Employee voices: “You have to be open-minded.”
Viewing applications, creating profiles, conducting interviews - the job of a recruiter is communicative and varied. But what does a recruiter’s everyday work look like? We ask our recruiting team what their daily tasks are.
An interview with Jana Pünter and Monika Witka.
“While others are still rubbing spring tiredness out of their eyes, you’re all jolly lively. You have been busy for weeks now. What is going on?”
Monika Witka: “Normal business! From April, all operating companies will resume their work in the wind farms. As soon as the temperatures are right, the wind turbines are serviced, inspected, repaired or new wind farms are built. In the last few weeks we already have put together the teams for these works.”
“How do we imagine recruiting in the WP Group?”
Jana Pünter: “The WP Group offers services for wind farms. Either we carry out the work in the wind farm with our own teams under a work contract or we place suitable personnel at the disposal of our customers. But no matter what the job, we have the task to find the right person with the right qualifications for an open position. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to fill vacancies due to the increasing shortage of skilled workers. In many industries, a real battle for highly qualified employees has even developed. So the work of a recruiter is becoming more and more important.”
Monika Witka: “As soon as personnel is needed, we receive a description from the project management or sales department of what the new colleague should be able to do. From this, we formulate a job advertisement and publish it in various media such as our website, job exchanges or via our social media channels. In some cases, we also address potential candidates directly. If things go well, we receive many applications that we look through. For suitable applications, we create applicant profiles, which we present to our clients or head of department. As soon as a profile is approved, we invite the candidate for an interview or contact him for a telephone interview.”
“Do you still have a lot of paper or application folders on your desk?”
Monika Witka: “No, hardly at all! Today, almost all applications are submitted and processed online. That is really practical! Nothing gets lost. And we can also find applicants more quickly, to whom we may have sent a rejection in the first step, but we would like to offer another job later. In the past, many of the old application were never be reviewed.”
Jana Pünter: “But the personal contact doesn’t get lost. We often pick up the phone when documents are missing. Or we write to potential candidates directly on Facebook & Co. and encourage them to apply. This is not a face-to-face contact, but the level of discussion is quite personal. After all, in the interviews we received also private information.”
“Are there also annoying sides to your job?”
Jana Pünter: “Annoying? Not directly! It is a pity if the application documents are not complete. Often we loose a lot of time to ask for missing certificates, working hours and other things. We sometimes have to find fifteen welders or twelve climbers for a job. Then we check about forty to fifty applications. We have to be well organize in order to keep track of which documents are complete and which are not.”
Monika Witka: “And the new DSVGO is a challenge. We are only allowed to process applications, when we have the declaration of consent from the applicant. We have a great software with a good overview of which declarations of consent are available. But many applicants think that the approval is given automatically with the sending of their application. Unfortunately this is not the case. If we do not receive the declaration of consent, we cannot process the application. That is annoying. Sometimes we have the documents of a suitable candidate or a suitable candidate on the table and are not allowed to place them.”
“How do you become a recruiter?”
Jana Pünter: “The job of a recruiter is quite new on the job market and therefore there is no special training yet. But apart from training, the character of a recruiter is decisive. A recruiter must be an open and sociable person who can approach others without inhibitions. Communication skills and empathy are also skills that are helpful in our job.”
Monika Witka: “We are talking to many very different people. A good knowledge of human nature is an advantage, for example in order to be able to correctly assess the “soft skills” of a candidate. In addition, a recruiter should always keep an eye on the current job market situation and be familiar with the social media channels.”
“And the most important question at the end: What do you like most about your job?”
Monika Witka: “We meet a lot of people every day. This is always interesting and brings a lot of variety.”
Jana Pünter: “Behind every application is a person and his story. To discover them and to continue writing them with a suitable job offer is a nice task!”