What does a recruiter do? Recruitment and selection is sales, not HR.

Tell people you work in recruitment, and chances are you’ll hear: “Ah, something in HR.” Or: “Like a temp agency?” They’re the two biggest misconceptions about our trade, and neither fits what we do.

That’s not their fault. Recruiter is a broad term: it’s on the business cards of people with very different jobs. We do recruitment and selection. We find companies the people they can’t find themselves, and those people join them on a permanent contract. That’s not HR or temp work, but sales. Feel free to call us talent brokers.

Recruiter is a broad term

Anyone with recruiter on their business card usually does one of these four jobs.

• In-⁠house recruiter. You work for one employer and find people for that company. Your title is often talent acquisition specialist, and you sit close to HR.
• Temp agency consultant. You work at a temp agency. The temps are employed by the temp agency and work for a client for a while. It’s all about volume and speed.
• Project sourcing. You work for an agency that employs experts itself, such as engineers, IT specialists or accountants, and puts them on projects at clients. You find those experts, and often the projects too.
• Recruitment and selection. You work for an agency that finds people for permanent jobs for its clients. Your candidate is hired by the client, and the client pays the agency a fee. For top positions, it’s called executive search or headhunting.

They all work with people and vacancies, but their days and their pay differ widely. What each of them earns is in What does a recruiter earn in Belgium? From here on, it’s about recruitment and selection, because that’s what we do.

Recruitment and selection is sales

In recruitment and selection, you sell twice. To your candidate, you sell a step forward: a job that suits them better than their current one. To your client, you sell a solution: the person they couldn’t find themselves. To do that, you first have to listen carefully. What is your candidate really looking for, and why would they leave an employer where they’re happy? What does your client really need, and what’s the budget?

The big difference from other sales: someone who has bought a car or software doesn’t say no afterwards. With us, both buyers can pull out until the very last day. Your candidate stays with their employer after all, because the employer suddenly offers them more, or your client picks someone else at the last minute. That’s why it’s one of the toughest forms of sales. And one of the best when it works, because every placement changes someone’s career.

Who pays for all this? The client. They pay a fee, usually a percentage of the candidate’s annual salary, and only once the candidate actually starts. At Greystone, that fee averages around €17,500. The candidate never pays anything: in Belgium, an agency may not ask jobseekers or workers for money.

Companies don’t pay a fee like that for an easy search. They call us for the vacancies they can’t fill themselves: the site manager who’s been with the same contractor for ten years, or the financial controller who never responds to a job ad.

What you do with candidates

The best candidates aren’t looking. They have a good job and don’t read job ads. So you don’t find them with an advert, but by calling them yourself. Every market has its own people, from site managers to accountants, and if you know your market, you know who to call.

With a candidate, you do four things:

• You call. Most people you call out of the blue. In a few minutes, you have to show that you know their market and that a conversation is worth their while.
• You get to know them. What do they do, what do they earn, what do they want, and why would they move? The better you know that, the fewer surprises later. How to check whether the salary they mention is right is in Your candidate is lying about their salary.
• You sell the next step. Your candidate has to see for themselves why the new job is better. Pushing doesn’t work: anyone who leaves reluctantly pulls out later.
• You keep in touch. Someone who doesn’t want to move today might in a year. And people you’ve really helped send their colleagues your way.

What you do with clients

On the other side, you call companies. There, you look for the decision-⁠maker: often not the HR department, but the manager who needs the people, such as the project manager, the CFO or the plant manager. They know best who they’re looking for.

• You call with a candidate in hand. A strong candidate is your best way in. A company with no vacancy today often still wants to meet someone like that.
• You do the intake. Who is the client really looking for, why did the last person leave, and what are they offering? You can’t fill a vacancy you don’t understand. If it’s unachievable, you say so too: The impossible vacancy.
• You agree your fee. If you don’t dare to defend your fee, you work for too little. How to do that without discounting is in How to defend your fee. For the hardest assignments, you work on an exclusive or retained basis: Selling retained search.
• You present candidates. For each candidate, a short presentation: who they are, what they can do and why they fit.

From first interview to first day at work

Once your candidate and your client want to meet, the hardest part begins. You plan the interviews, prepare both sides and call both of them back after every interview. That way you hear straight away what’s going on, and you solve a problem before it becomes a dealbreaker.

Then comes the offer. The salary has to work for both, and you’re in the middle: Closing the offer. If your candidate signs, they still have to hand in their notice (Your candidate’s notice), and that’s often where a counteroffer from their current employer is waiting. You’re best off discussing that in your very first conversation: Close the counteroffer in your first conversation.

After the signature, you’re not done yet. You follow up with your candidate until their first day at work, and in the months after that too. A placement stands or falls with that follow-⁠up: a happy candidate stays, and may later become your client themselves.

A day on the floor

What does a day like that look like? With us, roughly like this:

• 8.30 am Coffee and your list for the day
• 9 am Call block with candidates and clients
• 12.30 pm Lunch together
• 2 pm Training or coaching
• 3.30 pm Intakes and interviews
• 5.30 pm Sharing wins and wrapping up

It’s a phone business: those who succeed spend two to four hours a day on the phone. A three-⁠hour call block can easily mean a hundred calls. Sixty times, you get voicemail. Twenty people aren’t interested, ten are up for a chat but aren’t ready for a change yet, and ten are open to something new. Of those, there are maybe three you really get to work with. Sales is a numbers game, as we say on the floor: if you don’t make the calls, you don’t have candidates. Which numbers to track is in Three months without a placement.

You mostly work from the office, around 75 to 90% of your time. A first introduction to a client often happens on Teams, but where it counts, you go and see them: Face-⁠to-⁠face, phone or Teams. Our platform does the searching and the typing, so your time goes to people.

Why it’s hard, and that’s what makes it fun

Let’s not be naive about it: it’s not an easy job. You hear no every day. One week the deals fall into place on their own, the next everything you thought you had in the bag falls through. And because your pay grows with your placements, you feel a bad quarter in your wallet too.

But you get a lot in return. No two days are the same: you switch between candidates, clients and interviews, and you talk to different people every day. You see straight away what your work delivers. And every placement is one you made possible: someone with a better job, and a company that can move forward.

And you’re building something. With us, a career runs in three steps: first you learn the trade, then you invest two to three years until you can do it with your eyes closed, and then you capitalise. You can do that as a partner with your own office or team, with a stake in what you build, or as an independent at Shortlist, where you keep up to 75% of what you bill. That’s why you push through the first few years.

What the top performers have in common is more an attitude than a talent. You can read about it in Recruitment training: how a top biller works.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between a recruiter and an HR officer?

An HR officer looks after the people who already work at a company: contracts, pay, training and wellbeing. A recruiter finds new people. In recruitment and selection, you also do that for other companies, as a salesperson.

Recruitment and selection or temping: what’s the difference?

With temping, the temp is employed by the temp agency and works for a client for a while. With recruitment and selection, your candidate is hired by the client itself, usually on a permanent contract, and the client pays a one-⁠off fee.

What is project sourcing?

An agency employs experts itself and puts them on projects at its clients. The expert remains an employee of the agency, not of the client. The recruiter finds those experts, and often the projects too.

Who pays a recruiter?

The employer with the vacancy. In Belgium, an agency may not ask jobseekers or workers for money.

Do you need experience to become a recruiter?

No. What counts is that you like talking to people, aren’t afraid of the phone and want to win. You learn the trade on the floor, with a coach beside you.

What does a recruiter earn in recruitment and selection?

Usually a fixed salary plus commission on every placement. What that comes to is in What does a recruiter earn in Belgium? and What counts as good billing for a recruiter?

Fancy giving it a go yourself? Take a look at the opportunities or have a chat with us.

You’ll find all the steps at a glance in our guide Becoming a recruiter in Belgium.

Sources

• Temporary agency work: FPS Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue (in Dutch).
• Project sourcing: Federgon, bringing in an external expert through project sourcing (in Dutch).
• No payment from workers or jobseekers, in Flanders: decree of 10 December 2010 on private employment agencies, Article 5, 9° (in Dutch). In Brussels: Brussels Economy and Employment, conditions. In Wallonia: Emploi Wallonie, registration of an employment agency.