Meaning & use
recruiter
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Meanings
nouncountable
A person whose job is to find and persuade suitable people to join a company, organization, or armed forces.
Grammar: Countable: use a recruiter, the recruiter, or recruiters.
Patterns
- a recruiter for a company
- an army recruiter
- work as a recruiter
The company hired a recruiter to fill three engineering positions.
An army recruiter visited the school to talk about career options.
She works as a recruiter for a large hospital network.
nouncountablebusiness
A company or agency that finds and supplies workers for other organizations.
Grammar: Can refer to a firm, not just a person: a recruiter contacted me about the job.
Patterns
- an executive recruiter
- a recruitment agency
- contact a recruiter
An executive recruiter called him about a senior management role.
Many tech firms use a recruiter to find specialized staff.
The recruiter arranged interviews for five candidates.
Word forms
| plural | recruiters |
|---|
Common combinations
- executive recruiter
- An executive recruiter usually works with senior managers and directors.
- army recruiter
- The army recruiter explained the training program to the students.
- contact a recruiter
- You should contact a recruiter if you want help finding a job.
- a recruiter for a company
- He is a recruiter for a software company in Austin.
Synonyms and how they differ
- headhunter
- Headhunter is informal and often suggests actively persuading someone to leave a job for a better one; recruiter is the neutral, general term.
- hiring manager
- A hiring manager decides who to employ; a recruiter finds and screens candidates but may not make the final decision.
Word family
- recruit verb
- To find and persuade someone to join a company or organization.
- recruit noun
- A new member of an organization or armed forces.
- recruitment noun
- The process of finding and hiring new people.
Commonly confused: recruiter or career counselor?
recruiter vs career counselor
A career counselor advises job seekers on their careers; a recruiter works for an employer to fill positions.
Practice
A company wants to fill a new position. Who is most likely to find suitable candidates?
Choose one answer.
A recruiter’s job is to find and hire suitable candidates. The other roles do not involve hiring, even though they are real jobs.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “recruiter”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.