How to Become a Corporate Recruiter

Recently, we wrote about what you can do with a Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management, and here we’ll explain how you can use your degree to get an excellent job in the field of HR, the role of corporate recruiter.

Corporate recruiters are responsible for finding talented individuals to fill open positions within their organization, and they do their primary tasks include sourcing candidates, screening resumes, conducting interviews, and making recommendations to hiring managers.

This post will explore why you should consider getting into this line of work, what you’d do each day on the job, what you need to do to prepare for a career in the field, and how you can increase your chances of landing this competitive position.

After you’ve read about how to become a corporate recruiter, fill out our information request form to receive additional details about our online Master’s Degree in HR Management, which is the perfect program for developing the knowledge, skills and abilities you need to succeed as a corporate recruiter. 

If you’re ready to get started, submit your application today.

Is Recruiting Really a Good Career Field?

Yes! A career in recruiting can be both rewarding and lucrative. This is a fast-paced, ever-changing field where you get to use technology and people skills to connect with qualified candidates and help your organization fill available positions.

If you enjoy working with people you’re good at sales and networking, then recruiting may be the perfect field for you. 

There are three main reasons to consider getting into this field, including:

• Demand for qualified corporate recruiters is increasing, with BLS projecting that employment for human resource specialists (a similar job role that involves recruiting) will rise 10% between 2020 and 2030.
• Corporate recruiters get to play an important role in driving the success of modern organizations, being responsible for finding and hiring the best talent, making them extremely high-valued assets in virtually every industry.
• This is a relatively well-paid position, with Payscale reporting that corporate recruiters earn an average annual salary of $61,157.

If your ideal career involves working with people on a daily basis, and you think you’d be good at identifying individuals who can add value to organizations, then you should certainly consider a career in recruiting.

What Are Some Common Job Titles for Corporate Recruiters?

Corporate recruiters are thought of as human resource professionals, though they serve a very specific role in that wider field. However, many people who specialize in recruiting services may hold different job titles, and some of the more common ones include:

• Recruiting coordinator: This position assists recruiters and managers with the recruitment process. It’s typically entry-level, but that depends on the specific position and job responsibilities. 
• Recruiter: This could be an entry-level position for corporate recruiters as well. These professionals screen resumes, interview candidates, and coordinate the hiring process.
• Recruiting manager: This is a management-level position in recruiting that involves overseeing a team of recruiters to ensure they’re meeting recruitment goals.
• Talent acquisition manager: This is typically a senior-level position for recruiters which involves finding eligible candidates and onboarding new employees.
• Staffing specialist: This position is responsible for finding temporary workers to fill short-term staffing needs.
• Employment coordinator: This position is responsible for helping employees find jobs and coordinating the onboarding process.

As you can see, there are many different titles for the various roles involved in recruiting. Sometimes these job titles are used interchangeably, but in other situations, the professionals specialize in different aspects of the recruiting process.

What do Corporate Recruiters Actually Do?

Corporate recruiters are in charge of finding and hiring the best talent for their organization by screening resumes, conducting interviews, and making job offers. 

To find the right candidate for the job, recruiters must first understand the company’s business goals and culture. They must also be able to sell the company and its job openings to prospective employees.

In their daily work, corporate recruiters are typically responsible for tasks like:

• Developing and executing recruiting plans.
• Sourcing candidates through job postings, networking, social media, and other methods
• Screening resumes and conducting interviews.
• Making offers of employment and negotiating salaries.
• Maintaining relationships with hiring managers, potential candidates, and other stakeholders. 

Virtually every organization needs the help of recruiters in some form or fashion, as finding qualified candidates can be incredibly difficult regardless of the industry.

If you’re looking to serve a critical role in helping an organization find talented people to drive its success, then a role in recruiting could be the perfect position for you.

To launch a successful career in recruiting, you’ll first need to develop a set of comprehensive skills and abilities, which we’ll cover next.

What Skills & Abilities are Needed to Become a Successful Corporate Recruiter?

The skills and abilities you need to become a successful corporate recruiter could vary depending on your specific role in the recruiting process.

However, there are some consistent hard skills that all recruiters should focus on developing, including:

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills: As a recruiter, you will be interacting with candidates, hiring managers, and other members of your team regularly. You need to be able to effectively communicate with all of these groups to get the best results.
• Ability to multitask and manage multiple priorities: Corporate recruiters are typically responsible for a number of different tasks at once so they must be able to manage their time effectively to get everything done.
• Strong research skills: In order to identify the best candidates for a position, you need to have strong research skills since you’ll have to be capable of finding information about potential candidates to assess their qualifications.
• Knowledge of the latest trends in human resources: The field of human resources is constantly changing, so corporate recruiters need to stay up-to-date on the latest trends. This includes processes like new recruiting methods, changes in labor laws, and employee retention strategies.
• Networking skills: As a recruiter, it is important to develop relationships with both candidates and hiring managers, and the larger your professional network is, the larger the talent pool you can draw from becomes. In the modern era of recruiting, LinkedIn networking has become an absolutely critical piece of the process.
• Interviewing skills: You need to be able to interview job candidates and assess their qualifications both quickly and accurately so that you can make reliable suggestions about which individuals would be the best fit for available positions.

To be successful in corporate recruiting, you should also work on a series of soft skills, which are more general skills that aren’t specific to the recruiting process, but which will be useful in helping you achieve success as a recruiter anyway, including:

• Critical thinking skills: You need to be able to think critically about job candidates, reviewing what they’ve said and reported to accurately assess their qualifications and abilities.
• Time management skills: You need to be able to stay organized to manage multiple tasks simultaneously, especially since recruiting cycles can move extremely quickly in the modern era.
• Marketing skills: In order to attract top talent, you may need marketing skills so that you can position your company, organization, and the role you’re trying to fill as an attractive one to highly-qualified candidates. Part of your job is not just to find the right talent for the role, but also to make the role and organizations sound appealing to those candidates.
• Technology skills: Corporate recruiters need to be comfortable using technology, such as applicant tracking systems and especially social media platforms.

Do I Really Need a Degree to Become a Corporate Recruiter?

You’re likely to need at least a bachelor’s degree in order to qualify for a role as a professional corporate recruiter, as that’s one of the screening qualifications organizations tend to use when looking for available talent in this field.

If you haven’t already earned a bachelor’s degree, then you should consider obtaining our online Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resource Management, which is the perfect program for future recruiters, as it’ll provide you with all the knowledge and skills you need to break into this industry.

If you already have a bachelor’s degree, then you should think about completing our online Master’s Degree program in HR Management, which will deliver advanced training on HR-related skills. “Corporate recruiter” also happens to be one of the three most popular job titles reported by graduates from our master’s program.

If you’re serious about becoming a recruiter, then you’re almost certainly going to need a degree, and a degree in human resources is the perfect way to prepare for the challenges you’ll face in this industry.

How Will CSU Global’s Master’s in HR Management Help Prepare me for a Career as a Recruiter?

CSU Global’s Master’s in Human Resource Management program will provide you with everything you need to launch a successful career in recruiting, including all of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required by this complex job.

You’ll receive instruction in all of the most important HR subjects, including topics like talent acquisition, talent development, and best practices for maximizing human capital, each of which will provide an important foundation for helping you become an effective recruiter.

The skills and abilities you develop will include:

• Recruiting and staffing: You’ll learn how to identify and assess talent, develop job descriptions and advertisements, screen resumes, and conduct effective interviews.
• Employee relations: You’ll learn all about employee relationships, including how to handle grievances, investigate complaints, and mediate disputes, which could help you when reviewing potential candidates for available positions.
• Performance management: You’ll learn how to set performance goals, track employee progress, provide feedback, and administer disciplinary measures important skills that will help you understand what to ask and what to look for in potential job candidates.
• Compensation and benefits: You’ll learn how to design and administer employee benefits programs, how to calculate pay rates, and how to develop salary structures, all of which are critical areas of knowledge for recruiting.
• Training and development: You’ll learn how to create and deliver training programs, assess employee needs, and identify developmental opportunities, which may help you identify talent that has room for growth potential.
• Labor law: You’ll learn about the laws that govern the workplace, including anti-discrimination and harassment laws, wage and hour regulations, and family and medical leave policies, all of which govern the recruiting process, and will become important areas of information for you as you launch a career in this field.
• Organizational design and development: You’ll learn how to design and implement effective organizational structures, manage change, and develop workplace policies and procedures, again, important topics for anyone looking to help add new valuable human assets to a changing or growing organization.

While some of these topics don’t seem to directly relate to the process of recruiting, all of them will help give you a better background for understanding how to evaluate potential job candidates, how to select the right people for available positions, and how to do a better job as a recruiter by ensuring that the candidates you select will deliver real value to the organization.

This program is the ideal way to prepare for a successful, lifelong career, whether you choose to focus specifically on recruiting, or change your mind and decide to pursue a different career course within the field of human resources.

What Can I Do to Increase My Chances of Success?

Obtaining a degree in HR management is the best way to prepare for a successful career in recruiting, but there are certainly other steps you can take to help improve your odds of success.

After you’ve completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree in human resources, you should think about getting an industry-specific, recruiting or HR-focused certification.

According to Zippia.com and Recruitee.com, some of the best certification options for corporate recruiters include:

• AIRS’s Certified Social Sourcing Recruiter (CSSR).
• AAMM’s Master Certificate in Physician Recruitment (MCPR) .
• SHRM’s Certified Professional certification (SHRM-CP).
• HCRi’s Professional in Human Resources (HCRi-PHR)
• Recruiter Academy Certified Training Program

Once your academic credentials are all aligned, make sure to look into other strategies you can use to improve your odds of success, like:

• Starting early: If you are still in school, start exploring recruiting careers and internships as soon as possible. This could give you a head start on developing the skills and experience needed for a successful career in the field.
• Networking: Get connected with people in the recruiting industry, connecting with them on LinkedIn, following their Social Media, reading articles about the field, attending networking events, and joining professional organizations. This will help you build relationships with potential employers and colleagues.
• Volunteering: Offer to volunteer your time to help with recruitment activities or special projects anywhere that you can get some real experience and make a difference. This will give you hands-on experience and allow you to showcase your skills and abilities.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to do any of these things to become a corporate recruiter, but the better your academic credentials and the more experience you develop in this field, the higher your odds will be of landing one of the better jobs in the industry.

If you’re serious about becoming a leader in recruiting, then you should definitely consider these opportunities.

Should I Get My Degree in HR Online? 

Yes, regardless of the education path you choose to pursue, we suggest completing your studies online rather than in person.

Studying online provides many significant benefits compared to learning in person, but the most important advantage is that you’ll have far more flexibility and freedom since you can study anywhere and at any time.

Choosing to study online with us at CSU Global means you’ll get to take advantage of a variety of other benefits too, including:

• No requirements to show up at set times or in physical locations.
• Monthly class starts.
• Accelerated courses.

These advantages make it easier to complete your educational credentials without disrupting your lifestyle and current responsibilities.

This is especially important for modern, adult learners, especially people with existing work and family responsibilities. If you’ve already got a busy schedule, but you want to advance your career by completing a degree in HR, then you should definitely think about studying online with us.

Why Should I Choose CSU Global?

Our 100% online Master’s Degree program in HR Management was designed to provide you with everything you need to launch a successful career in recruiting.

The program is regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, and its curriculum is aligned with the SHRM HR Curriculum Guidebook and Templates.

When it comes time to land a job in recruiting, you can count on this degree to provide real value as it currently holds the #2 ranking for Best Online Master’s in Human Resources by Online Course Report.

Our alumni’s experience in the real world proves that the program delivers real value, as their top three reported job titles are HR Director, Corporate Recruiter, and Employee Relations Manager, while their reported average annual salary is $74,509 just three years after completing the program. 

CSU Global is also widely regarded as an industry leader in higher education, having earned several important rankings, including:

• A #10 ranking for Best Online Colleges for ROI from OnlineU.
• A #1 ranking for Best Online Colleges & Schools in Colorado from Best Accredited Colleges.
• A #1 ranking for Best Online Colleges in Colorado from Best Colleges. 

Finally, we offer competitive tuition rates and a Tuition Guarantee to ensure your affordable tuition rate won’t increase as long as you remain enrolled as a student, which protects you from the tuition rate hikes that are common at other schools.

To get additional details about our fully-accredited online Master’s Degree in HR Management, please give us a call at (800) 462-7845, or fill out our Information Request Form.

Ready to get started today? Apply now!