requisition to start date:

1. Intake. Agree requirements, pay and process with the hiring manager.
2. Sourcing. Post jobs, search databases and professional networks, ask for referrals, rediscover past applicants.
3. Screening. Review applications, run phone screens, check eligibility and pay expectations.
4. Interview management. Prepare interviewers, coordinate schedules, collect scorecards and run debriefs.
5. Offer and close. Build the offer with HR or comp, present it, negotiate, handle counteroffers.
6. Pre-start. Stay in touch through background checks and paperwork so the candidate actually shows up.

Through all of it the recruiter keeps the candidate informed and the applicant tracking system accurate. A typical day is half conversations and half coordination. Our corporate recruiter job description lays out the duties in detail.

Types of recruiters

• Corporate or internal recruiter. Employed by the company that is hiring. Works a set of requisitions for one or a few business units. Paid salary, sometimes with a bonus.
• Agency recruiter. Works for a staffing firm or search firm and fills roles for client companies. Often paid partly on commission, and usually also does business development.
• RPO recruiter. Employed by a recruitment process outsourcing provider but embedded in a client's team.
• Technical, healthcare, executive or campus recruiter. Specialists by job family or candidate type.
• High-volume recruiter. Fills dozens or hundreds of similar roles, often hourly, in contact centers, retail, logistics and healthcare support.

Large teams split the work. A sourcer finds and engages candidates, a recruiting coordinator handles scheduling and logistics, and the recruiter focuses on assessment, the hiring manager relationship and closing.

Workloads: professional vs high-volume

Workload depends almost entirely on the role type. A recruiter hiring software engineers or finance managers commonly carries 15 to 30 open requisitions and makes a few hires a month. A high-volume recruiter might carry a handful of evergreen requisitions but hire 30 to 80 people a month, screening hundreds of applicants.

The skills differ too. Professional recruiting rewards deep market knowledge and persuasion. High-volume recruiting rewards speed, process discipline and comfort with automation: knockout questions, text-based scheduling, assessments that run without a recruiter, and same-day offers. A high-volume recruiter who personally phone-screens every applicant will drown.

Metrics recruiters are measured on

• Time to fill and time to hire, by requisition or role family
• Hires per recruiter per month or requisitions closed
• Offer acceptance rate
• Pipeline conversion between stages
• Quality of hire, usually 90-day retention or first performance rating
• Hiring manager satisfaction and candidate satisfaction
• Diversity of slates where the organization tracks it

Agency recruiters are also measured on revenue, fill rate and submittal-to-interview ratio.

Skills that separate strong recruiters

• Pushing back on hiring managers with data instead of opinion.
• Writing outreach people actually reply to.
• Running a structured screen that produces evidence, not impressions.
• Spotting a candidate's real motivation and their likely objections before the offer.
• Keeping 40 candidates warm without dropping anyone.
• Knowing the legal basics: what you may not ask, how to document decisions, and how pay transparency and background check rules work in the states you hire in.

If you are hiring for the role, our recruiter interview questions test these skills directly.