A recruitment consultant acts as a conduit between a company wanting to identify, choose, and hire an employee and an individual job seeker looking for a job.
The above definition, though true, is a simple version of the multifaceted role recruitment consultants play. To understand what such a professional truly does, it’s vital to notice what different things the person handles.
The Job of a Recruitment Consultant
A recruitment consultant performs multiple duties and handles different responsibilities to act as a link between companies and potential candidates. Understanding these duties and responsibilities can help you answer the question, “what is a recruitment consultant, and what does he/she do?”
Here are some key duties and responsibilities a recruitment consultant typically performs:
- Leverage professional networks to locate viable companies and persuade them to externalise their hiring procedure
- Conduct extensive research on client companies and their open posts to get a better idea of their corporate profile, internal work culture, the standards new hires must meet, and other relevant information
- Make regular visits to client companies to build a positive working relationship
- Research candidate databases to find suitable candidates (both active and passive job seekers) for open positions and contact them
- Use different media and platforms like newspapers, TV, websites, social media, and networking events to advertise open positions of client companies
- Plan and execute a sustainable applicant lead strategy
- Review prospective candidates’ resumes and cover letters
- Provide prospective candidates with adequate information about the open positions and their respective hiring companies
- Request references and examine the job applicants’ suitability prior to submitting their details to client companies
- Organise tests and interviews to evaluate the suitability of prospective candidates and short-list the most appropriate ones
- Contact and communicate with candidates after their interview results are finalised to discuss the next steps in the recruitment process
- Negotiate employee salaries as well as compensation and job benefits as told by client companies
- Act as a mediator for any negotiation between employers and their prospective hires regarding salary, benefits, compensation, and continued learning, training, and career advancement opportunities
- Re-examine and improve the recruitment policies of client companies to ensure a larger number of proposed candidates are hired by them
- Work towards and exceed targets that could be linked to the value to be billed to client companies, the number of candidates placed, or business leads generated
Why Your Company Needs to Engage Recruitment Consultants
Running a business involves managing several things. When you add recruitment to the mix, it can mean investing precious work hours to handle multiple things – from browsing and short-listing resumes to conducting interviews, running background checks, seeking references, and a lot more. And despite all that’s necessary, your company’s HR team may still fall short of finding the best talents.
A much better, faster, and more effective route is to hire an experienced recruitment consultant with a good track record and preferably, the experience of helping companies similar to yours or working in the same industry.
This will help you free precious human resources and work hours that can be invested to focus on, strengthen, and grow your core business areas.
Qualifications of Successful Recruitment Consultants
Though recruitment consultant roles are open to graduates, irrespective of their degree subject, it’s more about their drive, skills and abilities, on-the-job experience, and determination to succeed that counts.
If your company is looking to engage a recruitment consultant, it would be prudent to consider the above factors instead of solely focusing on the person’s educational qualifications (graduation or post-graduation). However, there’s no harm in looking for degree subjects that are relevant to the industry or job roles you want to hire candidates for.
For instance, to recruit for IT roles, recruitment consultants with a degree in software engineering or other IT-related fields could be more suitable to hire than one with a degree in arts and no experience in hiring for these roles.
Skills to Possess for a Recruitment Consultant
To become a successful recruitment consultant, the person should ideally have the following skills:
- Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills
- A goal-orientated mindset to work
- Sales and negotiation skills
- Problem-solving capability
- The ability to multitask and handle several priorities
- A strong drive to succeed
- The capability to meet targets and deadlines
- Self-motivation and confidence
- Tenacity
- Excellent time management and organisational skills
- A creative bent of mind and the ability to think of and execute out-of-the-box ideas, if needed
- Teamwork
- The aptitude and ability to handle a high-pressure environment and related responsibilities
Work Experience a Recruitment Consultant Should Have
Those with work experience in marketing, sales, or any other customer-oriented roles are found to excel as recruitment consultants. However, when hiring a consultant to handle your company’s recruitment needs, you should also look for the requisite skills and personal qualities required in this field.
If you find a professional who exhibits the right blend of skills and personal qualities (such as strong networking skills, integrity, foresight, marketing techniques, efficient expectation management, etc.), you could consider hiring that person.
Salary of a Recruitment Consultant
Salaries of recruitment consultants vary across locations, sectors, and sales performance, but usually include a basic salary in addition to a performance-related commission or bonus.
For your company, you could either hire an individual recruitment consultant, a team of recruitment consultants, or one of the leading recruitment agencies that have these professionals on their roster.
Final Words
A recruitment consultant can advise your company on the best practices for sourcing, attracting, and hiring the best-fit applicants for its open positions. If your company is struggling to find the right candidates for its vacant posts or needs a helping hand for its HR department to streamline the hiring process, you should engage a recruitment consultant without any further delay.
This article was written by Sonali