The skills that once defined a corporate recruiter are often detrimental to success today. Times are still tough for everyone, and to make it as a successful recruiter, you have to be able to stand out and hone in on those special recruiting skills.

Here’s a look at three important skills successful recruiters have:

They Build Relationships
Most important and on top of the pyramid of skills is the ability to find great people and build relationships with them. This is what all great recruiters do. Recruiters within organizations need to get out of the organization and get to know people at all levels and within various professions that might be helpful to their firm. They need to utilize technology to help create the initial relationship, and then leverage that by continuously communicating. Those who possess this skill set are good at knowing who the best performers are because they also have good relationships with the hiring managers and other workers who can tell them. They assess why those people are the best and then try to find more with the same skills.

They Know How The Market Works
The competent recruiter is able to tell the hiring manager what the employment market looks like, where the talent is, and how difficult it will be to find and close on candidates. This knowledge has to be data-driven and can be achieved by staying up-to-date on trends in the industry -- and of course, the use of technology.

As a part of this, the recruiter also has to know how the market work is moving. Are competitors laying people off, which might open a fresh source of trained candidates for their firm? Is the market they are in growing, stagnant, or shrinking? This kind of information, combined with the ability to build relationships, can make an ineffective recruiting function very powerful. The market knowledge allows them to focus their relationship building on the candidates who are scarce and valuable, and to spend less time on the commonly available candidates.

They Understand and Evolve With Technology
Technology has already taken over recruiting. Applicant tracking systems, HRIS systems, e-mail, job boards, blogs, social networks, recruiting websites, and candidate screening tools are all part of the technology equation. If a recruiter is not technically fluent and informed, they cannot be successful in the long run. Great recruiters dominate and grow with technology learning how to make it do what they want. 



What else would you add to this list?