Insider Secrets from a Recruiter: How Job Recruitment Works

If you have been in the working world, you’re likely familiar with a recruiter. You’ve either utilized a recruiter’s services or have had one reach out to you wishing you would.

Here’s everything you might want to know about recruiters from a long-time recruiter.

Why should you work with a recruiter?

Recruiters have solid and long-term relationships with corporate human resource professionals and hiring managers. They also often have access to confidential jobs that can’t be found on job boards.

Good recruiters understand the company’s culture and are familiar with the personalities and expectations of the interviewers. The best recruiters will help you prepare for the job interview, guide you through the process, serve as your liaison, and even help negotiate a competitive job offer.

Do recruiters work for the company or the job candidate?

Recruiters generally work on behalf of the company. Agency or external recruiters who don’t work at that company typically get paid a placement fee or commission. They only get paid when their candidate accepts a job offer, starts at the company, and stays there for a particular time.

Think of recruiters as matchmakers who need to make both the job candidate and company happy to successfully make a placement or hire.

The recruiting business is incredibly competitive and can be brutal. The vast majority of recruiters work on a contingency basis. This means that a recruiter could invest an incredible amount of time, energy and resources, but if they don’t produce the winning candidate, the recruiter and their firm will not receive any financial remuneration.

What is it like to be a recruiter?

A typical recruiter might be given a job requisition from a company and three to 10 other recruiting or staffing agencies. Simultaneously, the company will post the job on its internal job board, LinkedIn and other job sites.

It is a race to find the best candidate before anyone else.

Recruiters spend hours scouring job boards and internal candidate databases, reviewing hundreds of resumes and LinkedIn profiles. After finding a slate of suitable candidates, the recruiter meets with them to ensure that they have the appropriate interpersonal and social skills plus the appropriate resume.

Why did a recruiter stop responding to me or ghost me?

If you got the brush-off from a recruiter, it was most likely because they did not have a relevant job for you at the time. It is no disrespect to you; the recruiter just couldn’t help you at that time.

The recruiting business is survival of the fittest, and recruiters will jump through helps to help you and get your resume to the client company before the competition if you’re a fit for the role.

Successful recruiters spend their time searching for the perfect person for the job. Any time they spend not completing this task can be wasted time. They could end up not placing anyone and not getting paid anything for their work.

Jack Kelly is the founder, CEO and executive recruiter at one of the oldest and largest global search firms. He has placed thousands of professionals with top-tier companies for more than 20 years.

This article was written by Jack Kelly for Forbes and was lightly edited and published with permission.