The 5 qualities that every great recruiter needs to possess

Like all sales professions, recruitment is one of those industries in which talented individuals can fast track to success at a very young age. However, this success doesn’t come easily and recruitment can be a challenging profession to choose. If you want to get ahead, these are the qualities that you’ll need to possess.

1. The ability to get on with people

All sales professions are fundamentally people professions. And in recruitment, this is even more so, as you are selling people to people! This can be difficult, as each candidate and client that you work with will be changeable and in many ways, not 100% reliable. You need to understand and relate to any product that you sell, so in recruitment, you must relate to the people that you work with. Over time, great recruiters become adept at reading body language and picking up subliminal messages, and they learn so much about their clients’ industries that they can far better meet their needs intuitively. To succeed, focus on your people skills and continue to invest in them.

2. A great work ethic

Yes, this industry is hard – so you have to work. In the early stages of your career in particular, you will have to work intensely and for long hours. The job will never be a standard 9-5 and this is one of the things that tends to attract high-flyers. Remember that a lot of your most valuable calls will naturally happen after 5 pm, when people are free. When your candidates have finished their work, you will start yours. Work harder than your colleagues and you will fly ahead.

3. A quick-thinking mind

In recruitment, the job changes every day and all seasoned recruiters will agree that they constantly experience fresh situations all of the time, even after years of working in their role. This means that you need to be able to think quickly and creatively; responding to situations as they occur and anticipating situations that are likely to happen. This will allow you to always have a solution in place.

4. An adaptable nature

People constantly change their minds and you’ll need to adapt accordingly. Yes, even the most promising and solid looking candidates will let you down and go elsewhere at the last minute. You can get stressed about it or you can simply look for solutions and handle each situation in the best possible way. Lots of things will go wrong in this job, but you have to keep looking forward and finding ways to secure the best possible outcome for your client. Adapt and you’ll thrive. Get stuck in negativity, and you simply won’t succeed.

5. Persistence

Recruiters need an edge – but this doesn’t mean that they need to be ruthless and hard-nosed. Instead, you must have a degree of persistence within a professional capacity. This means making calls even when you are being ignored. It means pushing back when you need to. It also means disagreeing with candidates or clients, in a professional way, when you need to, to offer the best possible service. You can’t give up in recruitment if you want to get ahead.

So over to you, can you say that you display these characteristics?