My best friend has worked in recruiting for most of her career- I wouldn’t have been able to say that 5 months ago.  “What does she do?” A question I would answer with whatever job sites I could think of at the time.  “She works for Monster.”  Then my brain would start to scramble trying to figure out what the f*ck she did there.  

What could anyone possibly DO at Monster?  Does she find people jobs?  Why does Monster need that many employees if people do the work themselves just by visiting their site?

Skip ahead a few years and opportunity knocks.  My friend’s company (not Monster) is in need of some Marketing and Administrative help-right up my alley.  Without hesitation I interview and accept the offer.  I hadn’t been in Marketing in a while, I was ready to get back in the game.  I was about to enter the realm of recruiting.  I was so excited until I realized I had no idea what that meant.

What The Hell Is Recruiting, Anyway?

fa60ac9e937b3503ded55ccd2bba002382f3d45bee7dd56b07d38cf5a1a2f99b-1Well, I’m still figuring that out-but so far so great.  I had never heard of an ATS, HM or TA.  Where I’m from TA has a COMPLETELY different meaning.  I had no idea there were companies that created software for hiring-sure I knew that some kind of software had to exist to help HR (an acronym I actually knew) stay organized but it wasn’t something I THOUGHT about.  

I thought you went online and filled out an application and someone in HR would print it off and call you if it seemed like a good fit.  That was recruiting to me 5 months ago.  

When someone explained an Applicant Tracking System to me I was SHOCKED.  When I realized that HR, hiring managers and recruiters are WAY different-I was shocked.  Actually, the fact that a “recruiter” could be a “job”- I was shocked.  

Some of the questions I immediately had were:

Do people say ‘headhunter’?

How do companies find recruiters?

What if a company doesn’t have a hiring manager-does that mean it’s HR?

What do you mean people call it sourcing?

What’s the difference between sourcing and recruiting?

How long should the recruiting/sourcing process take?  

How can someone even have a job as a recruiter with sites like Monster, Indeed, etc.?

Why do we need people to be recruiters-isn’t that what job ads are for?

I have learned A LOT.  Mostly?  You cannot LEARN recruiting.  You absorb it. You immerse yourself into its world and let it transform you. (Insert magical noises here)

I have never worked in an arena like this.  I am still new but dang, the recruiting community is great.  The online support, chats, groups, blogs, articles, tools, webinars and extensions-it’s incredible.  In my short experience-I find that recruiters although competitive, root for each other.  They lift each other up instead of putting each other down.  You need help filling a position?  Someone will help.  Sure you have the occasional asshat that wants to swoop in and take all your shine-but that’s why they’re the asshat-not you.

I’ve gotten the answers to all of my questions and am absorbing as much as I can on a daily basis, but I guess if I could pick one thing you can LEARN about recruiting, is that at it’s core-it’s about helping people.  Whether your company builds the ATS that helps the HM that works with HR, or you’re the corporate recruiter using the latest extensions to fill that ONE position-at the end of the day we’re all trying to help someone do something better.  

To me, that’s OK.

 

 

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Alexis is the operational brainpower behind RecruitingDaily, responsible for managing client deliverables and tracking results, keeping the team on task and on time. Alexis has over 8 years of administrative experience for companies such as Magnetics, Verizon and NetBiz.com. Connect with her on Twitter @alraet.



By Alexis Gingerella

Alexis is a contributing writer to RecruitingDaily and got her start in the industry with RD. She provides virtual assistant work and administrative support for many of the teams projects.