What Do Recruiters Do?

This is such a broad question that it would probably be best broken up into several sections. And you could even write a few different posts covering each aspect. But, since I like to be fast and to the point, I’m going to try and cover it all in one single and relatively short blog post.

Once you’re through reading this you should know exactly what a recruiter does. As well as what they don’t do.

This is going to save you endless wasted hours engaging with recruiters trying to get them to do things that they simply don’t do.

Let’s start with the simplest thing first.

What Recruiters Don’t Do

First, it’s important to recognize what recruiters do not do. This is a major issue for many people. And because of the misunderstanding, they end up wasting hours of their life when they could have simply avoided it if they simply researched ahead of time.

Recruiters Are Not Career Coaches

This is the first thing most people don’t understand. A recruiter is not paid to help you think about your career switch. That’s on you. A recruiter is not someone who can help you transition from a career as a medical receptionist to one as a pr executive. That’s not in their power. There are people who help with that, but you pay them. They are called career counselors (and most of them are scammers, to be clear).

Recruiters Are Not Job Counselors

Sometimes the terms are interchangeable, but sometimes people prefer one over the other, so I include this here as well to stress the fact that a recruiter is not there to guide you on your career track. They are not paid job counselors.

The only people who will do that are those who are paid either by the person seeking help (a bad idea in most cases) or by a college or school the person attends (and most job counselors at schools are woefully inexperienced in the real world job place and haven’t a clue. I won’t even begin to mention the non-profit sector career counselors who are for all intents and purposes completely incapable of doing real guidance.

Recruiters Are Not Resume Writers

While most people would presumably understand this, not everyone does. In fact, I know many recruiters who would routinely be tasked by their managers to revise resumes. This was sector specific, of course. So, if you are a recruiter who is working with laborers or medical staff, you can be expected to write and create resumes. A medical professional is unlikely to have written their own resume, in most cases they are created by a “job counselor” paid by the training academy they attended, be it a nursing program or a medical assistants program.

However, if you do not happen to fall into those sectors, and you think a recruiter will revise and tweek your resume, think again. The demand for medical personnel is so great that recruiters will jump through hoops for them. Whereas, administrative and executive personal are expected to be able to handle their own administrative tasks.

It’s not the job of a recruiter to tell you that a resume should be written in the past tense. If you don’t know how to properly write a resume, then the recruier will pass you by.

Recruiters Are Not Going Get You A Job You Don’t Deserve or that Doesn’t Exist

This is the biggest pet peeve of recruiters everywhere. The entitled attitude and sheer ignorance of the job market from people. If you are not qualified, or if there is  no job available on the requestion desk, then a recruiter cannot help you.

If you have just graduated from a mediocre college, have no real job experience (internships no longer cut it) and are seeking a prestigious “entry level” role in a major company with a full time salary and benefits, then most recruiters can’t help you. Sadly, those jobs do not hire “new grads” and they also don’t require recruiters.  Firms that have spots open for basically untested and untrained staff (where the salary and benefits are great) fill those roles with friends, family, and otherwise in-house.

Recruiters are used to staff the hard to fill roles. These include temporary roles without health insurance or benefits, or mid level lor executive level roles where the candidate selection is extremely rigorous.

Recruiters don’t lie. If they have a job for you, they will try and get you that job. But they are not hiding jobs from people.

Any company who wants to hire a marketing assistant, or a pr assistant, or a general administrative assistant would never need to use a recruiting agency if the job started off full time. They would have an abundance of candidates apply. The only time a recruiter would be involved would be to weed through the irrelevant resumes and select the best candidate (the one with the most experience, who would work for the least pay…sad but true).

Additionally, if the recruiter is only working on executive assistant roles, and a nurse keeps calling them, they cannot help the nurse. Nurses cannot move into the executive assist role, just as an e.a. would not be able to float to the ICU wing. The nurse might be incensed about the recruiter not being able to help them, but the fact is that recruiters have to work with the roles they have available.

If you do not fit into the roles that the recruiter is staffing for, you should not waste your time (not to mention theirs).

What Do Recruiters Do Then?

Ok, so now that we’ve discussed what recruiters don’t do let’s talk about what they do do!

Recruiters Give You Direct Access To Hiring Managers

This is one of the key things that recruiters can do. They can help you access hiring managers who you might otherwise never be able to reach. This is accomplished a few different ways.

First, many companies simply do not have adequate hiring managers or internal HR staff. This leads them to have a backlog when it comes to staffing their positions. And this is the reason why they then reach out to a recruiting firm and engage their services. It is a major reason why you should use a recruiter instead of reaching out to a company directly.

Speak to any recruiter and you will hear stories about hiring managers who simply do not work. They are normally in HR and their jobs seem to consist of endless lunches and meetings where they are not reachable. Of course, the company still needs to have staff, so someone has to fill the role. And that’s where the recruiter comes in.

Oftentimes the HR hiring team is lazy. It’s a harsh assessment, but if they weren’t then there would be no cause for recruiting companies to exist. And so what happens quite often is that the HR lead will simply reach out to a recruiter to send them the best candidates. Even if the company has their own ads posted on Indeed, the HR and internal company recruiting team simply might never check the emails or look at the resumes.

Recruiters Can Get You In With Companies That Don’t Advertise

In many cases a company simply won’t advertise their open jobs online or on their website. This might be for a few reasons. A common refrain that recruiters hear is that Indeed and other job sites simply have too high a signal to noise ratio. People who are totally unskilled can apply for a job.

Even those who are qualified oftentimes are never reachable. The process of recruiting and screening people is all encompassing. Many firms simply do not want to spend precious work hours screening and sourcing for new employees. They would rather go with a good recruiting firm and pick the best of the best.

This is more likely to occur with small and mid sized companies. Larger firms with thousands of employees tend to not use outside recruiting agencies. This is simply because they have their own huge talent acquisition teams in place. There is redundancy built in. For instance, if you want to get a job at a huge tech company, then they likely will process you through their own internal talent acquisition team.

A Recruiter Can Work For You—No Cost Searching

There is no cost to using a recruiter. If you do find a recruiter who is charging you, walk away. They are not a reputable firm. Recruiters don’t charge you to find them work.

The simple fact is that a recruiter is going to cost you nothing, so there is no downside engaging with one who might have a job opening in the future.

As we discussed above, you do not want to waste their time, or give a bad impression. But if you do connect with a recruiter who seems like they might potentially have a job opening for you, then there is little downside in connecting and briefly discussing roles.

You won’t pay the recruiter anything, and as long as you keep your discussion brief and emails to them short and non-offensive, then there is no problem.

Think of a recruiter as a tool. They will only work with you if you can make them money. There is nothing else relevant. So do not feel offended if they don’t call back. It’s simply that they do not have a role that you will fit into.

I cover this recruiting myth more extensively elsewhere (the idea that recruiters are gatekeepers who keep you away from certain jobs).

What Do Recruiters Do For Companies

While most people reading this are likely looking for a job, there are people on the other end. Employers looking for staff. And they are also likely wondering what recruiters can do for their situation.

Well, recruiters serve an important role when it comes to staffing an open role.

As you’ve probably guessed, recruiters can weed through the endless supply of unqualified applicants.

If you have an open spot on your team for someone who can handle social media, and who has experience managing account relations, then you don’t want to waste time with someone who has  zero relevant experience with either. But if you post an ad online then you’re going to get a lot of applicants who are simply sending out their resume to every single ad they see.

Every recruiter has the same general horror stories after a while. They see people with no college degree who have worked in medical offices as secretaries apply to be Marketing executives. People who work in warehouses who apply to work as Registered Nurses in the NICU. There is no shortage of delusional people, or people who simply do not read ads.

And once you’re past that hurdle, you have to reach out and connect with the resumes of people who are relevant and many of them are simply not available. They don’t answer their phone, respond to emails, or seem to exist  at all. The time wasted screening through endless resumes and then vetting them and selecting only the quality and responsive people is worth the price recruiting agencies charge.