How to Become a Recruiter With No Experience
January 22, 2026
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This post was originally published in November 2021 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.
With recruitment becoming a $180 billion industry and job recruiters making an average of $66,082 per year, according to Indeed, it’s no wonder so many workers are looking to get a piece of the cake. Yet, there are many career changers and young professionals wanting to become a recruiter, but are insecure that having no related experience or education can prevent them from succeeding in this role.
Although breaking into recruiting with no prior experience can feel intimidating, especially when you see other fields that require years of background to get in, the reality in recruitment is far more encouraging. Recruiting is one of those career paths where skills, mindset, and adaptability often matter more than formal credentials.
If the above is somewhere aligned to your case and you wonder if you have what it takes, gpac’s got you covered. This guide walks you through the most common questions about becoming a recruiter with no experience, with insights to pinpoint your strengths stepping into the role, and the takeaways from one of our expert recruiters, Vanessa Wergin.
Before mapping out how to enter recruiting, let’s walk through some of the basics of the recruitment craft to help you understand what the role actually involves and why it attracts people from so many different professional backgrounds.
At the core, recruiting is about connecting people with opportunities. If you’ve been in the labor market for a while, you’ve probably been contacted by a recruiter who’s offered you to apply for an opening they’re working on.
That’s what the job basically is: recruiters act as the link between companies looking to hire and candidates seeking their next role. On a daily basis, this can include sourcing candidates, conducting phone or video interviews, managing client expectations, and guiding candidates through hiring processes.
While recruiting is often grouped under HR, you’ll be more on the consulting side of business. Recruiters manage relationships, communicate constantly, negotiate offers, and build trust with both parties in the hiring equation, similar to a salesperson’s role. The difference is that instead of selling a product or service, recruiters work with human talent, which requires empathy, patience, and strong interpersonal skills.
This is precisely why recruiting remains open to people without traditional HR backgrounds.
Like many successful talent search consultants, when Alpha Pac recruiter and top biller Vanessa Wergin came across gpac and the recruitment craft, she knew little to nothing about third-party recruiting. So, what made her explore a completely new territory? After her kids went off to college, she wanted to rejoin the workforce, and fortunately, she found that opportunity in joining the recruitment industry.
I was aware of corporate recruiting (in house recruiters at companies), but not third-party recruitment (staffing agencies).
So, how do you manage to get into and succeed in an unknown field? Despite its similarities with sales, recruitment is a people business. More than degrees, hard skills, or industry-specific knowledge, success in recruitment depends on how effectively you communicate, listen, organize information, and build rapport with employers and professionals.
Inside gpac, as in many other recruitment companies, you’ll see professionals with backgrounds such as teaching, sales, marketing, customer service, and even operations, who’ve transitioned successfully into recruiting roles. These individuals often already possess the soft skills the job demands: explaining concepts clearly, guiding conversations, handling objections, and managing multiple relationships at once.
You’ll be surprised to know how valuable these qualities are in this industry to the point that they even outweigh if you’ve worked as a recruiter or HR executive before.
The short answer: not at all. Another misconception that may restrain you from applying for a recruiting role is that it requires a formal HR or psychology degree. While higher education is needed for many other career paths, when it comes to recruitment, you can start from scratch and still make bank.
In fact, the norm for many successful recruiters is to have joined the industry without a hiring or talent-acquisition degree or background. Most of them either have a degree in an unrelated field or didn’t go through any higher education program before landing the job. At least not if you are starting with a staffing agency or as a freelancer.
However, don’t get it twisted: once you come into the industry, you’ll need to be ready to learn the craft. That’s why many employers value coachability more than any credential; you’ll need to learn processes effectively, follow systems, and apply feedback consistently.
When you start there is A LOT of information.
Matching people with the right job and company is not just about writing job descriptions and posting them online. As mentioned above, recruiters need to identify, screen, shortlist, and assess the hiring potential of their candidates, as well as understand the company’s needs. And that’s just the beginning.
The good news is that with a learning attitude and a good training program to help you kickstart your career, you can get the hang of it and see results way faster than in other professions. As a highly process-driven craft, what matters the most is committing to the learning process and investing in your continuous improvement.
For instance, gpac has invested in transferring over three decades of industry experience into a fast-paced, hands-on training program. That same program helped Vanessa launch her career in only three months.
As established before, most likely, you’ve found similarities in the recruiter role with salespeople. Well, if you come from the world of sales, like Vanessa, there will be some transferable skills and discipline that will probably help you. However, you don’t need to have had experience in a commission-based job to make it in recruitment. Remember, it’s not about selling a product but helping people find their dream job.
Since this is a people business, there is a set of skills, particularly soft skills, you can bring to the table regardless of your background. Having a knack for interpersonal abilities, like empathy or communication skills, will give you a greater advantage than knowing how to throw a sales pitch. Here are a few skills you can reframe from your current skill set.
Day in and day out, you’ll be talking to people: candidates, clients, hiring authorities, and even fellow recruiters. Being comfortable with both cold-calling, video meetings, and face-to-face chats is essential, as is the ability to explain roles, expectations, and processes effectively.
This is why teachers, trainers, and other public speaking professionals land smoothly into recruiting. If you have experience guiding conversations with patience and confidence, you will most likely be able to translate that ability to job seekers and client interactions.
Your success in recruitment is tied to your relationships; you need to be proficient at building and maintaining your professional network. How? Through consistent outreach, thoughtful messaging, and genuine engagement.
If your current skill set aligns with activities like reaching out to passive candidates, reconnecting with former applicants, and nurturing long-term relationships with clients, especially when you aren’t working on one of their job orders, you’re set for success. Needless to say, mastering LinkedIn is another must, as this will be one of your primary work tools.
Aside from being an excellent communicator and networker, you need to be proficient at managing your desk, particularly client lists and candidate pipelines; the best way to achieve this is with solid organization habits, attention to detail, and accountability. On top of this, being up to date with knowledge and trends of the industry you’ll be working on is a strong card to build credibility, so your experience in other fields will be useful too.
Last, but not least, being comfortable with digital tools, such as CRMs and applicant tracking systems, is also increasingly important, especially in remote recruiting environments.
Still, similar to not having previous knowledge of the industry, you can become a recruiter and work on your skills as you go. So even that doesn’t have to be an obstacle for chasing after this career. What counts the most is having the right attitude and mindset to succeed.
This job takes drive, discipline, and motivation.
If, aside from transferable skills, you have developed these three traits through your career, then you are most likely the right fit for recruitment.
Of course. While an important aspect of the adaptation process of third-party recruiters, aside from learning the craft, is getting familiar with the field you’ll be recruiting, if you have a long career in a specific industry, you can use all this knowledge to start your desk on the right foot.
Let’s say you come from construction, agriculture, healthcare, or any other sector; familiarity with industry lingo, roles, trends, and tools is a competitive edge that helps you build trust with candidates and clients faster.
Now that you know that experience and background don’t need to be picture perfect for you to get into this business, you may wonder when is a good time to start. Recruitment is a high-performing career where the outcome relates directly to your efforts. What you put in is what you get out. So, as you probably have gathered by now, you need to put in a lot of effort in the early stages so that your success can take off like a rocketship.
With that in mind, some potential recruiters keep postponing their starting date until they find the ideal time or until they don’t have a lot going on in their lives. “Now is not a good time for me,” or “I should have done this right after college when I had more time,” are only excuses keeping you from a purposeful career with high income potential.
There’s always something going on in our lives, right? It doesn’t matter where you are, there’s something to roll with. But if you wait for all the lights to turn green, you’ll never go anywhere.
The same goes for anything else in life. If you don’t start today, you won’t see any results tomorrow.
If you have gone through all the above concerns, it’s time for self-assessment to avoid any rushed decisions, and more importantly, take action. Fortunately, since many recruitment agencies provide you with the training to become a recruiter, you’ll more likely land a third-party recruiter role faster and easier than an in-house position.
If you’re after a corporate position, you’ll have to complete the certification programs required by employers; in some cases, you may even have to get a degree. On top of this, you may have to build experience in entry-level recruitment positions, such as a talent acquisition assistant.
On the other hand, the path to joining a recruitment agency tends to be simpler. As mentioned throughout this article, having a solid foundation is more than enough, so you just need to highlight those transferable skills in your resume and during interviews.
Here at gpac, the focus is to provide the training and tools to individuals with the mindset and abilities to translate clients’ and candidates’ needs into long-lasting relationships, regardless of their education and experience, just like Vanessa.
Experience and knowledge aside, it’s really up to you to decide if becoming a recruiter is the right move for your career. Recruitment is an evergreen, recession-proof industry, but, as Vanessa said, it takes drive, discipline, and motivation to really squeeze out its full potential.
If you are ready to take on the challenge or would like to learn more about becoming a recruiter with gpac, get in touch with one of our Talent Acquisition Specialists.
Contributed by Monica Martín del Campo and Luis Arellano
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