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 recruiter, there is no time to sit back and rest. Instead, you go hard one day after the next. Sure, you will get used to this over time, but it could lead to burnout at some point if you don’t watch what you are doing.
Fortunately, there are time management tips you can follow to help you avoid trouble in this area. For example, we share the following advice in regards to saving time by creating a target candidate profile.
If you haven’t already, create a target candidate profile that includes things like important experience, personality traits, preferred management styles, motivational factors, location, etc.
This will help you develop a clear, definable, and fair tactic for considering candidates. You will end up spending less time deciding on and less time justifying your candidate selection with this profile.
Make sure when you create this profile to further save yourself time by prioritizing the most important things to look for in a candidate. You don’t want to be too rigid about it because you might overlook qualified candidates and end up spending unnecessary time looking for someone else. Still, you do want to have a targeted idea of who to pursue in the first place.
Although there’s a lot expected of you, there are ways to combat concerns regarding time management.
Intense Competition
This is something we discussed above, noting that it is a benefit to many recruiters. If you enjoy the thrill of competing against others, you’ll fall in love with working as a recruiter.
But remember, this can also be a bad thing in some cases. There will always be somebody waiting around the corner, doing his or her best to steal a qualified candidate from under your nose.
The best thing you can do is realize that the competition will always be there. When you come to this conclusion, it’s much easier to focus on what you do best and let everything fall into place.
Tip: don’t spend so much time watching your competitors that you overlook what you should be doing yourself.
Big Expectations
Simply put, you are expected to perform at a high level. Your company needs you to find the best talent, and this is a big responsibility.
Yes, this means there will be a lot of pressure on you. And yes, there will be times when you are unsure of yourself. Even so, this is something you will get used to dealing with over time.
Once you know the expectations that have been placed upon you, it’s easier to set a schedule and follow through with steps that allow you to reach and exceed these.
Big expectations are all a part of working as a recruiter. It’s not always easy to reach your quota and keep everyone happy, but there is a lot of joy in doing so.
You Must Find the Best Talent
As a recruiter, your primary responsibility is to find the best talent. There is no way around this. No matter what you do, you need to locate the candidates who are the best fit for your company or client.
This goes along with being able to deal with the daily pressure of working as a recruiter.
If you want to find the best talent, time and time again, you need a system that allows you to do just that. For example, you should rely on technology to provide assistance. Along with this, you should be open to all means of locating the best candidates, even if it means doing something that you don’t have experience with.
The more time you spend as a recruiter, the easier it becomes to settle on a plan for not only finding the best talent but providing enough reasons for them to consider your offer.
What Do You Think About Pros and Cons of Being a Recruiter?
With all these pros and cons of being a recruiter in mind, you have to make your own decision regarding your thoughts on the future.
Do you like the idea of working as a recruiter for a very long time? Would you rather opt for another career?
Once again, it’s our opinion that the benefits of working as a recruiter outweigh any drawbacks. Just like every career, you need to take the good with the bad.
We know that there are many challenges facing recruiters, including the fact that you may not be fully aware of what you’re up against. Consider this passage from a recent blog post on sales recruitment techniques:
Many busy or uninformed recruiters think they can succeed by simply whipping up a quick job advertisement and shooting out some cookie-cutter emails that say, “This job is available.” While this “technique” saves you time in the short term, but it costs you in the long term because it takes you much longer to find quality candidates. In fact, you may run candidates off.
Clients don’t always jump at our first candidate selection either. What if you know this candidate is great? Perhaps you simply aren’t selling them well enough. It’s something to try anyway. If you sell a great candidate well and the client still doesn’t want them, maybe you and the client aren’t on the same page.
This is why you need to fully understand the pros and cons of this career and what’s expected of you on a daily basis.
Conclusion
Did you know that there are hundreds of thousands of employment agency and recruiting professionals in the United States?
This is a big number, but there is always room for one more. Just the same as the rest of these professionals, once you understand the pros and cons of being a recruiter, you can make the most of every day!
Being a Recruiter Was Never Easier!
Using the right online recruiting software for your business can save you lots of time and money!
You won’t need to waste time on repetitive tasks that can be ea