Recruiters, Career Coaches, Headhunters, and Hiring Managers—What's The Difference?
Throughout your job search, you’ll likely come into contact with many different professionals who can help you land your next job or get clear on what you want out of your career.
A recruiter who’s reaching out about an open position will likely be the first type of professional to contact you, especially if you have a solid LinkedIn presence.
Recruiters seek candidates for open positions at the companies they work at or at companies that have hired them to find potential candidates for them.
While recruiters can help you find your next job, they don’t work alongside you during every step of your job search.
Often, job seekers conflate recruiters with other professionals, like career coaches, HR professionals, headhunters, executive search firms, and career coaches. While there are a few similarities between some of these professionals, they all play different roles.
Here’s a deep dive into what recruiters actually do and how they differ from other career professionals!
What Do Recruiters Do?
Recruiters find potential candidates for open positions. They are experts at finding, screening, and attracting candidates for open roles.
Recruiters may work at one company to find people to fill open roles within the company. They may also work at a recruiting agency that specializes in a specific industry, like a marketing recruiting firm or an IT recruiting firm.
Recruiters may have many different job titles, including:
Talent acquisition specialist
Corporate recruiter
Personnel officer
Human resources specialist
Recruiters work closely with hiring managers to find out what skills, qualifications, traits, and previous experiences candidates need in order to be a good fit for an open position.
After recruiters gather information on the position, they seek out candidates who would be a good match. They often start their search on LinkedIn—in fact, 87% of recruiters turn to LinkedIn at some point during their search for candidates. Recruiters who work at one company may also go to job fairs on behalf of the company to find candidates.
If a recruiter finds you on LinkedIn and thinks you’d be a good candidate for the job, they’ll send you a message through LinkedIn or send an email to the email address you created your LinkedIn with. The message will give you info about the position and the necessary qualifications. It may also contain a little information about the company culture. At the end of the message, the recruiter will instruct you to schedule a meeting with them to discuss the position further.
After you schedule a meeting with the recruiter, they’ll call you for an interview at your scheduled time. During the interview, they’ll ask questions about your experience and qualifications, and they’ll answer questions you have about the position.
The recruiter may periodically reach out to you after your interview to give you updates on the position, especially if the company is taking a long time to make a decision.
If the hiring manager thinks you’ll be a viable candidate, the recruiter may contact you to schedule an interview with the hiring manager. Then, if you’re hired, you’ll work alongside HR and the hiring manager.
If the company goes with another candidate, the recruiter may reach back out to you to let you know that the company hired someone else for the role. However, if you built a solid relationship with the recruiter, they may tell you to browse their company’s website and contact them if you see any positions you’re interested in listed on the website.
What Don’t Recruiters Do?
Clearly, recruiters play an important role in the job search, but they shouldn’t be your go-to for everything you need during your search for your next job.
Here are a few things you shouldn’t rely on recruiters for:
Career advice and career coaching
Clarity on your career goals
Résumé writing
Help finding jobs, apart from the jobs they contact you about
This table gives you a quick breakdown of what recruiters do and don’t do:
What Should I Look Out for When Recruiters Reach Out to Me?
Unfortunately, some scammers take advantage of job seekers by pretending to be recruiters. These scammers swindle job seekers out of their money and steal their personal information, which leaves victims of these scams vulnerable to identity theft.
Here are some things recruiters will NEVER do when they reach out to you about open roles:
Ask you to pay them to set up interviews with their clients
Ask you to pay them for their job placement services
Send you an advance check from your new job and ask you to send them money for supplies from your check
Unless they also have a background in résumé writing, most recruiters will not direct you to a résumé writer's website to have your résumé optimized. A common job search scam involves fake recruiters directing job seekers to a fake résumé writing service’s website. If job seekers submit their résumés and pay to have them rewritten, they typically receive nothing back. If they do get an updated résumé back, the new résumé has very few changes that weren’t worth the money. So, if a recruiter directs you to a résumé writer’s website, see if the writer is listed on the National Résumé Writers Association or the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches' website before sending them your money and personal information.
If a recruiter reaches out to you via LinkedIn, visit their profile for more information about them. Recruiters have to be well-connected in order to do their jobs, so most of them have 500+ connections. Additionally, recruiters’ profiles should be connected to their recruiting agency’s company page or to their company’s page if they work for one company. If a recruiter does not have many connections and hasn’t linked their profile to a company’s page, they may be a scammer.
If a recruiter reaches out to you via email, pay close attention to their email address. Recruiters have business email addresses that use their company’s domain.
What Do Other Career Services Professionals Do?
While recruiters can play a huge role in your job search, they aren’t the only type of career services professionals you’ll come in contact with during your job search and career as a whole.
Here’s an overview of what other career services professionals do:
Résumé Writers: Résumé writers craft résumés and cover letters that get you past ATS systems and land you interviews. They can even shorten your job search by creating professional documents that make it abundantly clear to hiring managers that you’re worth learning more about. They are experts at using your career history, skills, qualifications, and achievements together to tell hiring managers why you’re the best fit for the job. Some résumé writers offer LinkedIn optimization services, so you can make meaningful connections with people in your industry and attract recruiters’ attention. Some also write professional bios, enotes, and other professional documents you can use during your job search.
Although their services can help you land your next job, résumé writers do not find jobs for you, and they do not help you decide on a career path.
Career Coach: Career coaches give you objective feedback tailored to your job search and career goals. They help you gain clarity on your career vision, break your goals into actionable steps, and stay motivated while working toward your goals.
Career coaches are experts in career planning, salary negotiation, and interviewing, and they can be an asset to you at every stage of your career.
While career coaches can help you figure out what you want out of your career, teach you how to ace your interviews, and prepare you to negotiate your salary, they do not seek job opportunities for you.
HR Staff: Sometimes, recruiters may be part of the Human Resources (HR) staff if they work for one company. If you call or email for more information on an open position, an HR staff member will answer any questions you may have about the position. An HR person might also be present during your interview.
If you’re hired, the HR department will conduct your onboarding process. HR also handles payroll, conducts disciplinary actions if necessary, writes and updates the company handbook and policies, and maintains employee records.
Hiring Managers: A hiring manager is a person within a company who is responsible for hiring someone to fill an open position. If you’re called in for an interview, you’ll likely be meeting with the hiring manager and/or their committee.
While the hiring manager may sometimes be an HR staff member, they can also be a supervisor from the department where the new hire will work in.
Hiring managers typically don’t answer questions that job seekers have about the position. Those questions are typically directed to HR.
Headhunters: Like recruiters who work at recruiting firms, headhunters work at outside agencies, like executive search firms. They find candidates for open roles that companies need to fill immediately. Often, these are executive roles that require a specific set of high-level skills. Recruiters, on the other hand, can be tasked with filling entry-level, mid-level, or executive-level roles.
Just like recruiters, headhunters reach out to candidates, but they tend to start their search within their own network, at professional networking events, or within their agency’s roster of companies. Recruiters, however, start their search by reaching out to a wide range of candidates on LinkedIn or by attending job fairs.
Headhunters tend to contact people who already have jobs and who are not actively looking for employment. Recruiters tend to contact people who are currently looking for their next job.
Executive Search Firms: Executive search firms find top-level candidates for senior, executive, or other specialized positions for open roles at their clients’ companies.
Headhunters work at executive search firms, and they use their personal contacts within the industry and their knowledge of their industry to identify suitable candidates for the positions they’re tasked with finding candidates for.
If necessary, executive search firms may help their clients to draft job descriptions for their open roles.
Notice that executive search firms are not executive job search firms. While you can reach out to executive search firms to tell them you’re interested in switching companies and being added to their pool of candidates, their main priority is to fill open positions for their clients—not to find a new job for you.
Here’s a table with an overview of what each of these professionals can and cannot do for you:
Wrapping Up
Now that you know what each type of career services professional can do for you, you’ll be well-informed throughout your entire job search!
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