IT Recruiter

Also known as: Tech Recruiter, Technical Recruiter, Senior Tech Recruiter, Talent Acquisition Specialist, Talent Acquisition Partner.

What does an IT Recruiter do?

An IT Recruiter is a recruiter who runs full-cycle hiring of technical specialists: from the brief with the hiring manager and working out the profile to an accepted offer. A strong IT Recruiter finds passive candidates rather than waiting for applications, and helps the hiring manager decide whom to look for. Typical tasks:

• runs the brief with the hiring manager and chooses a search strategy that fits the business's goals;
• hunts passive candidates via LinkedIn, GitHub, professional communities and platforms;
• takes candidates through every stage, collects feedback and prepares the offer;
• tracks the funnel: conversion, bottlenecks, time to fill.

When does a company need an IT Recruiter?

A company usually needs an IT Recruiter when technical hiring becomes regular: several engineering vacancies are open at once, hiring managers spend more time on sourcing than on their own work, and job ads bring in mostly irrelevant candidates. The first recruiter is often hired after a funding round, when the year's hiring plan exceeds what the founders and leaders can handle. The role will not work with one or two vacancies a year or a need for rare senior specialists in a narrow niche: an agency on specific roles pays off better then. If there are already several recruiters and hiring is chaotic, hire a Head of Recruitment.

IT Recruiter vs Head of Recruitment: what's the difference?

An IT Recruiter fills specific vacancies, while a Head of Recruitment builds the hiring system for the whole company and manages the team of recruiters. An IT Recruiter answers to hiring managers for their own positions; a Head of Recruitment answers to the CEO or HRD for the hiring plan, budget, tools and team metrics. A Sourcer differs from an IT Recruiter in the length of the cycle: a Sourcer finds and engages candidates, while a recruiter takes them all the way to the offer and the first day.

IT Recruiter vs related roles: comparison

Why is it hard to hire an IT Recruiter?

An IT Recruiter is hard to hire because the same title covers both high-volume order-takers and recruiters who solve business problems through hiring.

• A CV barely distinguishes a proactive recruiter from an order-taker: both list "full cycle" and dozens of filled vacancies.
• A strong IT Recruiter needs to understand technology well enough to run the first assessment of candidates personally, and such recruiters are few.
• Experience does not transfer easily between markets: hiring in another country or niche requires knowing local platforms, taxes and cultural nuances.

How much does an IT Recruiter earn?

According to NEWHR's 2024 hunting analytics on recruiters in the international market, a Senior Tech Recruiter at a tech product company earns per year gross: €71,000–113,000 in the UK, €50,000–80,000 in Germany, €48,000–75,000 in the Netherlands, €42,000–60,000 in Cyprus and €36,000–50,000 in Portugal. These are averages for Russian-speaking senior recruiters. BigTech, FinTech and trading pay at the top of the range (read more).

What to decide before hiring an IT Recruiter?

• Which roles, in which countries, will need to be filled? A recruiter who has hired developers in one country will not necessarily manage a search for ML Engineers in the global market.
• Do you need a hunter of passive candidates or a recruiter to process the inbound flow? These are different skills, and a mistake here shows within a month as an empty funnel.
• How much should the recruiter assess candidates technically? If hiring managers are overloaded, you need a recruiter who can take on the first assessment.
• Who else is involved in hiring: a Head of Recruitment, an HRD, agencies? This decides whether the recruiter builds the process or works inside an existing one.

Where to find an IT Recruiter?

IT Recruiters most often come from product tech companies, international technology companies and recruiting agencies that specialise in technical hiring. Strong profile signals are complex cases: hiring on a tight timeline and a limited budget, successful counter-offers, filling a need through internal rotation or a personal network without opening a new vacancy. A second signal is close ties with niche professional communities. NEWHR knows this market from the inside: we are recruiters ourselves and run a professional community for HR and recruiters.

How to assess an IT Recruiter in an interview?

An IT Recruiter is assessed through a case based on a real company vacancy: the candidate describes where they would search, how they would write the first message to a passive candidate and how they would structure the selection stages. They also walk through their funnel on past positions. On the company side, the Head of Recruitment or HRD and one of the hiring managers the recruiter will work with take part.

Strong signals:

• quotes the metrics of their funnel and explains where it dropped and why;
• asks the hiring manager follow-up questions about the role's tasks, not only the stack;
• describes how they persuaded a hiring manager to change the requirements or stages.

Red flags:

• describes their experience only by the number of vacancies filled;
• sources candidates mainly through applications and CV databases;
• cannot explain how the roles they hired for differ from each other.

How long does it take to hire an IT Recruiter?

We present the first candidates for the IT Recruiter role within 5–7 days of the brief.

Related roles

• Head of Recruitment — manages the team of recruiters and owns hiring for the whole company.
• HRBP — helps an area's leaders work out whom to hire and passes the team's needs on to the recruiter.
• Engineering Manager — one of the main hiring managers an IT Recruiter works with.