Working as a recruiter is a fast-paced, enjoyable, and rewarding career path.
Even so, just the same as every other career, there are both pros and cons of being a recruiter. If you’re thinking about jumping into this career field, you need to familiarize yourself with the many advantages and disadvantages.
Conversely, if you’re already working as a recruiter, it’s a good idea to pinpoint both the good and the bad. If nothing else, this will put you in a position to focus on the positives and eliminate or suppress the negatives.
Recruiters are responsible for matching the right candidate with the right client. However, that is easier said than done. Finding the ideal candidate, getting them interested, and guiding them through the whole process is a complete story for itself.
There is much more to recruiting than just compiling resumes and contacting clients and candidates. Exceptional recruiters are required to be good salespeople, understand both clients’ and candidate’s needs, use modern recruiting technologies, build strong networks, and much more.
That alone should give you a better idea of what to expect, albeit a basic approach, if you decide to join the industry.
Pros of being a recruiter
As a recruiter, you’re well aware of your responsibilities. For example, sourcing is a big part of your day-to-day job.
While there are sure to be tasks that you enjoy more than others, you need to take the good with the bad. And in our opinion, there are many more benefits of working as a recruiter than there are drawbacks.
Below, we’re going to share a variety of reasons to get involved with this industry:
Change People’s Lives
Are you seeking a career in which you will have a significant impact on others? If so, you have many options, with a recruiter at the top of the list.
Let’s put it this way: most people need a job. If you’re the person who is responsible for helping a person land a new gig, you can be rest assured that they will be grateful for everything you need.
Even though you can’t hire everyone, you can definitely improve every candidate’s chances by understanding their skills and preparing them for job interviews and the rest of the recruiting process. As a recruiter, you can also help those that don’t lend a job by helping them understand how they can do better next time.
Yes, I know there will be times when you are unable to help a person out. This is all part of working as a recruiter.
Conversely, there will be many other times when you’re able to help a person land the job they have been dreaming of. When this happens, there is no better feeling in the world.
The Face of the Company
When it comes down to it, recruiters are often considered the face of the company. And here is why: you are one of the first people that an applicant comes in contact with. Subsequently, you will always be associated with the company as a whole.
Not only is this a benefit of working as a recruiter, but it’s also a great honor. This holds true no matter if you’re recruiting new workers for a small regional employer or a well-known global enterprise.
If you’re considered the face of any company, you should be proud of this. It takes a lot to reach this point in your career.
Competition Brings Out the Best in You
There is no denying the fact that you will face a variety of competition as a recruiter. After all, your company isn’t the only one interested in hiring qualified applicants.
Although this can also be seen as a bad thing, being that you have to perform at a high level, competition has a way of bringing out the best in a person.
If you’re the competitive type, such as someone who has played sports their entire life, you will enjoy the action that comes along with working as a recruiter.
When everything is said and done, there is a clear winner and loser. You will either hire the person you targeted, or you will lose out to another company.
Remember, you can’t win them all. As disappointed as you may feel when you miss out on a talented employee, keep this in mind: there is always another competition coming down the pipeline.
Grow Your Network
As a business professional, especially a recruiter, you know just how important it is to grow your network. You aren’t doing this because you are looking for a new job right now; however, you never know what the future could bring.
Recruiters have the opportunity to network with many others, including company management, and of course, talented candidates.
This isn’t a direct benefit of working as a recruiter, but it is sure to happen over time. You might as well take full advantage, as you never know when somebody in your network will be able to provide you with some type of assistance in the future.
Access to Advanced Technology
With each passing day, recruiting technology is growing by leaps and bounds. There are applications and tools for everything from resume management to contacting and communicating with prospects. Check this amazing online applicant tracking system for more details.
In recruiting, you will be continually learning since it is one of the fastest-changing fields. This is what makes the job exciting, as you will always be utilizing new technologies and trying out different communication and hiring strategies.
This is partly because you simply can’t successfully recruit top talent with the same old techniques that your top candidates already know.
Continuing learning means that you can never stand still, but you won’t want to. You will find the new recruiting approaches to be so compelling and exciting. And fortunately, you don’t need to return to school to update your recruiting knowledge because the best recruiters learn informally on social media and the Internet.
High Potential Income
Don’t worry. We didn’t forget to talk about this aspect of being a recruiter.
Working as a recruiter is excellent since you can reach almost six-figure income only with a bachelor’s degree! Most recruiting agencies don’t require more than this, and when you combine your salary with commissions it can result in a big number.
Starting base salary for recruiters in the USA ranges between $33,000 and $55,000.
Now, if you are doing a great job and help employers hire ideal candidates, you will get a commission, and the amount of commission varies a lot. Most of the time, you will get paid around 20% of the candidate’s first-year salary.
Here are some of the ways how recruiters get paid if they are working externally, meaning for the hiring agency and not an in house HR team of a company:
- Retainer – This means that you will get paid upfront before you even start working with the client. This is more of an easy-going option.
- Contingency – Unlike the retainer, here you get paid after the candidate is landed and hired. This puts you into a competing mode since you will probably be competing with the internal HR team if there is any, and maybe even other recruiters.
- Container – With this method, you will receive half of the amount upfront and another half after the deal is sealed.
Which of these payment methods recruiters opt for depends on numerous factors. One of them is the recruiter’s preference. The other one is how the company, i.e., the client likes to operate.
The amount of money you will earn therefore depends on whether you will work inside a company or as an external recruiter.
Hint: external recruiters tend to make much more thanks to the commissions and the number of placements they have made.
Diversity
An important pro of being a recruiter is that you won’t be stuck in one industry. Therefore if you are scared of monotony and constantly looking for the same candidates, you can relax as this won’t be the case.
It is not that you can only transition into recruiting in another industry, but you can transition in other spheres, like sales or marketing.
International Experience
Thanks to the advanced and modern technologies, you are not limited to only working in your country. On the contrary, you can easily help people worldwide find their ideal jobs and employees.
This can also result in frequent traveling and even transferring to a new country for work! So this is another fact that debunks the myth of recruiting being a tedious office-ridden job.
Cons of being a recruiter
In a perfect world, everything about working as a recruiter would be sunshine and roses. In the real world, however, this is not the case.
Yes, there are more pros than cons when it comes to this career path. That being said, you still need to familiarize yourself with the potential drawbacks.
This will ensure that you know what you’re up against at every turn of the road.
No Time to Rest
As a recru