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Recruiting Assistant Duties and Responsibilities

Recruiting assistants support their company’s HR department with various aspects of the hiring process. These are some of the duties and responsibilities expected of them:

Perform Clerical Functions Answering phone calls, scanning documents, and making photocopies is integral to the recruitment process. Recruiting assistants ensure that all the necessary paperwork is filed and that applicant forms are completed and processed.

Schedule Interviews Recruiting assistants schedule interviews for up to 40 applicants a week. This involves coordinating schedules with applicants and interviewers, creating calendars, sending interview confirmations, monitoring inboxes, and reconciling interview cancellations.

Screen Applicants As the first point of contact between applicants and the hiring manager, recruiting assistants screen applicants before moving their applications forward. To screen applicants, recruiting assistants review application material, read resumes and cover letters, and set up phone interviews.

Update Applicant Information Recruiting assistants perform data entry to input and update applicant information in the candidate database. They uphold confidentiality when handling applicant information.

Process Background Checks Recruiting assistants process background checks to verify applicant information and ensure that the minimum hiring requirements are met. This may include contacting references, screening for drug use, and checking for criminal background.

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Recruiting Assistant Skills and Qualifications

Organized and collaborative, recruiting assistants work efficiently to make sure the hiring process is well planned and successful. Employers typically look for applicants with one to three years of experience in addition to the following skills:

  • Customer service – recruiting assistants greet interviewees and answer phone calls and emails, offering a high level of customer service to ensure a pleasant experience for applicants
  • Recruitment experience – since recruiting assistants are in charge of hiring staff, they should be familiar with interview, onboarding, and training processes
  • Computer literacy – this position requires a strong familiarity with social networking sites and job applicant systems, as recruiting assistants use applicant tracking systems, job boards, and social media to reach potential applicants
  • Organizational skills – scheduling multiple interviews and coordinating the recruitment process requires recruiting assistants to be organized and efficient
  • Time management – from answering phone calls and emails to greeting interviewees, recruiting assistants work in a fast-paced environment where they are always on their feet juggling multiple tasks. Effective time management helps operations run smoothly and on time
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Recruiting Assistant Education and Training

The minimal education requirement for a recruiting assistant is a high school diploma, but many companies prefer at least a bachelor’s degree. Previous experience in human resources and recruitment is preferred. In order for recruiting assistants to learn the specific processes and procedures at their company, on-the-job training is also provided.

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Recruiting Assistant Salary and Outlook

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual salary for recruiting assistants, categorized as human resource specialists, is around $55,000. On the high end, recruiting assistants can earn as much as $100,000. On the low end, they earn under $34,000. Full-time recruiting assistants often receive company benefits such as health insurance, sick days, and paid vacation days. Many companies also offer bonuses based on employee or company performance and stock options for retirement plans. The expected growth for recruiting assistant jobs in the next 10 years is 7 percent, which is the average for all jobs, according to the BLS. Companies are increasingly likely to use organizations that provide HR services rather than hire HR specialists directly.

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Helpful Resources

Are you interested in a career as a recruiting assistant? Here are some helpful resources to help you learn more about this job:

HR Professionals – this LinkedIn group of over 300,000 professionals serves as a platform for human resources specialists across different locations and industries to interact with each other. Members of this group share knowledge and offer insight into the HR industry. There are also job postings that advertise open positions

Who – author Geoff Smart offers extensive research about HR departments, explaining at length why recruiters are one of the most valuable assets to a company and sharing tools and advice to avoid hiring mistakes

Recruiting Blogs – Recruiting Blogs is a popular site for articles and blog posts on recruiting. Its resources include information on applicant tracking system prices, resume database websites, and social media tools

The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age – written by Ben Casnocha, Chris Yeh, and Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, this book discusses the important relationships between workers and managers within companies and how to recruit, manage, and retain successful employees

Talent HQ – Talent HQ has a great blog for recruiting professionals that discusses many important aspects of recruiting, such as creating appealing job ads, soliciting feedback, and using social media to find applicants