How To Be a Consultative Recruiter

Candidate experience is driving change among employers. With what Talent Board calls candidate resentment on the rise, employers are making candidate experience their top priority and working to improve their processes.

With processes and technology improving candidate experience in a myriad of ways, consultative recruiting also offers a natural way to improve the relationship between candidates and recruiters (and by default then, employers). Most recruiters join this field because they want to connect people to jobs. With that motivation, it’s a natural shift — when allowed and supported — toward being a more consultative recruiter.

What is a consultative recruiter?

Consultative recruiters prioritize relationships. Rather than seeing people as resumes, they consider candidates’ backgrounds, goals, and career needs. They help candidates achieve their goals while simultaneously achieving recruiting goals.

Consultative recruiting also applies to the relationships between recruiters and to client organizations (for staffing recruiters) and hiring managers (for in-house recruiters). With this approach, recruiters dig deeper to understand the needs among departments and organizations to provide better, more targeted hires.

Here’s why and how you should make the shift toward consultative recruiting.

Why consultative recruiting?

Consultative approaches help recruiters see hiring from both candidate and employer perspectives. We’ve already given an introduction to consultative recruiting, but here’s a quick list of the tangible benefits to recruiters and organizations that embrace consultative recruiting:

• Understanding both perspectives allows recruiters to better match skills and backgrounds to the specific needs of the organization or department.
• Better hires increase productivity, retention, and ROI.
• Leveraging both views results in stronger relationships within organizations, with clients, and with talent — significantly impacting strategic initiatives.

How to become a consultative recruiter

You’ve bought into the compelling reasons why consultative recruiting makes sense in the current and future talent marketplace. Now what? Luckily, the changes necessary to become a consultative recruiter are far from overwhelming, although a concerted effort is necessary. Start with these shifts:

1. Ask more questions.
   Dig deeper into candidates’ “why.” Why are they looking for a new job? Why are they interested in THIS job? What are they hoping to get out of this job? What is particularly interesting or compelling about the company, if anything? What motivates them to do well at work? (For example, family? Buying a house? Something else?)

   With hiring managers, ask questions to understand how a person fits into the department and organization, and how the hires you’re making contribute to their success. Why didn’t the last person work out in this role? What are you hoping to find in the next person in the role? What makes someone truly successful? What do you expect from this person in the next 30-60 days? Who are your biggest superstars and why? How can new hires be more like them?

   Organizational and mission fit are top-of-mind for companies, with two-thirds of HR professional respondents to our Tech Sentiment Survey saying values-alignment has a significant impact on hiring decisions. This makes sense when you consider how values alignment contributes to lower turnover, higher job satisfaction, better teamwork, bigger contributions to an organization, and more diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). Asking the right questions throughout the process helps identify right-fit talent, making a more powerful match for all parties.

2. Give away your knowledge.
   Recruiters are in-house (or in the case of staffing firms, strategic partner) experts. Making the extra effort to fill roles, and also to share your expertise, can not only build stronger relationships, but can again contribute to better hires and matches (leading to happier talent and clients/hiring managers).

   “Giving away knowledge” could be as simple as offering insight and feedback on a job description created by a hiring manager, for example. It could be feedback on a salary range and helping to set expectations so that a client or hiring manager isn’t caught off guard, or has a better understanding of what’s realistic and what to expect within given parameters.

   Salary transparency has a powerful impact on candidate perception of prospective employers. Two-thirds of tech professional respondents in our Tech Sentiment Report are discouraged from applying to jobs without salary information. And considering the range of pay transparency laws being enacted across the US, posting salaries that are outside of the current going-rate could significantly impact your ability to attract candidates to your job postings.

   And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are other opportunities throughout the talent lifecycle for recruiters to work more powerfully with hiring managers.

   As far as “giving away knowledge” to talent, it could be as simple as posting detailed job seeker or career advice on LinkedIn or TikTok to become a valued resource for job seekers across the country (and even the globe).

   It could also mean going the extra mile to provide personalized feedback to candidates who apply but don’t make the cut, helping candidates improve their resumes or skill sets to align with the goals they shared in the first steps we discussed here, and more.

3. Communicate.
   Some candidates are wary of recruiters because they’ve been treated poorly in the past. Oftentimes, this correlates to a drop in personalized communication. Consultative recruiters communicate with talent throughout the hiring process and don’t keep talent in the dark when there’s a delay or lull in the process.
   It also means staying in touch with candidates who aren’t immediately hired, sharing relevant job opportunities with your company or clients as they arise, and otherwise nurturing the relationship for the long term.

   Communication is also critical with hiring managers, and helps nurture stronger relationships between TA teams and departments within your organization (and between staffing recruiters and their clients).

   This could also include the aforementioned feedback on job descriptions or salary ranges. It could mean easy links for scheduling and other methods that make you readily available to busy hiring managers. Communication with hiring managers can also include some transparency about the steps you’re taking and what you’re seeing out in the market when recruiting.

Understanding the market plays a critical role

Your ability to ask better questions, share knowledge, and communicate effectively with both hiring managers and tech talent hinges on several factors, but one of the most important (and easily accessible) is data. Staying on top of the latest industry trends, tech talent sentiment, and hiring data can help you build and nurture the strongest possible relationships within your organization, with your clients, and with talent.

For the latest tech hiring trends and sentiment among talent, for example, check out our Tech Sentiment Report.