Different Types of Recruiters and What They Do

Discover the different types of recruiters, what they do, and how they help your business.

Recruiting and hiring are two of the most time-consuming yet important tasks for small business leaders. Time is of the essence when small teams are spread thin, but hiring the right people is critical to improving work-life culture, efficiency, productivity, and, ultimately, overall business growth. In smaller teams, every individual matters, and employees can’t hide within a large organization. For small businesses looking to streamline and expedite the hiring process, different types of recruiters and recruitment agencies can be valuable.

In this article, we’ll answer, “What are the different types of recruiters?” and provide guidance on how to choose the right staffing solution for your small to medium-sized business.

Benefits of recruiting teams

According to research from Gartner, building high-performing teams starts with an excellent recruiting team.^[1] Recruiters need to be skilled in moving fast, maintaining current technical knowledge, candidate negotiation, effective sourcing, and even new artificial intelligence tools to streamline the process. All different types of recruiters play a role in the hiring process, but no matter your specific needs, the benefits of high-quality recruiting teams are endless.

Cost savings

Outsourced or third-party are often the most cost-effective option as they work on a project or commission basis. Your small business doesn’t have to pay a full-time salary or employee benefits, and you can scale up their services as needed and cancel when you don’t.

Specialized talent

Recruiters maintain high-quality, diverse talent pools and databases that they can immediately tap into. If your business needs to quickly hire a specialized role like a machine, learning engineer, or product manager, recruiters know the ins and outs of these job descriptions and can provide recommendations on experience, technical skills, salary ranges, and more. Not only can they find this specialized talent, but they can pre-screen job seekers to quickly sort through unqualified candidates.

Unbiased third-party perspective

A recruiter offers a main point of contact for candidates going through the interview process, keeping communication centralized but also separate from the hiring manager. Not only is the process of coordinating interviews and following up time-consuming, but it also creates a layer of separation that is beneficial during candidate offers and negotiations. Recruiters can offer an unbiased, third-party perspective that adds another layer of confidence and peace of mind to your final selection.

Relieves the burden off small teams

For your small business, recruiting and hiring can quickly take over the entire day of your existing internal employees. Hiring managers who need to fill a role quickly might be especially tempted to spend all day looking through resumes, scheduling interviews, and following up with candidates. While this is helpful, it’s not the most productive thing for your existing employees to focus on as they can maintain their attention on higher-level, revenue-generating tasks.

Recruiting can quickly become extremely time-consuming, slowing down the overall process and causing a dip in productivity until the job is filled. According to Shelbye J. Reese, marketing director at Deshazo LLC, says that staffing agencies focus on a fast time-to-hire: “Staffing agencies have a larger roster of potential candidates and spend a large amount of resources letting the job seekers know what they do and how to utilize their services. Their goal is to quickly fill open positions to help companies continue day-to-day operations smoothly with no adverse effect on production.”

Types of recruiters

There are many different types of recruitment agencies, from in-house, full-time employees to contract recruiters to industry-specific agencies. Depending on your budget, industry, and candidate needs, different types of recruiters and recruitment agencies might work best for your needs. Plus, many businesses use a combination of recruitment resources to build cohesive teams and retain the best talent while maximizing resources and time.

In-house recruiters

In-house recruiters are typically traditional, full-time employees working internally at your business. Not only are they talent acquisition specialists, but they also work within the larger human resources department to attract candidates, showcase critical employer branding and work culture, and utilize employee advocacy to drive referrals and recommendations.

In-house recruiters are responsible for executing the entire recruitment process from beginning to end, including maintaining job postings, sourcing candidates, screening and shortlisting top candidates, coordinating schedules for interviews, and overall, being the source of communication for candidates going through the process.

For example, if your fast-moving small business places great emphasis on strong employer branding and work-life culture. From office happy hours to volunteer days, emphasizing the culture and collaboration of your business is done best by an in-house recruiter who experiences this environment for themselves. An in-house recruiter can highlight their experience and feelings in working for your company, making your brand stand out to top talent.

Ideal For:

• Industries with specialized roles

• Fast-moving startups

• Companies with strong employer branding

• Augmented by additional recruiting resources if necessary

Headhunters

Headhunters are external recruiters often tasked with finding an individual with highly specific experience or skills. Typically, these recruiters focus on highly qualified individuals for leadership or executive c-suite roles. Networking is critical for headhunters as they maintain a vast professional network to constantly top into the most talented leadership candidates. Headhunters often work as the middleman during the executive search process, helping with candidate evaluation, offer negotiation, and more.

For example, your business might want to replace a CEO who plans on retiring at the end of the year. As this is a monumentally important hire, a headhunter could perform a months-long executive search that connects with top leadership talent with highly specific backgrounds.

Ideal For:

• Confidential searches

• Highly qualified executive roles

Staffing agencies

A staffing agency might also be known as a recruiting firm as they are the most widely recognized type of outsourced recruiting. Staffing agencies offer benefits like saved time, access to a diverse talent pool, flexibility, and cost savings. Staffing agencies often have thousands of recruiters working to maintain relationships with top-quality candidates, and most companies have a large database at their disposal. The right staffing agency can be a valuable long-term partner that scales up and down in response to your small business’s demand.

For example, a fast-growing technology startup could benefit from a long-term staffing agency partner. Imagine you are potentially hiring 100 employees in a year, scaling up quickly from the small team you started with. An in-house recruiter would never be able to maintain that type of volume, so a robust staffing agency might be best.

Ideal For:

• Project-based work

• High turnover companies

• Seasonal hiring fluctuations

• Fast hiring needs

According to Keca Ward, human resource specialist at HumanResource.com, “Staffing agencies typically fill temporary or contractual positions. I’ve seen this difference play out when a design company needed permanent creative directors sourced by a recruiting agency, and seasonal staff provided by a staffing agency during peak project times.”

Contract recruiters

Contract recruiters work to fill part-time or interim positions within a company. They might often work on a contract basis themselves and often step in to help an organization with a short-term, quick need. This type of temporary staffing often only lasts a few months, and contractor recruiters move on to another organization.

For example, your small business might experience a temporary need for a skilled user interface (UI) designer to complete the visuals for a reimagined customer-facing platform. Your business won’t need a UI designer long term, but it’s critical in getting this project across the line. A contractor recruiter could find temporary talent for your organization.

Ideal For:

• Seasonal needs or specific projects

• Lower budgets

Executive recruiters

Similar to headhunters, executive recruiters are responsible for finding and hiring top-level leadership, such as Senior Vice President, Vice President, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and more. Active recruiters are highly professional themselves and stringent about maintaining top levels of confidentiality and professionalism. Also, executive recruiters can assist with strategic talent hiring and workforce planning, and they might even work on a success-based fee structure.

For example, your technology company might be ready to move out of stealth mode and enter a high-growth period. You might be looking for a VP-level product visionary who has led multiple startups into maturity with the right level of strategic insight mixed with the execution skills of someone who has done it before. As this would be a difficult job to simply post online, an executive recruiter would be a valuable partner to leverage their globally distributed talent network to find the right candidate.

Ideal For:

• Medium-sized businesses looking to scale

• Nationwide or global talent searches

• Specialized industry expertise

• Time-sensitive leadership placements

Industry-specific recruiters

Industry-specific recruiters are teams with a specialized focus on a specific niche or industry. Industry-specific recruiters are often popular with highly technical industries like engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, and more. As their title suggests, these recruiters are best when you’re searching for a highly technical, specialized role within a particular industry. These recruiters are well-versed in technical skill requirements, industry, culture, regulatory, compliance, market, trends, and more. They can offer more precise candidates, matching, a reduced learning curve, and even reach out to passive candidates within their network.

Ideal For:

• Highly technical roles

• Difficult-to-hire positions

Using different types of recruiters

To find the best talent, create a positive candidate experience, and streamline the hiring process, outside recruiters and recruitment agencies can be valuable partners for small businesses. Not only do they accelerate the time to hire, but recruiters can be an insightful source of market and industry trends. Recruiters work around the clock to find passive candidates while maintaining active relationships with job seekers within their network, making them the perfect tool for small businesses to quickly hire top talent.