What Is A Recruitment Consultant: A Comprehensive Guide
Both individuals and businesses can benefit from the services of a recruitment consultant. Whether you need help finding a job or finding employees, a recruitment consultant or talent acquisition specialist can help and support you through the entire process.
They offer practical guidance, attract candidates for particular roles and match candidates with the right available roles. Knowing what a recruitment company does can better prepare you to utilise their services in the search for a job or the right candidate for a role at your company.
Here is our guide to how recruitment solutions work and what a recruitment consultant is.
What is a recruitment consultant?
A recruitment consultant’s main role is to work with companies aiming to hire new staff and search for the most qualified candidates to fill open positions. They will work closely with hiring companies to determine their requirements and create recruitment strategies accordingly.
However, they also work just as closely with job applicants to find their strengths and competencies. They are then able to best match candidates with businesses and offer both parties advice on how to improve their recruitment process and career prospects, respectively.
What are a recruitment consultant’s main tasks?
A recruitment consultant will have several duties that help them do their job. These include:
Attract business from clients and companies
Consultants need to use their extensive research and network to find the right clients and organisations to work with. They will use a range of sales, business development and marketing strategies and networking to get in touch with the right people. Essentially, recruitment requires you to be a people person, be able to have a conversation with anyone and have the ability to communicate what you can offer them.
Visiting clients
Similarly, recruitment consultants must build a strong relationship with their clients. They may be working with them over several months or even years if they are developing an extensive recruitment strategy. These relationships must be positive and built on the feeling of mutual trust.
Understanding of client companies
Over time, recruitment consultants must build a strong understanding of the companies they are working with, their industry, what they do and their work culture and environment. This enables them to best match an individual to their open roles. Without doing this, they may recommend people who aren’t suited to that particular company and could end up handing in their resignation shortly after, thus beginning the whole recruitment process all over again.
Advertising vacancies
Recruitment consultants advertise open vacancies for their clients to help attract prospective applicants. They will help to draft the vacancy and place adverts on the company’s behalf to best reflect the role and bring in the right people for the job.
Use social media
A big aspect of their job advertisement is done through social media such as LinkedIn. They will use these platforms to advertise positions, attract candidates and build relationships. Even if they reach out to an applicant for a role who ends up being unsuccessful, they can then help that individual with their job hunt.
Headhunting
This involves reaching out to candidates who may already be in work but could be better suited to a more exciting or higher-paid role. It means they are approaching people who may be happy in their current position because they are not aware there is something better for them.
Matching candidates to vacancies
The consultants will use their candidate database to match the right applicant to the client vacancy, depending on their skills and experience.
Manage applications
Part of the reason clients don’t want to do the application process themselves is because it is too time-consuming. That’s why recruitment companies are available to help. They are able to sort through, manage and review applications, interviews and tests to put together a shortlist of candidates for the client. This makes the process much simpler and means they only need to look through a small number of the top applicants for the role.
Requesting more information
If a candidate is successful through the shortlisting process, they will then need to supply references. It is the recruitment consultant’s role to check these references to determine the suitability of the applicant before submitting their details to the client.
Briefing the candidate
They also brief the candidate about the responsibilities, salary and benefits of the job so that they are aware of what the job offers and whether it is right for them. It helps give both parties an understanding of whether the candidate would like to continue with the application process.
Preparing CVs and correspondence for clients
They will then pass on the appropriate information about the candidate so the client is aware of who they are speaking to, what their CV looks like and what experience and skills they have.
Organise interviews
They will schedule and organise interviews for the shortlisted candidates that the client has requested so that they can have their own discussion with the candidate and determine if they are suited for the role.
Negotiating pay and salary rates
It is also an important task to negotiate pay and salary rates between clients and candidates. They will offer advice to both clients and candidates on pay rates, training and career progression to ensure both are satisfied.
Working towards targets
Recruitment consultants work towards and exceed targets that relate to the number of candidates placed, the value to be billed to clients or business leads generated.
What is the difference between a recruiter and a talent acquisition specialist?
A talent acquisition specialist is very similar to a recruiter because it still focuses on finding top talent for your business. Talent acquisition teams are focused on more long-term goals and hiring at the company. The talent acquisition strategy will need to be more dynamic and flexible because you’ll have to try something new each time. Everyone on the human resources team needs to know what the long-term goals are for the business to ensure they align their ongoing strategy with that.
What are the career options for a recruitment consultant?
Recruitment puts a higher emphasis on personal characteristics rather than education, so you can get a recruitment consultant job with any degree or even without one. The best way to land a job in recruitment is to convince the hiring manager that you have the skills and experience for the role. You can gain relevant experience for the role by working various jobs in areas such as HR, sales, administration and more. If you plan to work in highly specialised fields such as engineering, accounting, law or others, you typically need working experience in these respective fields.
Revorec Recruitment Solutions Ltd – Your Recruitment Company
At Revorec Recruitment Solutions Ltd, we cover UK, US and German technical recruitment solutions for permanent and contract roles in engineering and energy, IT and science – specialising in mid to senior-level positions. We can help your company be the very best it can be with unique and adaptive recruitment strategies.
Our team is highly experienced and able to find the very best talent to fill roles in your company. We hope to be recognised as experts in delivering technical talent and become a trusted name synonymous with quality, efficiency and reliability. We believe in what we do and hope to reflect this passion in the services we offer our clients. By using innovative solutions, the best techniques and on-time results, we know we offer the very best recruitment solutions.
To speak to our team about technical recruitment today, give us a call.