I have been pondering this question lately. Recruiting is a very diverse industry, with everything from free-wheeling high performance "mavericks" to low key HR generalists that act as the recruiter for their small organization. Recently I have been observing someone enter to the world of corporate recruiting coming from a vastly different background. This person is taking over an internal client organization from someone with a much different recruiting style. I think about the best recruiters I know, and the commonalities they have that make them successful, both at the agency and corporate level.

I did a stint as an agency recruiter, and wasn't very thrilled with the experience, but it *did* teach me about fast turn-around and high volume recruiting. When I went into the corporate arena, I saw non-agency experienced corporate recruiters buckling under what I considered to be a relatively light workload. I truly believe that an agency is a great training ground and that almost any good recruiter should have some experience in that respect. That being said, what are the personality traits that make a good recruiter?

Obviously, people skills. Dealing with both candidates and hiring managers. Attention to detail and being able to handle multiple demands at once. The ability to prioritize and move in a changeable environment.

So then we get to process. Agency recruiting, be it either contract or direct placement, has a much different set of needs than corporate recruiting. Often that includes a sales or business development aspect to it, which isn't a factor in corporate recruiting. So along with generating new business, there is the need for quick turn around and finding candidates that are going to fit the general position profile. I think even with high-end clients it's less about a "good fit" than a "generally good fit" (with the exception of the Executive Search). Does this person, on paper, meet the basic requirements as laid out in the job description? This is where the high volume component comes in. Learning to read resumes quickly, define in general terms what the client seems to be looking for, getting resumes in front of the hiring manager. In my agency days, the phrases were "turn and burn" and "Give me seventy" (percent), screen in versus screen out. For me, this mentality was not a good fit, because I'm more interested in getting quality over quantity in front of a hiring manager. I worked hard with my managers to understand what they were looking for, and I tried to make sure that my candidates felt that they were going into a job interview for a job they really wanted and would excel at, rather than a warm body to fill a short-term contract need. I also didn't do well in the highly competitive environment where recruiters "hoarded" their candidates. I'm much more about doing what's best overall rather than what's best for *me*. There were some great recruiters that thrived in that environment, and are still there today. But the lesson I learned for myself is that it's much more important for me to feel as if I can do a good job for my two clients - the candidate and the hiring manager.

Being a contractor myself, I've been sent on interviews by agencies that have no idea what the actual job is, or they don't give me the right job description, or even where eveyrone on the interview loop has a different idea of the role they want me to fill. (My favorite is the one where I met with five people and each one believed I would be a 50% of the time resource for them each...yeah, the math doesn't compute.) This particular experience has taught me invaluable lessons as a candidate that I can apply as a recruiter. I hope that empathy makes me a better recruiter in the end.