What Makes a Great Agency Recruiter? 10 Essential Skills That Will Get You Hired

You might be expecting to see skills like multitasking, organization, or writing skills, but times are changing, and although these are still valuable, top agency recruiters will need a slightly different skill set going forward.

Let’s take a look at the soft and hard skills needed for getting hired in 2024, as well as the competencies recruiters should develop to be a top performer in an AI-enabled agency.

Core competencies for new recruiters

We’ll start with some insights on the skills and characteristics that will open the door to the agency world in 2024.

Curiosity and enthusiasm

Data from The Selection Lab’s quarterly hiring report shows that on average, agency recruiters who get hired are more curious and enthusiastic than applicants in other roles.

They’re generally less organized and less accurate than other applicants, but they are more open to new challenges and see them as opportunities. They’re active learners, open to multiple perspectives, and coachable, learning from mistakes and viewing them as a necessary part of their growth process.

This attitude, coupled with their high enthusiasm, makes them great salespeople, as they can promote the employer and build a positive brand, as well as excite a client about a candidate profile.

Such characteristics, along with effective communication and marketing skills, are especially important in today’s TA landscape, as recruitment firms invest heavily in talent engagement technologies and strategies to fight talent shortages.

Interpersonal skills

Having strong sales and relationship-building skills significantly increases the chances of getting hired in a recruitment agency in 2024.

Great recruiters have active listening skills—the ability to question, go deeper, and understand the real issues at play—and influencing skills, their job being to create the best outcomes for both candidates and clients.

This makes sense, as a recruiter’s role is primarily about building relationships with all stakeholders involved in the hiring process. Strong communication skills and general interpersonal skills are therefore just as important as time management skills.

While being a top project manager or process admin isn’t essential for an agency recruiter, The Selection report shows that among recruiters, those who get hired are more diligent and organized than those who don’t and they score higher in abstract reasoning and total intelligence assessments.

So although recruitment agencies generally value soft skills more than hard skills, they expect recruiters to effectively manage their book of business and deliver results in a timely manner.

Adaptability and critical thinking

Data shows that top agency recruiters score high in adaptability, critical thinking, and innovation. They’re able to quickly adapt to new challenges and changing scenarios and understand different perspectives.

Surprisingly, hired agency recruiters tend to score lower in self-confidence and stress management than non-hired ones, feeling that they don’t have “any special skill.”

But this attitude—coupled with their higher curiosity —is what makes them perfect candidates for well-oiled recruitment machines. Their inherent humility and eagerness to learn position them as adaptable and receptive individuals, ready to embrace new challenges.

This agility is crucial in the fast-paced agency recruitment landscape where successful recruiters must be comfortable with ambiguity and able to pivot strategies when necessary.

As for critical thinking, this allows recruiters to sort through the sheer volume of information to determine which data points and ideas are most important — and most relevant to company goals.

Creative problem-solving

Next in the agency recruiter’s skill set is creative problem-solving. Coupled with their high curiosity, this characteristic makes them more likely to test and adopt new technologies and come up with innovative solutions to complex situations.

Recruiters with strong creative problem-solving skills can navigate the complexities of the recruitment process with ease.

They can devise novel strategies for sourcing candidates, developing outreach programs, and addressing unique client needs. This capability is increasingly important as recruitment firms leverage new tools and methodologies to stay competitive.

Moreover, data from The Selection Lab shows that recruiters’ curiosity makes them less prone to bias. They may favor qualified candidates who don’t have all the certifications on paper if they think the job seekers have what it takes and are a good fit for the hiring company’s culture.

This open-minded approach ensures that recruiters can identify and place high-potential candidates who might be overlooked by more conventional methods.

Alright, now that you know what skills agencies are looking for when hiring new recruiters, let’s look at the characteristics recruiters will need going forward, to thrive in an AI-enabled agency.

Essential skills for recruiters in AI-led agencies

We’ll focus on AI-led agencies, as we believe this is the direction the industry is moving towards.

Recent data from Bullhorn shows that top performing agencies are already using artificial intelligence in their daily workflows, with the most common use cases being gathering requirements from clients, shift scheduling, and onboarding.

Firms with an AI strategy are more likely to report revenue growth (57%), followed by those experimenting with generative AI (51%), according to the same report.

It’s therefore expected that more and more recruitment agencies will adopt AI as a regular part of their operations in the coming months.

So, what are the most important skills for agency recruiters going forward?

Empathy and emotional intelligence

With or without AI, recruiters will always need to be good at building relationships and managing stakeholders, so empathy will always be a must-have recruitment skill.

A study by TalentSmart found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining 58% of success in all types of jobs.

Thus, even in AI-led agencies, the human touch remains irreplaceable for understanding client and candidate needs and building trust and rapport during the recruitment process.

While tools like AI may be better at maintaining data quality and accuracy during the hiring cycle, high EQ recruiters can better judge the nuances of conversations to assess cultural fit, and decide which of all the interviewed applicants make the best candidates for a specific role or company.

Applicants agree with this view. Data shows that although potential candidates think interacting with AI is similar to interacting with human recruiters, they still prefer humans as interviewers during the recruitment process, and they’re not fully comfortable with AI being used to support hiring decisions.

Open-mindedness

As machines take over many tasks in the hiring process, will Talent Acquisition (TA) professionals become mere administrators of fully autonomous systems?

Not quite. Recruiters will need to stay updated on technologies and industry trends, remain open to change, and be proactive in exploring new strategies, perhaps even more than today.

To succeed in the future of recruitment, agency recruiters will need to embrace a growth mindset and find innovative ways to stand out in the market and source talent.

This might involve exploring new methods and developing unique approaches to building and engaging talent pools, using social media creatively for recruiting, or developing compelling employer branding and recruitment strategies that respond to changing market conditions.

The ability to adapt and innovate will remain crucial, especially as 75% of companies report struggling to fill positions, according to ManpowerGroup's Talent Shortage Survey.

Technological adaptability and AI literacy

A 2024 survey by Gartner found that 76% of HR leaders believe that organizations failing to adopt and implement AI solutions, such as generative AI, within the next 12 to 24 months will lag behind in organizational success compared to those that do.

This insight applies to staffing and recruitment agencies as well. First-mover advantage will help agencies stand out in a competitive market. Therefore, recruiters need to be not just curious but also capable of adapting to new technologies and ways of working.

Effective recruiters must be comfortable with AI recruitment software and actively seek out and integrate new technologies into their workflows to enhance their effectiveness.

While they don’t need to understand the intricacies of large language models (LLMs), agency recruiters should know how to use AI to automate routine tasks and double their output.

They need to understand AI tools, their capabilities, and which parts of the recruitment process can be delegated to these systems.

Process orchestration and optimization

In today’s recruitment landscape, many recruiters function more like process administrators than strategic advisors. However, this is expected to change in the future.

Agency recruiters will need to become orchestrators of systems and tools. They’ll shift their focus from managing process stages and inputting data into various systems to strategizing and overseeing AI-led processes.

A study by McKinsey suggests that by 2030, 70% of companies might adopt at least one type of AI technology in their recruitment process, underscoring the importance of this skill.

Understanding the synergy between human and AI tasks, as well as seeing the bigger picture and fitting all the pieces together, will be a crucial part of a recruiter’s job.

Moreover, effective agency recruiters will need to think beyond current tasks and job offers. They will focus on building systems to help clients achieve their longer-term hiring and growth goals, with the help of AI and automation.

This involves understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI, ensuring seamless integration with human processes, maintaining quality checks, and directing human resources where it adds the most value.

Strategic talent advisory

As said, in an AI-enabled agency, recruiters are expected to evolve from process admins to strategic partners. To deliver maximum value, they must shift their focus from simply filling roles to crafting tailored talent acquisition strategies aligned with clients' business objectives.

This elevated role demands a deep understanding of the client's business, culture, and long-term goals. Beyond traditional recruitment tasks, recruiters must become proficient in data analytics to leverage AI-powered insights and inform strategic decision-making.

A comprehensive grasp of industry trends, emerging talent pools, and job market dynamics is also essential. By combining human intuition with data-driven intelligence, recruiters can provide strategic guidance on workforce planning and talent acquisition initiatives.

Data analysis and ethical decision-making

As AI's influence on hiring decisions grows, ethical considerations become paramount. Recruiters must vigilantly monitor AI systems for potential biases, ensuring transparency and safeguarding candidate data privacy.

To foster trust and fairness, recruiters need to be able to articulate and justify AI-driven decisions to both candidates and clients. This requires a deep understanding of how the AI system operates and the ability to explain its outcomes in plain language.

Data analysis empowers recruiters to make informed, data-driven decisions, predict hiring trends, and optimize recruitment strategies. By leveraging data, recruiters can identify top-performing sourcing channels, predict candidate success, and refine job descriptions for maximum impact.

However, it's crucial to approach data analysis with a critical eye. Recruiters must be aware of potential biases within the data itself and ensure that AI algorithms are not perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

Ultimately, the successful recruiter of the future will be a blend of human intuition and data-driven insights.

Conclusion

The future of recruitment isn't about AI replacing humans, but about augmenting human capabilities.

Success in this new era of recruitment demands a unique blend of skills:

• Technical proficiency: Understanding and effectively utilizing AI tools.
• Human-centric approach: Building strong relationships, demonstrating empathy, and providing exceptional candidate experiences.
• Strategic mindset: Analyzing data, identifying trends, and developing innovative recruitment strategies.
• Ethical compass: Ensuring fairness, transparency, and data privacy in AI-driven processes.

By mastering these skills and embracing the potential of AI, recruiters can position themselves as invaluable assets to their organizations and drive recruitment success in the years to come.