Top Recruitment Quotes on How Recruiting Drives Business Success

Top Recruitment Quotes on How Recruiting Drives Business Success

by | Business, Business Operations, Career, Recruitment, Startups, World of Work

The foundation of every organization is based on the nature of people that are hired to run it. We believe that most people don’t realise how important the job of a recruiter is and the value that a good recruiter brings to the table. Most recruiters themselves, lost in the busyness of day to day battles for finding the best talent on time for their companies, do tend to forget how much business depends on their success and how important what they do is to the business strategy. For all those who think being a candidate is tough, spend a day in the shoes of a recruiter and you’ll know how much pressure the person interviewing you might be in, and what it is like under the supposedly calm exterior of a recruiter. We thought it would be a great idea to reinforce the importance of recruiting and recruiters in your minds by taking the help of some very smart and wise people over time whose words still ring true in the World of Work. Here are the top recruitment quotes that we believe best reflect the strategic importance of recruiting and why it is a business-critical function:

  1. “If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don’t have to manage them.” Jack Welch

  1. “Some people can do one thing magnificently, like Michelangelo, and others make things like semiconductors or build 747 airplanes — that type of work requires legions of people. In order to do things well, that can’t be done by one person, you must find extraordinary people.” Steve Jobs

  1. “Since we do not take a man on his past history, we do not refuse him because of his past history. I never met a man who was thoroughly bad. There is always some good in him if he gets a chance.” Henry Ford

  1. “For no matter what we achieve, if we don’t spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life. But if we spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect – people we really enjoy being on the bus with and who will never disappoint us – then we will almost certainly have a great life, no matter where the bus goes. The people we interviewed from the good-to-great companies clearly loved what they did, largely because they loved who they did it with.” Jim Collins

  1. If you think hiring professionals is expensive, try hiring amateurs.” Anonymous

  1. “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” Chinese Proverb

  1. “If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won’t require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external.” Stephen Covey

  1. “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.” Warren Buffet

  1. “Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he’s hired to do.” Malcolm Forbes

  1. “When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard.” John W Gardner

  1. “You can have the best strategy and the best building in the world, but if you don’t have the hearts and minds of the people who work with you, none of it comes to life.” Renee West

  1. “I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.” Lee Iacocca

  1. “You can’t teach employees to smile. They have to smile before you hire them.” Arte Nathan

  1. “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.” David Ogilvy

  1. “If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don’t particularly like.” Soichiro Honda

Recruitment is both an art and a science. And for all those who are in the recruitment profession, be very proud of what you do – you change people’s lives, you help build companies, and you keep the country’s economy running.  What can be a higher calling than this ? And for all those who are not into recruitment, we hope that this post will help increase your respect for recruiters and appreciate their work more. We encourage you to go thank a recruiter today 🙂

Which is your favorite among the top recruitment quotes of all time? We would love to hear from you! Write to us or comment below.

Short Guide to Recruitment as a Career: 5 Must Have Skills for a Modern Recruiter

Short Guide to Recruitment as a Career: 5 Must Have Skills for a Modern Recruiter

by | Recruitment, World of Work

“Today’s recruiter must be a marketer, sales person, career coach, and psychologist all in one.”— Josh Bersin, Bersin by Deloitte, Principal & Founder

Becoming a star recruiter is no easy job. Recruitment is for those who can wear multiple hats comfortably. It requires being proactive, continuous self-assessment and self-improvement, a great deal of patience and persistence, and above all, a wide range of skills. Do you have what it takes to have a career as a recruiter? How would you rate yourself if having the following skills were crucial to being one?

1. Being a good listener – Much of your performance and credibility as a recruiter lies on how good a listener you are. It is literally your job to listen to people as they speak about themselves and then carry out the process of shortlisting suitable candidates according to any given job description. We admit and agree that at times it may be a test of one’s patience (no guesses on whose patience!), but to be fair, you signed up for it, didn’t you? So you better do justice to it! Jokes apart, being a good listener will help you truly shine at being a recruiter because you will know exactly how to steer the conversation and bring out the best in the prospective candidate according to the job description at hand.

2. Communication skills – In order to assess the communication skills of the prospective candidate, your own communication skills as a recruiter needs to be flawless – irrespective of whether you are communicating with the candidate face to face, on the phone or through email. You not only need to talk well, you need to write well too.  Words woo. Words help you get the attention of the best talent. The reputation of the firm you are recruiting for also rests in your hands depending on the image you project of the organization, through how you communicate with your clients and candidates.

3. Sales and Marketing skills – The key to having great marketing skills is having thorough knowledge regarding the services your firm provides. It is only when you are well versed with the operations of your firm will you be able to confidently market the same to the candidates. You may have scores of deserving candidates on your database, however, if the candidates you are looking to hire are not convinced about your services, it is going to be mammoth waste of resources, and eventually would result in loss of clients and hence stagnate your business. You need to be able to negotiate and convince fiercely, yet gracefully, to be able to sell the services your firm has to offer!

4. Networking skills – Recruiting is essentially a social activity.  Your networking skills, on social media and off-line, will be one of your key differentiators that will set you above the rest. You also need to be well versed with changing IT trends given the technocratic leap the world has taken in the past few years. This is what will determine your success in many areas including tapping the passive candidates’ pool, getting references for clients and candidates, inputs for market studies, etc. As Stacy Donovan Zapar, Zappos says:

 “A modern recruiter is one who is targeted, builds relationships and knows how to not only find candidates but also get them to respond!”

5. Team work – As a recruiter, it is inevitable that once in a while, you may have to function as a part of a team, or even lead a team in order to achieve a set target. During such times, you will have to function under pressure to ensure your own performance is stable and also be responsible for the performance of those working under you or with you. A right mix of ‘firm yet friendly’ approach will have to be employed by you in order to be able to pilot the team efficiently, scope for communication lapses would be minimal. Knowing how to manage ‘people’ is a skill you cannot function without, if you want to be a recruiter!

Bonus Skill: You need to take pride in your job and be extremely positive. Recruitment is one profession where you hear “NO” many more times than you hear “YES”. And having an ability to bounce back from setbacks and get back to work quickly definitely helps! Remember, you are on a very important mission:

“I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.” – Lawrence Bossidy, GE

If you are a recruiter and want to share your professional experiences with us, we would love to hear from you. Do write to us or comment below!