The modern recruiter is a complex beast.

The only problem is that most of todays’ agency recruiters are in fact dinosaurs. No disrespect. You just are. Holding on to the past like a security blanket. And that’s a shame because it means you will miss out on the golden era of recruitment that is fast upon us.

The future of recruitment is about accessing candidates your competitors, and more importantly, your clients, cannot. And for that to happen you cannot rely on redundant talent acquisition strategies that no longer work.

Any recruiter, who relies on candidates making proactive applications for jobs, is destined to fail.

So, what to do?

Firstly you have to reinvent yourself as a ‘skills hunter’. This is all about being proactive, aggressive and smart about identifying, approaching and seducing candidates. It involves digital sourcing, phone sourcing and active social sourcing, where you use social sites as database of candidates that you target and hunt down.

But the modern recruiter does not rely on finding candidates, even though that skill is key. The future recruiter makes sure the best candidates find her! The future recruiter knows that brand can act as a magnet for the best talent. So recruitment winners see LinkedIn for example, as a branding platform, more than as a database. They are strong on social, putting out great content and engaging as they go. They build a brand IRL too, through empathy and service and mindfulness of candidate experience. The most successful recruiters will in all likelihood work for a company that ‘gets it’, a firm that understand recruitment has merged with marketing, and who use sophisticated CRM, automated marketing and SEO tactics.

Yes, good times are ahead. But not for the dinosaur recruiter, who is in fact a dead recruiter walking. Is that you?

Recruiters who adapt and become highly evolved skills hunters and powerful talent magnets, will have the recruiting world at their feet.