Skills of effective Recruiters

In this posting, I am going to write about certain important skills required for a recruiter. Recruitment is often thought to be one of the easiest job but in reality, it’s one of the challenging and critical jobs.

As a recruiter, you don’t just forward job spec, get some CVs from your vendors and line up the candidates. If it’s just that, it’s a post-man’s job and there is no value addition from HR or recruitment perspective.

But it’s just not that and much more than that.

So what more an effective recruiter does or what more you need to know and do to be an effective recruiter?

Let us look at some of the important skills that any good recruiter should necessarily have and try to refine & hone such skills on an on-going basis.

# Business knowledge: This is the first and foremost skill that you need to have. You need to know the Business that you (your company) specializes in, Business specific skills required for various roles and at various levels across the Organization. You need to know your competitors, they hiring models & practices, comp & Ben policies etc., It’s not for copying for what they do but for you to know where you stand, ie., are you ahead of them or behind them.

#Network: Networking is all about knowing all the relevant stake holders that you need to know to get things done effectively and quickly. Wider and bigger the network, the easier it is to tap and identify that talent that you are looking for.

It’s another important skill that any recruiter should necessarily have. What a riffle is to a solder, networking is to a good recruiter. So if you don’t have a good network, you are like a soldier without a riffle.

For example, when you want to initiate campus connect programs with colleges, a recruiter who has good rapport with all the placement officers of your target colleges can drive your initiative much more effectively than someone with poor network.

With good network, you can easily accomplish what hundred follow-ups cannot do.

That’s why, as far as recruitment role goes, it’s always a good idea hire someone from the same region with good network rather than an out-station candidate

Expertise and Consulting role: When you get a job spec for a particular position, you just cannot immediately start sourcing or give it to your vendor.

You need to review it with the Manager concerned (the one who gives the job spec) and you should be able to evaluate it in terms of availability of such talent in the market, its demand in the market, cost range etc. and you should be able to refine the job specs. You may suggest to your Manager as to what needs to be defined as a mandatory skill and optional skills

This is the first step for effective sourcing and if the spec is incorrect, all the sourcing efforts will go waste and you would lose the precious time. Your sourcing effectiveness depends a lot on how clear

# Culture: No recruiter will look for the best candidate, rather he will look for the right candidate not just in terms of skills but in terms of cultural fitment and adaptability. The recruiter should understand the culture of his  organization in terms of certain behavioral traits and values required and look for such qualities in the prospective new hires. You should also know how to assess those qualities through effective behavioral interviews.

A good recruiter needs to have certain behavioral traits necessarily such as

Very good interpersonal skills and consulting skills - as you would have to work with many people probably at sr. levels and suggest changes without rubbing them on the wrong side,

Result-orientation since recruitment is also like marketing in a way that you need to close all the positions within the SLA. What matters more is the results than the efforts.

Very good co-ordination skills as you need to co-ordinate with many stake holders internally and externally as well.

Hope this posting was information. Do share your feedback and comments.

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Management lessons from Driving-4

Here goes one last write-up on the same topic, Management lessons from Driving. Hope you would enjoy reading it.

# Changing gears and learning – both are step by step process

You are in a hurry and to drive fast, can you start with 5^th gear?

No. It’s not possible.

You need to start with 1^st gear and then change the gear up. It’s a step-by-step process.

Similarly, to give an example, you cannot become an effective communicator or leader overnight.

Any skill that you need to develop is also a step-by-step process and it goes though the competency development cycle. There is no shortcut to it and you need to be prepared to pull up your sleeves and work hard. That’s how you can reach the 5^th gear, your peak performance.

# Maintain a safe distance with other vehicles and your colleagues too.

A reasonable distance is better to maintain for a safety and any breach will not always result in accident. But when an accident take places, it could be due to breach of this distance.

At workplace, you need to work as a team players and you need to do everything possible and required as a team member. But, what you need to understand is your office colleagues are colleagues not your friends. There is a world of difference between these two and you need to know what you can share and what you shall not share with your colleague on the personal front.

When you do this, you don’t turn a good colleague into a bad friend and a good colleague continues to be a good colleague. It’s good for you, for your team and the Organization.

# Indicators and our work-style – both needs to be Proactive

Indicators need to be used proactively, not at the time of taking a turn, so you give sufficient notice to the others driving along on the road. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose.

Similarly, even at workplace, you need to be proactive and anticipate bottlenecks to finishing your project, find solutions and finish the project on time.  Reactive approach will not serve the purpose and it will show you as a poor executive or Manager. Let us be proactive.

# Vehicle maintenance and skill improvement – both are continuous process and not a one-time affair

You will always be in for a surprise, a bad surprise if you don’t maintain your car on a periodic basis. You would not know when your car will stop or it can stop when you need it the most.

Similarly, you need to keep building your competencies required to succeed in your career. It’s said that you need to keep running to stay where you are. Competency building is a continuous process and not a one-time affair.

# You need to fill gas however busy you are

Let us say you have a pressing priority that cannot wait but you realize that fuel is less in your car.

Guess what, you would have stop the car in the nearby fuel bunk and if you don’t fill gap, the vehicle will stop, even if it were to be Lamborghini.

So this takes a first priority over your pressing priority that you thought cannot wait. 

Similarly, however busy you are on the professional front, there are certain things that you need to necessary take care of on the personal front like Your Health, your family, work-life balance and things that are closer to your heart – hobby that you are passionate about. These are things that fuel our motivation and morale. This help us charge our batteries to perform much more effectively at workplace and both are equally important. One cannot be at the cost the other. It’s all about prioritizing.

So let us charge out Batteries on an on-going basis.

Hope you enjoyed reading this series of postings.  Do share your feedback and comments. 

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Management lessons from Driving-3

Here goes one more writing on the same topic, Management lessons from Driving. Do check it out and leave your comments.

# Change gears to drive faster- learn more to grow in executive ladder:

If you want drive faster, you know that you need to press the accelerator pedal down. But, it would not help even if you keep pressing it all the way down to the floor if you are not changing the gear up. You would rather end up burning more fuel, burning your engine and will not achieve what you want to. So the key lies in changing gears appropriately and not just pressing the accelerator hard.

Even at workplace, you cannot keep doing the same thing over and again and expect to grow up. You need to enrich your role on a regular basis, be open to take new tasks and assignments and ensure that you pick up all the skills required to grow. If you do the same thing for a year, your experience is one year. If you keep repeating what you did for another 9 years, your experience is not 10 years, it’s still only one year and the remaining 9 years are more of repetitive experience.

# Unleash your car power - Turn your talent into performance

How does it feel to have brand new Lamborghini in your Garage? Nothing less than being on top of the world.

What if you don’t know that your new car can do 500 to 600 HP and hit 0-100 in 3 to 4 seconds. (Lack of awareness) OR

What if you don’t know how to handle your car? (Lack of skills) OR

What if you are not keen to drive the way it has to be driven ? (Lack of interest – Attitude)

It does not make any sense to own a Lamborghini and you can very well have an Alto.

Similarly, even at workplace, it does not matter how talented you are and what matters is your performance.  You need to realize what your potentials are, pick up skills required to grow up with utmost determination and commitment and show performance.

You need to perform well and demonstrate your performance consistently. Even if you are highly talented but your performance is just meeting expectation, it’s as good as driving your Lamborghini as 40KM per hour.

So unleash your true potential and demonstrate consistent performance at Workplace.

# Blow your horn – Blow your trumpet

The horn that you have in your car is not any kind of musical instrument and it certainly adds to the noise pollution. However, you need to use when it’s required and whenever it’s absolutely required.

Similarly in Corporates, if you are not getting recognized for what you do, you don’t have to wait indefinitely or feel victimized. This will affect your morale.

May be your boss was busy or it was not intentional that he just missed or may be he missed it intentionally. Irrespective of whatever be the case, you should not hesitate blowing your own trumpet and getting yourself recognized.

The caution is you should do it only when it’s required.  Overusing it for your personal advantage will result in noise pollution at Workplace and it will never be appreciated.

Be cautious but don’t hesitate to blow your own trumpet if you genuinely deserve it. (BTW, This is called as “positive stroke” in transactional Analysis which means asking for positive compliment when it’s not given) 

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Management lessons from Driving-2

Here goes one more posting on Management lessons from Driving. Do check this out and leave your comments. 

# Safe Driving and Good performance at workplace – both are everyday affair: 

You could have many more years of experience in driving and when you drive for the day, what matters is how you drive NOW and not how you’ve driven in the past. Past is history and it will not save you if you were to make a mistake today.

That’s how things are even in corporates and it’s very competitive. It does matter how well we performed in the past but it matters very less. You are expected to perform and give your best every day.  On the other hand, even if there is no such expectation, that’s what you need to do if you want to be honest to your employer and grow fast in your career.

“So yesterdays’ performance is history and what matters is how well you perform today”.

# You need a brake to not only slow down the speeding car but even when you become overconfident

What would you prefer to drive? BMW or Maruti Alto.

If you had said BMW, hold on for a min and let me share the missing piece of information.

BMW has NO Break and Maruti ALTO has a Brake.

You need a break to slow down /when you are over-speeding even if it’s a BMW or Merc. It’s a suicide to drive a vehicle without a brake. It’s not just suicide. You may also mow down the people on the road if you don’t have a brake.

Even at workplace, you need to have restraint or control and should not become overconfident however competent we are. Over-confidence and arrogance are like driving a car that has no brake and it’s a sure recipe for killing your career. Over-confident and arrogant Bosses and colleagues demotivate others too in the Organization.

So, never become overconfident however competent you are. Remember, no one is indispensable; Overconfident employees are the most dispensable ones even if there were to be in indispensable roles or positions.

# Love driving, not necessarily your vehicle- love your job, not necessarily your Organization.

You certainly love your car and I would be absolutely wrong in saying you don’t love your car. But then, when it gets old, you exchange it for a new car and start loving your new car. So what happened to the love affair that you had for previous car!! So you got my point. 

More than the car, it’s actually driving that you love and the love that you have for the car is not permanent.

Similarly, what you need to focus is your career, not necessarily where you work. Some of the important indicators that you need to look at are

1) Are you learning enough and on a continuous basis? Is your learning curve going up steadily?

2) Are you doing what you wanted to do so everything that you do on a day-to-day basis helps to reach your bigger goals?

3) Is your experience adding up to your employability and demand in the market?

If the answer is no, there is nothing wrong in looking for a better opportunity.   BTW, I am not suggesting job-hopping here and it’s not a sustainable career plan. It’s short-term and it’s not worth taking this risk.

diD yOU enJOY ReADinG ThIS ArTIcLE? 

                                  If yES, 

yOU maY sHAre it wiTH Your FriENds tOO