Want to be the best recruiter in Australia? Here’s the formula

16 Aug, 2017

Ambitious people strive to be the best they can be. The same is true for recruitment professionals with high aspirations – they ask themselves, "How can I become a great recruiter in Australia?" Though everyone has a different approach, there are a few important ingredients that must be added to the formula in order to truly excel as a recruiter.

Greg Savage, Australia's resident recruitment guru, claims that these three components are the key to being the best possible recruiter – and many other industry professionals agree with him. Want to know his secret? Here it is.

1. Be active

Recruiters must be active. That means actively going out and chasing leads, networking, following up with candidates, getting to know clients – just constantly being on the move. Many recruiters build their candidate bases and then sit back, thinking, "Great – now the hard work is done." As a recruiter, the work is never done.

If you find yourself spending significant amounts of time sitting idly by at any point during the day, you might need to rethink your approach. Being active requires effort, so look up some networking events to go to, or create some engaging content – the more activity you involve yourself in, the more likely you'll be to strike gold at some point.

Luckily, many recruiters don't have any trouble being active – we tend to be full of energy, constantly looking for the next lead that could uncover our new star candidate. However, activity of the wrong kind can lead recruiters on a wild goose chase where they spend hours upon hours and get nothing in return. For that reason, you must also consider the next secret ingredient.

2. Act with quality

Being active is a key part of successfully recruiting, but that activity must be of high quality. Spending hours cold-calling or email-spamming an enormous list of potential candidates? That won't get you anywhere. Engaging in quality activity means creating genuine relationships, only spending time at events that are worth going to and making every person you interact with feel acknowledged and appreciated.

According to Greg Savage, acting with quality means developing your own skills – interpersonal, networking, communication, persuasion and more. If you're 'actively' recruiting, but haven't perfected your own approach, you won't be nearly as effective as you could be. Finally, it's important to take these quality actions and point them in the best direction.

3. Engage with the right people

One of the most common (and tragic) mistakes Australian recruiters make is focusing their efforts on quantity of candidates and not quality. Many industry professionals agree that, while it's important to get out there and be active in seeking new candidates, honing in on a select few will be more rewarding in the long term.

"Recruiting isn't about large numbers – it's about one right employer and one right candidate!" claims Recruitment Systems CEO Neil Bolton. "If you're writing ads which return two hundred applicants, then your ads need to be better targeted."

Making sure that you're emphasising quality over quantity in your daily activities will help you maintain focus on what really matters: finding the one perfect hire for your client. For more tips on becoming a great recruiter in Australia, or to learn about how a recruitment software can help you, reach out to a representative at Recruitment Systems today.