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

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.