Recruiter Job Description

Key skills

Responsibilities

• • Partner with hiring managers to define role requirements, levelling, and success profiles
• • Source active and passive candidates using boolean search, LinkedIn, and referral networks
• • Screen applicants and conduct initial interviews to assess fit against defined criteria
• • Manage candidate pipelines in the ATS, ensuring timely communication at every stage
• • Coordinate and facilitate structured interview panels, providing debrief facilitation
• • Manage offer creation, negotiation, and close in partnership with HR and Finance
• • Report on funnel metrics — applications, screens, interviews, offers, acceptance rates
• • Continuously improve job adverts, sourcing channels, and candidate experience based on data

Requirements

• • 2+ years of in-house or agency recruiting experience across multiple functions
• • Demonstrable track record of filling roles within target time-to-hire benchmarks
• • Proficiency with an ATS and LinkedIn Recruiter or equivalent sourcing tools
• • Strong interviewing skills and understanding of structured assessment techniques
• • Excellent stakeholder management — able to advise and push back on hiring managers
• • High ethical standards with clear understanding of fair and legal hiring practices

Nice to have

• • Experience recruiting for the specific functions or seniority levels the role focuses on
• • Employer branding or talent marketing experience
• • Familiarity with psychometric or skills-based assessment tools
• • Experience building diverse pipelines and reducing bias at the top of the funnel
• • A track record recruiting in a high-volume or fast-scaling environment with tight time-to-hire targets

What to look for in a great Recruiter

Great recruiters are persistent without being pushy, and they build genuine relationships rather than transacting. Look for someone who has clear opinions about what makes a good interview process and can defend them — this shows strategic thinking beyond scheduling. Ask candidates how they handle a hiring manager whose requirements are unrealistic, or what they do when a role is not attracting qualified candidates. Resilience, adaptability, and commercial awareness about the cost of a vacant role all separate high performers from average ones.

Where to source Recruiter candidates

Agency recruiters who want to move in-house are a large pool with strong sourcing skills and the commercial instinct to close. In-house recruiters from companies with excellent talent acquisition reputations bring process rigour and employer brand awareness. HR generalists who have focused heavily on recruitment can be strong candidates for companies that need breadth alongside hiring expertise. Recruiting communities on LinkedIn and Slack (e.g. RecOps Collective, People Geek) surface practitioners who are invested in the craft.

Interview questions to ask a Recruiter

Ask them to walk through the hardest role they have ever filled — what made it hard, and what they did differently to close it. Follow with 'How do you advise a hiring manager who is holding out for a unicorn candidate when the market does not support that?' Then test their process: 'Walk me through how you would structure an interview panel for a senior technical role you have never hired before.' Finish by asking how they measure their own performance — what metrics they track and whether they hit them consistently.

How an ATS speeds up hiring a Recruiter

It may sound circular, but recruiters are best assessed on how they use recruiting tools, and Pitch N Hire's ATS makes that visible during the hire itself. Post the role, then watch how candidates think about pipeline, sourcing channels, and candidate experience when you discuss real scenarios. Structured interview kits let your panel score sourcing skill, hiring-manager partnership, and closing ability consistently, rather than favouring the most confident talker. Because recruiter hires often involve a practical exercise, such as a sourcing challenge or a mock intake, keeping the brief, submissions, and feedback in one pipeline keeps the evaluation fair. Scorecards also help you separate a recruiter who fills seats fast from one who builds a quality, diverse pipeline that lasts.

Junior vs senior Recruiter: what changes

A junior or coordinator-level recruiter handles scheduling, screening, and running a defined process, learning to manage candidates and keep pipelines moving. A full-cycle recruiter owns roles end to end, from intake to offer, and takes real responsibility for sourcing hard-to-find talent. A senior recruiter goes further: advising hiring managers as a genuine partner, pushing back on unrealistic briefs, handling complex or executive searches, and improving the process itself. Seniors also close difficult candidates and shape employer brand. When hiring, match the level to your need, since a strong coordinator promoted too fast into a senior technical search often struggles with the sourcing depth and manager influence that role demands.