To hire an experienced IT recruiter or a junior specialist, that is the question

Discussing in which cases it is better to make a choice in favor of a junior specialist, how to develop a recruiter and what difficulties you can face while searching for experienced IT recruiters.

Developing an IT recruiter from scratch — the mission possible

Sometimes it is really more convenient and easier to make a choice in favor of a person with experience, however, this question remains one that can not always be given an unambiguous answer.

For example, if a company is just starting its development and may not be too attractive for experienced specialists, then, based on our experience, it is more reasonable to take junior ones and develop them by yourself. However, there are several important points that you should consider:

1

Teaching methods
In order to develop an employee, you need to understand the training strategy clearly;
2

No instant result
A junior recruiter, with all his desire, will not become a pro in a week or even a couple of months. Training an employee from scratch actually requires a lot of time and effort of the senior managers, as well as their expertise and professional experience;
3

The desire of the recruiter to develop

The mutual commitment and contribution of both participants in the process is vital: if employees are not ready to work hard, including their self-development, even the most advanced training methodology will be ineffective in this case. At the interview stage it is great to find out the level of candidates' motivation and their desire to make efforts to grow professionally.

Important qualities for an IT recruiter

It is possible to understand whether IT recruiting is suitable for a person very quickly — for example, we at Lucky Hunter usually determine this during the first week of cooperation. The main requirements for junior specialists who want to try themselves in the IT recruiting filed are:

Flexibility of the mind;
Ability to make decisions quickly in changing environment;
Strong analytical skills to analyze the information and build forecasts to play ahead of the curve.

If the recruiter works on the international market (for example, Lucky Hunter also works with foreign customers), then English is also of great importance. Today, the IT market, like other fields, is becoming international — a recruiter needs a sufficient level of English proficiency to communicate with foreign clients and candidates.

Tatiana Melnichuk
Lucky Hunter CEO
While selecting, we always look at the candidate's behaviors in general and their speech — for example, if they have a phobia of telephone conversations, we will have to refuse, because this quality is unacceptable for a recruiter. Nevertheless, everything is very individual — sometimes candidates with a profound work experience in big companies do not pass the probationary period, and junior recruiters are with us even today, having made the way from a beginner to a lead recruiter.

How we teach

While training our recruiters in Lucky Hunter, we start from the basics: together we study the client's profile, learn how to compose business letters and move step-by-step.

Thanks to our methodology, even the recruiters without work experience and researchers successfully fill their first vacancies in a month. We share cases from our practice below :)

The successful Lucky Hunter case

We have several recruiters that we have raised on our own. They are still working with us today: during a few years at the agency, they have not only turned from junior specialists into lead recruiters, but also help with the training of new employees. Due to the fact that they have their own experience of what it is like to start your way in the world of IT recruiting, they are excellent mentors for new team members.

However, in the case of hiring specialists without experience, there is a risk of the opposite situation, when an employee who is "grown up" and trained from scratch at some point decides to leave the company — the reasons for this can be very different: changing the field of activity, searching for new opportunities for professional growth, and others.

As a result, the resources invested in training and professional development of the recruiter do not lead to a positive outcome for the company. Nevertheless, such scenarios take place and are quite understandable — everyone wants to find something to their liking :)

The unsuccessful Lucky Hunter case

One of our recruiters, became more familiar with the IT industry, was so inspired that she chose the path of a frontend developer. The second one decided to try herself as a QA.

IT recruiters with job experience

Hiring an experienced IT recruiter is also a good option for a company if you have the time and resources to search, since the main problem is that it is quite difficult to find such recruiter.

Most often this is headhunting, in addition, recruiters with experience are often very selective and prefer inhouse recruiting to an agency due to a less stressful work format.

Nevertheless, successful cases of hiring experienced IT recruiters fully justify the long and sometimes difficult search for them :)

One of the biggest advantages is a quick inclusion in the work: they already have their own knowledge and experience base and do not need to be told about many professional details from scratch.

The successful Lucky Hunter case

We had a successful experience of hiring a recruiter who worked for a long time for another IT recruiting agency: the absence of the need for training her from scratch and an excellent match in team spirit, which we found out, led us to good results soon after the start of her work.

It is really important to coincide with the new employees: IT-recruiting is about teamwork, and you need proximity not only in values and a common worldview, but also in working methods.

The unsuccessful Lucky Hunter case

There was also the opposite situation — despite the high expertise of the recruiter, we had to go different ways, because the necessary synergy did not occur. Unfortunately, even if specialists are really masters of their craft, little happens if we do not look in the same direction with them.

We have recently told you more about the features of hiring experienced IT recruiters — if you haven't read it yet, it's time to do it now :)

Hiring an experienced or junior specialist — which option to choose?

In general, the question of hiring an experienced recruiter or a beginner is still open — there is no universal answer or a single strategy, everything is purely individual in each case.

Yes, hiring a junior IT recruiter, you will need a lot of time and patience to train them, but in the future you will get a motivated and loyal employee. If your resources allow you to develop a recruiter from scratch — try it!

Moreover, in the case of junior specialists, a zero level of knowledge can sometimes be an advantage: such a recruiter can immediately be taught your working methods, and not retrained, as often happens in cases with experienced IT recruiters.

If the company should resolve the problem as quickly as possible to conquer new IT-horizons, or there is no possibility of employee training from scratch, it is really wiser to make a choice in favor of a recruiter with experience: the same applies to the case when you already know in advance that the flow of vacancies that are to be closed, will be very rich, and the recruiter should be included in the work promptly.

It may be more difficult to find an experienced IT recruiter than a junior specialist, but in the end, if you manage to find yourrecruiter, all the efforts will be worth it — we have understood it from our own experience :)

Have you been looking for a suitable IT specialist for your company for a long time? Fill out the contact form — our IT recruiters will help you fill even the most difficult positions.

Polina Barabanova

Content Manager at Lucky Hunter