Here's a recruiter job description you can copy, edit and post today, written for in-house teams but easy to adapt for an agency desk. Every duty is something you can measure: reqs carried, time to fill, offer acceptance. After the template, we cover what recruiters really do all week, U.S. pay data from O*NET, and the first-round questions that show who can actually find people.
Recruiter job description template
What a recruiter does
A recruiter's job is to turn an open role into a hire, on time, without lowering the bar. Most weeks mix four kinds of work: talking to hiring managers about what they need, searching for and messaging candidates, screening and coordinating interviews, and closing offers. The admin is real. O*NET groups recruiters with Human Resources Specialists, whose listed tasks include hiring employees and processing the paperwork, keeping employment records in HR software, and staying current on Equal Employment Opportunity and disability law.
The best recruiters act as advisers, not order-takers. They push back when a hiring manager wants a unicorn, bring market data on pay and supply, and keep interviewers to a consistent process. They work with hiring managers, HR, finance (for headcount and offers) and coordinators who schedule interviews.
In-house recruiters at a startup often recruit for every team, build the process from scratch and pick the tools. At a large company, they usually focus on one function or region, follow an established process, and spend more time in reporting and compliance steps. Agency recruiters add a sales side: they win clients, often work on contingency, and are measured on placements and fees.
Skills and qualifications
Formal requirements are lighter than many posts suggest. In O*NET's survey for Human Resources Specialists, 47% of respondents said a bachelor's degree is required for new hires, so roughly half of these jobs don't require one. Recruiting certificates exist, but a record of hires and a sample sourcing plan tell you far more.
Salary
O*NET has no separate occupation for recruiters. It lists "Recruiter" and "Corporate Recruiter" as sample job titles under Human Resources Specialists (13-1071.00), a broader group that also covers HR generalists, coordinators and analysts. Treat its numbers as a general benchmark for the role.
Using 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, O*NET shows a U.S. median of $75,940 a year ($36.51 an hour) for that group. The 10th percentile is $47,180 and the 90th percentile is $128,720. In California, the median is $83,500. Specialist technical and executive recruiters, and agency recruiters on commission, can earn well outside the group median, so check your market. Then post a pay range in the ad: a growing number of states and cities require it, and recruiters, of all people, will notice if it's missing.
Interview questions for recruiter candidates
- "Walk me through the hardest search you filled. Where did the hire come from?" Strong recruiters explain the channel, the message, how many people they contacted and why the winning candidate said yes.
- "A hiring manager rejects your first eight candidates without clear feedback. What do you do?" Look for a recalibration meeting, a review of the scorecard, and a direct conversation, not just more volume.
- "Write me an outreach message for this role right now." Good messages are short, personal and specific about why this person and this job.
- "Your top candidate has a competing offer that pays 15% more. How do you handle it?" Listen for understanding of what the candidate values beyond pay, honesty about limits, and early involvement of the hiring manager.
- "What question would you stop an interviewer from asking, and why?" Candidates should know that questions about age, religion, national origin or disability have no place in a screen (the EEOC says employers may not ask about disability before an offer), and explain how they'd coach the interviewer. This is not legal advice.
For more questions with rubrics and red flags, see our full set of recruiter interview questions. Recruiters often own the scorecards themselves, so the interview scorecard template doubles as a test: ask finalists how they'd improve it.
Writing tips for this role
- State the req load and role types. "About 12 open roles, mostly backend engineers and data scientists" tells a recruiter more than any adjective.
- Pick the title your market uses. "Recruiter" draws the most searches. Add "Technical Recruiter" if most roles are engineering, and "Talent Acquisition Partner" if that's your internal title, but don't use it alone.
- Drop the HR degree requirement. Many excellent recruiters come from sales, teaching or agency work. Ask for results instead.
- Say whether it's full-cycle. Some roles only source, others only coordinate. Candidates screen hard on that, and getting it wrong drives early turnover.
- Name your stack. Your ATS, sourcing tools and any AI screening tools you use. Recruiters want to know what they'll work with every day.
Screening recruiter candidates with AI
Recruiter candidates will judge your process as closely as you judge them, so a fast, consistent first round makes a good impression. NTRVSTA runs that round as a live AI interview, with a video avatar or audio only, that candidates can take on their own schedule. It adapts questions and difficulty to each answer, uses STAR for behavioral questions, and can be customized per role with your own scenarios, such as handling a hard hiring manager. The soft-skills library covers communication, problem-solving and leadership.
Your team receives a shareable report with a score breakdown, highlights and video snippets, and AI resume scoring ranks the applicants against your job description first. NTRVSTA integrates with your ATS (Lever and others) and has a published NYC Local Law 144 bias audit on our compliance page. For how the scoring works, see how AI interviews are scored.
Questions
What's the difference between a recruiter and a talent acquisition specialist?
Mostly the title. Talent acquisition specialist is common at larger companies and can include employer branding or workforce planning, while recruiter is the term most candidates search for. If the job is filling open roles from intake to offer, call it recruiter and add the other title in the description.
How many open roles should one recruiter carry?
It depends on the roles. A recruiter filling senior technical or executive jobs might carry 8 to 15 searches, while one filling similar hourly roles can manage far more because the same pipeline feeds many openings. Write the expected range into the job description so candidates can judge the workload.
Should a recruiter job description require agency experience?
Only if the job is agency recruiting. Agency recruiters bring strong sourcing and business development habits, and in-house recruiters bring stakeholder management and process work. Either can succeed in the other setting, so ask for the skills you need rather than the employer type.
What metrics should a recruiter be measured on?
Pick a few that the recruiter can actually influence: time to fill, offer acceptance rate, hiring manager satisfaction, candidate experience scores and the share of hires still in role after a set period. Name them in the job post so candidates know how success is judged.
Want to give your recruiting team back the hours spent on first-round calls? Book a 20-minute demo or try a sample AI interview yourself. For other roles, see our job description templates.
