It is often believed that recruiters and HR professionals have the same responsibilities. If we look within a single organization these responsibilities would even sometimes overlap, yet their roles serve different purposes.
In this article, you will learn about the main differences between the two positions and the functions recruiters and HR specialists perform.
What Do Recruiters Do?
In-house recruiters, sometimes known as talent acquisition specialists, source, screen, and assess potential candidates for the company’s various open positions. That includes posting job openings, checking resumes, and making offers. They also interview potential employees to evaluate their qualifications and determine whether the applicants would fit in well with the company’s culture.
Recruitment specialists provide feedback to candidates throughout the recruitment process and sometimes participate in subsequent interviews. An important goal of recruiters is to create and widen their talent pool by maintaining a network of contacts, and thus have direct communication with specialists when the time comes to strengthen the teams within the organization. Recruiters need also to understand the job openings they search people for and often work with departmental leaders, hiring managers, and human resources (HR) professionals to better grasp the purpose behind the role, the conditions of it, and the tasks expected by the desired person.
Among the other duties recruiters carry out are:
- improving candidates’ experiences: Recruiters keep applicants up-to-date, provide feedback, and respond to any questions or concerns.
- collaborating with hiring managers: Recruiters work closely with managers to better understand job requirements and align on candidate preferences.
- negotiating: They act like mediators during conversations about salary and benefits between candidates and employers. Recruiters use data to track and analyze metrics like time-to-fill, source effectiveness, and applicant quality.
- improving the company’s brand identity: Last but not least, recruiters help shape an organization’s image as a desirable employer.
What Are the Roles of HR Professionals?
HR specialists are in charge of handling all the details related to an employee’s time spent working for a company, from the hiring and selection process to performance management and ongoing training. Additionally, they often act as ambassadors of the organizational culture that keeps employees inspired and committed to the larger goals.
The other roles of HR specialists are:
- taking care of compensation and benefits: They oversee workers’ benefit programs such as health insurance, retirement plans, and other perks, as well as fair compensation practices.
- implementing training programs: Human resource professionals create training programs to improve employees’ skills and knowledge, thereby fostering professional growth.
- addressing concerns and resolving conflicts: They mediate conflicts between workers or between employees and management to ensure a healthy work environment.
- assisting in the development of the company: HR professionals help the organization’s long-term growth by aligning strategies with overall business goals.
- obtaining crucial documents from employees, particularly new hires.
Differences Between Recruiters and HR Specialists
Both HR and recruiters are important in the process of hiring new people for a firm. However, their functions differ. The first ones:
- Promote and support the growth of the workers.
- Support the creation of job roles for the company.
- Train, retain, and recruit the company’s staff.
- Onboard and offboard employees.
- Communicate the company’s values and vision to workers.
- Ensure that all of the firm’s policies are followed.
- They almost always work full-time, unlike recruiters, who can be hired for a part-time job.
Recruiters are responsible for:
- finding the most suitable candidate for the vacant position.
- identifying and assessing applicants for job openings.
- reviewing resumes and conducting initial interviews.
- taking a proactive approach to identifying potential candidates, even those who are not actively searching for a job.
- building relationships with candidates and creating a wide talent pool.
- sending and discussing the shortlisted candidates to the hiring managers.
Another important role of recruiters is their specialization in particular professions or fields of work. They gain a thorough understanding of the abilities, credentials, and characteristics necessary to succeed in those positions. In this way, recruiters can more easily determine a candidate’s fit and match them with suitable job opportunities.
Recruiters could be measured by different metrics for employee engagement, candidate sourcing, and hiring success. The number of qualified applicants the time it takes to fill a position, and the standard of future colleagues presented to the hiring team are a few examples of metrics.
Conclusion
The main distinction between human resources and recruitment specialists is that recruiters seek out and evaluate talent to meet the hiring goals of the organization. On the other hand, by teaching conflict resolution techniques and ensuring that certain standards are upheld, HR specialists help the development of a comfortable work environment for workers and the company. They are also in charge of encouraging employee improvement, training, and retention.
Could one person execute the functions of both an HR specialist and a recruiter? This usually happens in small organizations where the demand for new hires is not as great, which could justify the need for a separate specialist focusing on the task. However, the best option for companies and candidates is for the firms to have a separate human resource department and a team that fulfills the organization’s recruitment needs. The workflow and the ongoing processes of hiring new people will be more efficient and improved if more specialists can focus on their specific tasks.
In this article, you learned more about the different roles that HR and recruiters execute. If you need professional assistance to find the most suitable candidates for your open positions or you are a job seeker, feel free to get in touch with us.
Here at talaint, we want to shape a new future where recruitment is a harmonious mixture of human touch, technological improvements, and specialized expertise. By choosing us as your strategic partner in the process of recruitment, you will receive efficient and already proven services in this field. Contact us and let us guide you through the adventure of becoming a top talaint.
