What does it take to become a recruiter?

October 19, 2023

News

Hi there! We’re Aleksandra, Ana, Khrystyna & Vera – Tactile’s very own recruitment team. We have a bunch of things in common, including our love for 80s music, passion for knowledge sharing and the fact that none of us studied HR! Ana and Aleks’ backgrounds are in languages, Khrystyna studied international relations and Vera dove deep into the worlds of media studies, cognition and communication.

So, how can we still work successfully and hire new talents for Tactile without having an education background in this field?

Let’s look into what it actually takes to become a recruiter!

And hey, don’t get us wrong! We’re not saying that you should skip studying if you want to go into HR – if this is your passion, then you should pursue it as early on as possible. We just think that there are many different backgrounds that can lead into the world of recruitment and give you the soft skills that you need to be a successful talent acquisition specialist. Having a strong passion for working with people and loving to project manage are two great starting points!

For example, working in customer support or sales is great for developing a customer-centric approach. How does this play into the world of recruitment? We are the first person that candidates meet when they come into contact with Tactile. In a way, you could say that we act as gatekeepers for the company :). So being very customer, or in our case, candidate-centric, helps us to provide the best possible candidate experience to everyone interviewing for a job with Tactile. Furthermore, our customers are also our hiring managers (typically team leads) – building a relationship of trust with them is vital for having a smooth recruitment process in place.

At Tactile, we hire globally (and currently have over 43 nationalities just within our Copenhagen studio!). This means that we are actively reaching out and interviewing people from all over the world. Have you done an international student exchange before or studied something like international business management or international relations? These experiences can give you a great understanding of the role that culture and language play in human interactions. Understanding that different people communicate differently (in written or spoken communication) can help you to overcome biases and become a better recruiter!

For Vera, who is the latest addition to our team and is still wrapping up her Master’s degree in Cognition & Communication, becoming a recruiter was a way to combine her educational background and passion for people. One way she is doing that at Tactile is by working on her first DEIB initiatives, which amongst other things include writing educational articles on topics such as inclusive communication and implicit bias (you can find these on our LinkedIn page). On a more general note, Vera says that:

“Understanding cognitive processes and how people communicate helps me to better understand the needs and motivations of both candidates and hiring teams. The effective communication skills that I acquired throughout my studies help me to tailor messages to different audiences and communicate in a way that is engaging and personable. And I learned a lot about biases, mindreading and motivated reasoning and try to incorporate that knowledge into my day-to-day when assessing candidates. I also aim to share more of that with hiring teams in order to make our candidate assessment processes even more fair and informed.”

There are many paths that can lead you into the world of recruitment or HR, besides the traditional educational route. Because these roles are so people-centric, there are a lot of skills and knowledge which you can develop in other fields and then easily transfer into the context of HR. And whilst hiring people is not always easy, giving someone an offer for a job they’re really excited and passionate about, and then seeing the impact that this person has within the organisation – this is a truly rewarding feeling and without a doubt the best part of our job! ✨