Are you looking to build your recruiting team? Employers need to know how to hire a recruiter before even having one on board.
And if you are scaling up, you should have a solid team ready to take on all of the hiring tasks. In this article, we’ll be covering how to hire in-house recruiters, specifically. It is possible to hire a recruitment agency.
But if you want a hiring team that’s integrated into your company culture and with you for the long-haul, read on.
How to hire a recruiter in 8 steps
You could be a startup and this could be your first rodeo. Or you could be a recruiter, yourself, that simply needs to scale up the HR department.
Whatever the case, you need to optimize your hiring process for recruiters. Just as you would any other role, take the time to figure out what the ideal process would look like. Consult your whole team.
If your new hire doesn’t mesh, how are they going to recruit other cultural fits?
1. Pin down your ideal recruiter
What does the ideal recruiter look like?
The definition of a good recruiter will vary from company to company. It will vary from hiring situation to hiring situation!
Your best bet is to analyze where you have gone wrong (or right) in the past. New to hiring? Take this opportunity to start with a blank slate.
Here are some characteristics to consider along the way:
- Field of specialization
- Personality and values
- Familiarity with HR tech
- Connections and experience
2. Analyze hiring volume and determine your hiring team
Are you predicting that you’ll need to scale up by 20 new hires in the months after hiring this recruiter? You may want to think about hiring more than just one.
After all, recruitment is a complicated process. This can be less daunting when tasked to an organized recruiting team.
Of course, you want to get your whole company on board, but there are certain roles within HR that should be considered. Here are some positions that you may want to open up and include in your list of ATS users:
- Recruiting coordinator
- Recruiter(s)
- HR lead
- Talent Sourcer
- Hiring Manager
- Interviewers
- Core team members
Team recruitment leads to less burnout. Set your hiring process up for success. Do a little groundwork to get the ball rolling!
Then, once your hiring team is onboarded (see step 5), you’ll already have a hand in the hiring process. Collaborating with the recruiting team leads to better hires, guaranteed.
3. Conduct collaborative interviews
Along the same lines, you can put forth a team effort during the interview process. In order to qualify candidates, you need to assess them.
This is best done by getting everyone on the team involved. If you’re an early stage startup, this means all five of you in the office.
Is your company already established and growing? Do you possibly have team members working remotely? You can still get collaborative.
Collaborative hiring works well until you have too many cooks in the kitchen. However, you’ll rarely run into that problem, so just put it to the side for now.
There are a few things you need to remember when evaluating potential recruitment hires:
- Brush up on methods of interview (not just you, your whole team).
- Get creative, but make sure each person is using a structured interview.
- Always involve those that will be directly working with the new hire.
- Keep notes in a collaborative hiring platform.
4. Run a job trial
Make sure your hiring process is up to par with what your recruiter candidates will want to work with. Sure, there’s room for improvement. That’s why you’re looking to hire a recruiter in the first place!
But try to think strategically. Would they want to conduct tests with candidates in day-to-day situations on the job? Probably.
Why not do that when hiring your recruiting team?
Once you’ve shortlisted your most promising candidates, you can invite them for a trial day. Job trials have benefits you can’t get in other parts of the hiring process, such as:
- Verification of skill and culture fit;
- Insight into the candidates’ decision-making skills;
- And a genuine experience working alongside the candidates.
But a recruitment team member that you hire would essentially be tasked with the process that you are going through now.
How do you run a trial for a recruiter? Here are a few options:
- Run a mock interview setup;
- Have them sit in on a real interview within your company;
- Or just have them hang out in the office!
Interviews are always rehearsed and show the best side of the candidate. This may be even truer when it’s a recruiter on the other side.
The best way to get to know them is to take them to a setting that will reflect their day-to-day on the job. A recruiter will likely appreciate this extra step!
5. Fine-tune onboarding your hiring team
Recruitment professionals, specifically, will know that the hiring process doesn’t stop after the job offer.
It doesn’t even stop after their first day on the job.If you ghost your newly hired recruiter(s), they will likely notice. This would reflect poorly on your company and break some expectations they had about working with you. So let’s avoid that, shall we?
Onboard your new recruitment recruits just like you would any other new hire. Here are the phases of employee onboarding (even after you hire a recruiter!):
- After you say “you’re hired!”
- Before the first day
- The first day
- First week
- The first month
- First three to six months
- The first year
Use these as a guideline to decide what you will do during that timeline (and beyond!). Create an employee onboarding checklist specifically for your new recruitment team.
Some things you’ll want to consider implementing are:
- Keeping in touch with new hires before the first day;
- Establishing expectations before, during, and after that first day;
- Briefing them on current policies, as well as places that could use improvement with their help;
- Integrating them into the company culture by including them in lunches, meetings, etc.;
- Giving them branded company products;
- Showing them the ATS and other HR tech your company uses (and asking for their opinion!);
- And keeping tabs on their work performance and progress.
6. Don’t silo your newly hired recruiting team
So you’ve done a fantastic job onboarding your recruiter and/or entire recruiting team. You still need to actively work to make sure that they are integrated into the team as a whole.
It’s sometimes the case that HR teams feel segregated from the rest of the company. While it is their job to do the recruitment, hiring, firing, etc., we’ve covered how much collaborative hiring helps in this article! You’ve learned the ropes of recruiting.
Now put it to good use.
Recruiters deal with stress from a variety of sources. The good news is that you, as the employer, can lessen their stress levels greatly.
Here are some tips to avoid siloing your hard-earned, newly hired recruiters:
- Learn the recruitment process and set realistic goals;
- Don’t put unrealistic quotas on recruiters and provide no help;
- Include them in staff meetings and address concerns promptly;
- Recognize recruiters’ successes and work together with them to figure out how to solve failures;
- Strive for quality over quantity, but still track analytics.
7. Analyze performance
Just as you would expect your new recruiters to, make sure that you follow up with employee performance measurements. Keep track of their information.
Are they bringing in quality hires? What do their HR metrics look like? How well have they fit in with the company culture? Are they satisfied?
This list of questions will be subjective to their personal experience within your company. The important thing is to align it with their current way of tracking quality of hire.
Ask them for advice, here! They’ll appreciate it.
8. Repeat when necessary!
As your company grows, you will need to up your hiring volume. Don’t hire a recruiter then put the entire workload on just them (no matter how good of a fit they turned out to be!).
Talk with them about what you want each time you hire a recruiter (emphasizing their positive qualities), and see if they agree! Start over at the beginning of this list.
You and your new recruitment team can now collaborate on hiring new recruiters. It’s an effective, collaborative cycle!
Relevant: How to become a campus recruiter
