We’ve noticed that many people tend to think that there is no difference between recruiters and HR, and the two get equated. It might appear so, as HR are too often incorrectly tasked with performing recruitment, while also performing people operations, payroll, compliance and general admin tasks. That’s the short path to failure – and most companies are indeed failing because this is exactly what they do!
Functional differences between Recruitment (Talent Acquisition) and HR roles
While often interconnected, Recruitment and HR serve very distinctly different purposes within an organization. Recruitment (Talent Acquisition) primarily focuses on the strategic acquisition of talent. This function involves building talent pipelines, developing employer branding strategies, managing candidate relationships, coordinating interview processes, and negotiating job offers. Recruiters typically spend their time engaging with potential candidates, attending industry events, managing recruitment marketing campaigns, and working closely with hiring managers to understand and fulfill their staffing needs.
HR (People Operations, Admin & Compliance) primarily focuses on internal workforce management and administrative effectiveness. This function encompasses a broad range of responsibilities including employee relations, compensation and benefits administration, performance management systems, compliance with labor laws and regulations, and maintenance of employee records. It’s more of an administrative role. HR professionals typically spend their time managing employee concerns, developing and implementing workplace policies, ensuring legal compliance, and administering various employee programs and benefits.
The key operational distinction lies in their primary focus and day-to-day activities. While recruitment teams measure success through metrics like time-to-fill, quality of hire, and candidate experience, HR teams focus on metrics such as employee retention, policy compliance, and workplace satisfaction. Recruitment requires a more external, sales-oriented approach with emphasis on relationship building and candidate assessment, while HR demands a more internal, process-oriented approach with emphasis on policy administration and employee support. Despite these differences, both functions must work in close collaboration to ensure organizational success, with recruitment feeding into HR’s longer-term employee lifecycle management.
Differences between Recruitment and HR in personality data
These differences are also significant in terms of personality traits, ultimately showing how people self-select into working in these occupations! These difference are pretty solid and important. Using Gyfted’s data, we analyzed the Big Five personality traits—Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism—to uncover how Recruitment/talent acquisition and HR roles align with personality profiles.
Personality Trait Comparisons
- Openness
- HR: Moderate openness, reflecting a balance between innovation in HR policies and adherence to established practices.
- Recruitment: Similar levels of openness, highlighting the need for creativity in sourcing and assessing talent.
- Conscientiousness
- HR: Relatively high conscientiousness, essential for creating structured processes and managing employee relations effectively.
- Recruitment: Relatively strong conscientiousness, similar, reflecting the organizational demands of recruitment tasks.
- Extraversion
- HR: Moderate extraversion, indicating a mix of interpersonal interaction and independent, task-oriented work.
- Recruitment: Higher extraversion, which is absolutely crucial for building relationships, networking, and candidate engagement. Makes absolute sense given the nature of the recruitment function!
- Agreeableness
- HR: Higher agreeableness, emphasizing collaboration, more of an administrative function, and fulfilling top-down requests from executive management across the organization.
- Recruitment: Relatively lower agreeableness, reflecting the interpersonal nature of recruitment roles and the need to deal with hiring managers and candidates including in situations requiring rejection, saying ‘no’, and standing firm to evaluate the needs of the company, hiring managers and candidates alike.
- Neuroticism
- HR: Lower neuroticism, essential for maintaining composure while managing employee concerns.
- Recruitment: Slightly higher neuroticism, which makes sense given the fast-paced and deadline-driven nature of recruitment.
Key Insights
Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism are notable differentiators. Recruiters exhibit higher extraversion, thriving in roles requiring extensive interpersonal engagement, while HR professionals display lower neuroticism, crucial for managing organizational stability. Conscientiousness and Openness are shared strengths, reflecting the collaborative and organized nature of both roles.
Practical Implications
When we saw the above data, we were delighted – namely that the data reflects what we intuitively know about the roles. By aligning personality data with role requirements, organizations can create more effective teams and individuals can excel in their careers.
For hiring managers, understanding the distinctions between who ‘fits’ into a HR role vs into a Recruitment role can help hire people more aligned with the role – and this helps support lower turnover. Higher retention is achiever through role fit, ensuring candidates align with the personality demands of recruitment and HR. For job-seekers, the data insight above can aid you in identifying roles that leverage your strengths.