A freelancer recruiter is a person who helps an employer to hire exactly the specialist that he needs, but who does not belong to the staff of any agency or company.
Freelance - a modern trend
More recently, the word "freelance" was applicable only to several areas: journalism or browsing the Internet. However, today this concept applies to many professions.
Defining a freelancer, we can say that this person is not characterized by permanent labor relations (which are regulated by the Labor Code) with companies or enterprises, since he performs a certain amount of work or a specific task, paid upon. Just a few years ago, a limited number of people entering narrow professional niches had this opportunity, and the market structure as such did not exist at all. In addition, associations with freelancers were extremely negative: they were perceived as lazy people who did not want to go somewhere to work.
Public opinion changed dramatically when, along with the development of technology and the emergence of high-quality, affordable equipment, a large number of people got the opportunity to realize their professional skills. Due to the numerous advantages, even large companies prefer to turn to freelancers, outsourcing a wide variety of projects: from writing advertising texts to developing complex computer programs. Such a specialty as recruiting was no exception.
Freelance recruiter: who is it, what does it and why does it get paid
A recruiter is an employee who is looking for personnel for an enterprise or finds a vacancy for a specialist. He must have certain skills and experience, otherwise the quality of his services will be insufficient. Payment to such freelancers is charged after the vacancy is closed.
In fact, a recruiter is someone who performs the following duties:
- It posts information about vacancies that have opened in various companies. To do this, he uses message boards, special sites and newspapers.
- Finds and looks through resumes of job seekers who could take vacancies.
- It sends out applications, calls and invites people for an interview.
- Holds meetings and interviews to determine how suitable a person is for filling a position.
- Tells applicants who are suitable for the company about working conditions, standards and provides the necessary information about future work.
- Transmits information about the candidate to the employer and learns his opinion.
- He contacts the employee and gives him the answer of the employer: he is hired or not.
By mutual agreement of the employee and the employer, the transaction is considered successful, the vacancy is closed, and the freelancer receives payment. In fact, the recruiter is an intermediary.
Benefits Work Has
There are several significant advantages, thanks to which many people choose for themselves such a niche as freelance recruiting:
- Getting the full fee. When working as a recruiter in an agency, each employee receives no more than a third of the amount of remuneration. At the same time, the fee of a private freelancer is several times lower than the one paid to specialized companies.
- Flexibility of work schedule. The time that he can devote to engage in professional activities, determines the recruiter. Who is this if not a freelancer in the traditional sense? A recruiter can work both day and night, as well as on holidays or weekends, freeing for himself those periods that he needs. This is especially true for people who combine the duties of a freelancer with other work, caring for children or elderly relatives.
- No need to rent an office.
- Independent choice of partners for professional activities.
Recruiting Disadvantages
As you know, there is no perfect job. To get a complete understanding of what a freelancer recruiter does, who he is and what he breathes, you need to consider the minuses of the profession:
- Lack of stability. To receive income from their activities, you need to constantly find customers and satisfy their needs.
- Irregularity. With this kind of work, there’s no need to talk about constant and regular workload, since there can be ten orders in one month, and not a single one in the other.
- The need to spend a large amount of time searching for both employers and employees.
- Mandatory possession of tact, competent speech, psychological analysis skills, knowledge of the labor relations market.
Separate aspects of activity
At first glance, it might seem that such a profession is completely uncomplicated and in the conditions of the economic crisis and unemployment, any opportunity to earn should be taken with a bang. However, like any other specialist, a recruiter is still an employee. Like other participants in the labor market, his pitfalls await him.
For example, finding the right person is not so simple, because you need to find an employee with a set of specific professional characteristics, education and experience. In addition, the recruiter is the one on whose shoulders lies the examination of the competence and adequacy of the candidate. It is not uncommon for employees to change their minds, find a job in parallel with the recruiter, or simply refuse his services before the result is obtained.
Communication with the employer also has its own characteristics: tact, understanding of tasks and requirements are important here.
How recruiters start work
It is very difficult to work in this area without special education (personnel management), in extreme cases, it can be replaced by the experience of an assistant recruiter in a company.
Prioritization and determination of the direction of work - this is what the recruiter does first. What does it mean? Starting to work independently , the freelancer chooses what professions he will deal with: managers, workers, managers, sales specialists.
Further, the recruiter assigns a fee for his services and is engaged in monitoring exchanges and sites in search of first orders.
The successful and productive activities of such workers largely depend on their reputation, business relationships, activity and quick wit. Therefore, we can talk about efficiency only after a certain period (several months, or even years) has passed.