Realities force people to change their occupation, acquire new professions and look for other job profiles. And often people have a specific request: without having to work in an office, a flexible schedule and a sufficient level of earnings.
For those who have such requests and are ready to work with people, recruiting work is ideal. We asked recruiters with experience what kind of new profession this is, how it can be learned and how profitable it is.
Who is a recruiter
Translated from French, “recruiter” means “to hire”. Previously, “recruit” was the name given to people who were hired for military service and received material compensation for this. In the modern world, recruiting no longer refers only to recruitment into a professional army, but to the work of personnel selection. The person who is responsible for finding the right candidates for a company is a recruiter.
For some, this area of professional activity is quite well known, but for many it is just starting to develop.
“Many people still do not understand this profession. It takes a very long time to explain to my family and friends in Ukraine what I do. I’ll say it simply: I arrange for people to work in Poland,” admits Ivanna, a recruiter from Vinnytsia. “It’s the same on the clients’ side: they don’t understand who the recruiter is. They want to immediately communicate with coordinators and some managers.”
A certain delay in the popularity of recruiting is also due to the fact that bad stereotypes have to be debunked.
“The recruiter profession has been greatly compromised by unscrupulous companies that are engaged in employing people abroad. Those who fraudulently promise people wonderful jobs, and send them to waste processing factories. That is, for the worst jobs that can exist. We can “thank” such companies for people’s disdain for recruiters,” notes Vita, a recruiter from Kremenets in the Ternopil region.
What actually is recruitment? This is well explained by representatives of the international migration platform EWL, which hires workers for the enterprises in Poland, Lithuania, Romania, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Greece, Germany and Canada; during its existence, the company has helped more than 120,000 people move abroad and get a job.
EWL Recruitment Specialist Oleg says:
“Recruitment is, in fact, the same as sales. Only here it is not a product that is being sold, but a job. Accordingly, recruitment itself presupposes certain principles of sales – meeting the client, company presentation, product presentation, pros and cons of the vacancy, elaboration of objections.”
There will be comments and objections in any vacancy, even if it is perfect, but good recruiters know how to work with this, and bad ones do not.
Vita explains that a good recruiter will not promise people the moon:
“You cannot exaggerate real conditions – salary levels, living conditions, and so on. Firstly, this will cause a huge wave of negativity from employers towards you. “Who did you bring me? If a person is dissatisfied, they don’t do their job!” Secondly, a huge wave of negativity will come from the candidates. Of the thirty people you recruit in this way, five will actually work, and no one will be satisfied with the result.
There are a lot of Ukrainians abroad at the moment. They all need jobs, so recruitment is developing very rapidly. As soon as Ukraine begins to rebuild, large companies will start returning, and they will also attract new workers. And while this profession is still new and training does not cost millions of dollars, people should try to become recruiters.”
Who can work as a recruiter
Recruiter is a profession that is not yet taught in Ukraine, but any person can master it from scratch, and then continue to grow and improve their skills.
Ivanna started working at the age of 17, after traveling to Poland to earn money, and has been recruiting for four years now.
“It happened spontaneously. I went to clean a store in Warsaw, but the work was postponed for two weeks, and I was offered to become a recruiter. On the very first day,” she recalls, and adds: “I didn’t even know who the recruiter was. This was the first time I heard this word. I didn’t know how to use a computer. That is, I had to learn absolutely everything.”
Recruiter from Kolomyia Volodymyr has been in this profession since 2017. And also after working experience abroad.
“There I observed how many people came, what areas there were, the pros and cons. How recruiters work or fail to work with people. And I was very interested in this area,” the man admits. “I didn’t study this, it’s all from experience. I have a degree in economics and business management. This is not very related to recruiting, although there is something similar. I think that anyone can be a recruiter, regardless of their specialty.”
Alina, a specialist in the EWL recruitment department, came to this profession from sports – she spent 11 years playing handball. By training, she is a teacher of physical education and a coach.
“Sport strengthened my character and crystallized my determination. I was looking for a job in the communications field. I used to be both a collector and a salesperson,” she clarifies.
“I felt that I had been stuck at one job for too long and was deteriorating, and decided to radically change something. I got into EWL and realized that recruiting was for me. Here you work for the company and at the same time for yourself. You develop your reputation, your client base. A very interesting area.”
“A mother on maternity leave, a former accountant, a pensioner or a professional athlete – anyone can be a recruiter. Good recruiters are psychologists to a certain extent. These are people who know how to hear others. And super-communicative… This profession is not taught at universities, it must come from within,” Marta, TOP manager at EWL, is convinced.
Under these conditions, recruiting is associated with constant training and learning something new. Employment agencies develop their own educational programs and actively train their workers. For example, EWL regularly conducts thematic courses, workshops, project presentations and the like.
“Everyone who has now become a recruiter in Ukraine is trying to learn in different ways, including using the Internet,” confirms Vita.
Vita is one of those who combines recruiting with her core specialty – geodesy.
“I was a little bored: I was constantly sitting in front of my laptop, drawing some maps. I wanted to move, communicate with people,” she recalls. “I saw an advertisement that they would hire someone without experience and could teach them everything… I’ve been working like this for four years now. I am pleased with the opportunity to combine this work with another.”
Together with her colleagues, Vita created her own employment agency in Kremenets, Ternopil region.
“There was a lot of work, a lot of advertising. I said: “Let’s try something of our own as long as we want”. And we created a website. Now we have eight recruiters,” she says, “And at the same time, I am not tied to a specific office. This is a profession that gives you a free hand – you can work from home, abroad, without a strict schedule.”
The absence of a standardized schedule is the main thing that a person who wants to work in recruiting must understand.
“We always emphasize that a recruiter has an irregular work schedule. You can work as you please. You can live, relax and recruit anywhere in the world,” Olena, manager for training and adaptation of EWL partners. “But it is important to be in touch during the company’s working hours, when guardians and coordinators write basic information – the arrival has been postponed, the check-in address has changed, etc. Also, the recruiter must be in touch when his candidates go for employment, because delays at the border are possible, housing, organizational or legal issues may arise.”
Denis from EWL agrees with her, he notes that “the recruiter themselves must believe that they have a noble goal – they are helping people, and they have to enjoy it – there is no other way.”
“This is not a job where you will work from eight to six,” adds Denis, team leader of Call-Centre EWL. “That is, you can work this way, but at a more advanced level. And in the beginning you will have to work after seven or eight. By “work” I mean contact the candidate and ask how he settled in. It still takes some time and, perhaps, being on call 24/7 is not suitable for everyone. Therefore, the recruiter must love this job.”
“The very first trait a recruiter needs is self-confidence. Confidence in what you are doing. You help the employer, the candidate and yourself,” he clarifies.
To achieve this goal, you need to think outside the box, and be able to communicate, negotiate and persuade at a high level.
“A recruiter must love talking to people, conduct dialogues and correspondence,” Denis clarifies, and adds that it is important to be able to keep his distance: “The main problem of novice recruiters is excessive care over the candidate, attempts to please too much: “If something is wrong , we will solve everything, fix it…” A recruiter is not mom and dad. He must be a manager, a leader, and must guide the candidate.”
Maryana, a recruiter from Ivano-Frankivsk, also emphasizes the necessity of the ability to keep the distance.
“Following the lead of the candidate is a bad strategy. Very often they overuse it,” she explains. “For example, we know that at a certain production business everything is fine, everyone is happy, but there will be someone who starts looking for problems and asks to constantly improve something or transfer him somewhere.”
At the same time, Alina emphasizes that contact with the people you employ must be maintained constantly, so there should not be too much distance either:
“We need to find a middle ground. With time and experience comes a clear understanding of how to achieve this. From the first minute with a candidate you already begin to understand what kind of person he is.”
Therefore, the recruiter must be a quite good psychologist. During the conversation, they have to understand not only how competent the candidate is, what his professional and personal qualities are, but also how “the one” he is. If a recruiter carefully prepares for interviews, then the selection of personnel is much more effective, and the risk of missing “their” candidate is noticeably reduced.
“The biggest mistake a recruiter can make is to take a stereotyped approach to interviews with candidates, speak monotonously, and at the same time worry about saying every word from the “cheat sheet.” The person on the other end of the line feels that something is wrong – either someone is new, or wants to “push” something. Not interesting.The soul must be put into the conversation. The necessary questions must be there, but framed in the same way as a conversation with a friend or relative, so that the person feels that the recruiter sincerely wants to help,” – Marichka, specialist in the EWL recruitment department.
“Each recruiter must develop his own speech, his own style and intonation of communication, he must change his tone depending on the person’s temperament, adjust the intonation, copy certain movements of the client – a certain “reflection” method”.
A good recruiter must also have marketing skills, be able to highlight the main thing from the general job description, add key phrases – motivating slogans to get to the heart of the target audience and be a bit of a copywriter – be able to clearly and attractively describe the job.
“Considering my experience, I can say that a vacancy “doesn’t work” when you have learned little about it. The recruiter should know more about the vacancy than what is written in the description. They have to watch some videos, ask everything from the guardians, and, if possible, from the coordinators,” notes Alina. “I emphasize that the recruiter cannot be shallow, they must immerse themselves into the process, into working with people in as much detail as possible, show initiative and not be afraid to ask.”
“Candidates have hundreds of different questions, so the recruiter must be a perfect expert. They should know practically everything. And there simply cannot be such an answer to a candidate’s question as “I don’t know,” adds Oleg, a specialist in the EWL recruitment department.
The work of a recruiter involves serious psychological stress, so you need to be sufficiently stress-resistant.
“Working with people is certainly interesting, but not always cool and positive. It’s better not to take anything to heart.”
“The first six months of work is a constant: “Oh, my God! Those have credit, the others have problems.” You remember every client, you worry about each one, you think and ruin your nerves. You won’t last long like this,” explains Vita Romanyuk and adds that it is important to think not only about current vacancies, but also about future prospects. You need to constantly learn and develop, and create original methods for selecting candidates.
How much does a recruiter earn?
The recruiter’s salary is not fixed and may depend on the time of year if working with vacancies for seasonal workers. Earnings range from 15,000 to 60,000 UAH per month. Everything is arranged transparently – it is not potential workers who pay for employment, but the employer and agencies.
“There are no limits on earnings in EWL. We have the following system in our office: when recruiters receive a report, they see their salaries and the salaries of other recruiters. And this is quite motivating,” says Denis, EWL Call-Centre team lead. “When a new person comes and sees that someone earns more than the national average, they ask “What should I do to achieve such results?”
“There is a great opportunity here to control your wages,” notes Vita, head of an agency in the city of Kremenets. “There is no clear rate beyond which you cannot go. If you want to earn more, you should make more interesting advertising, find more candidates, employ more people, and you will earn more and live better.”
“But you need to understand that the payments here take a long time: if you recruited someone in February, you will receive your funds in March. Many people don’t like it at first, but then they realize that it’s cool. You can work for one month, then take a vacation, go on vacation, and your money works for you. When you come back from vacation, you get paid.”
A recruiter’s salary depends on the number of people hired.
“There are recruiters who recruit 5-7 candidates per month, and there are recruiters who recruit 80-100. Of course, the company values those recruiters who recruit more. For them, the conditions in the company are better and the offers are more interesting,” notes Marta, TOP manager at EWL.
Volodymyr from Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk region, says that at the beginning, when he combined recruiting with other work and worked with small companies that did not have that many vacancies, he employed 5-6 people a month, and now his personal record is 46 people.
Volodymyr’s colleague from Ivano-Frankivsk, Maryana, recalls the months when, together with her husband, she recruited more than 100 people a month. “The company we collaborated with had a contract with Samsung. On average, I gave them 15-20 people a week. There were also other vacancies,” she explains.
Such numbers can be achieved in the very first year, recruiters convince.
“In September, I started training a person who had zero recruiting experience. The first month was an adaptation month,” says Oleg, a specialist of the EWL recruitment department. “In my opinion, it takes up to two months to delve into this area and start working independently. It all depends on desire.”
In turn, Ivanna from Vinnitsa advises beginners not to be upset that they don’t immediately see the earnings they were promised, and to hold out for the first three months.
“These are the hardest months. There will be moments when you think that this job is not for you, people are bad, everything is wrong. There will be moments when you need to mentally withstand a candidate’s refusal or indignation when he has already arrived at the site and is dissatisfied. This is all very difficult for a beginner at their start. Then it’s perceived as work,” the recruiter notes.
“The first six months you need to work on your own brand. If the recruiter endures this time, then this profession will work for him. Word of mouth will start working, there will be less need for advertising and the like. Now it happens to me that people call and say: “We don’t care where to go, the main thing is that it’s from you.”
