3 Traits to Look For When Hiring Recruiters

The most common traits I hear discussed when talking about what makes a good recruiter tend to sound the same: personable, friendly, people-person, good communicator.

At the risk of being contrarian, I have to disagree. You might hire a (insert above adjective here) recruiter once, but you will hire over and over again a recruiter who delivers. At RockIT, we have identified three traits we equate with delivery: organization, attention to detail, and the ability to prioritize their time.

When we are hiring, as we are now, we look for folks with some technical background, or 1-2 years of experience recruiting in any domain. So how do you accurately assess and compare candidates who have little or no recruiting experience?

We stay away from experience-based questions, focusing on situational questions that will highlight whether someone understands how to organize their efforts and prioritize the best use of their time, These questions are along these lines:

You are going to start a recruiting company, where do you start? (Don’t worry about the operational aspects of starting a business.)
You have two clients hiring ASAP, what factors do you consider to decide how to focus your time?
What conversations would you have with your candidate before and after an interview?

Of course we expect more experienced candidates to answer more thoroughly, but these questions allow us to assess whether candidates at any level have the “Big 3” (organization, ATD, prioritization).

We also ask questions around favorite start-ups and interesting areas of technology, because we strongly believe that it is important to have a curiosity for the subject matter you are recruiting for.

Being friendly, personable and nice are all good traits to have, but more for the sake of building a team that is fun to work with than hiring a successful recruiter. Hiring for a culture fit is another post for another time, but we hope that making videos like this which display our working style will help us identify the right fit through natural selection.

If you would like to learn more about our process for hiring recruiters contact me at cody@rockitrecruiting.com.