Candidate Specialist

ISSI Tech Pros; City of Syracuse (NY); On-site; USD 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

ISSI Tech Pros is seeking a Candidate Specialist to join our recruiting team and support our Director of Recruitment. This entry-level role is ideal for someone ambitious, personable, and eager to learn the recruiting business while helping technology and engineering professionals advance in their careers.

You'll collaborate closely with the recruitment team to identify, reach out, and build relationships with candidates through LinkedIn, email, and calls, then assist with coordination and

Qualifications

• No rigid degree requirement; strong personality and ability to learn quickly.
• Outgoing, curious, and able to communicate effectively in writing and speech.
• Organized with the ability to manage multiple conversations and priorities.
• Interest in technology recruiting and building relationships with candidates.

Responsibilities

• Identify and engage technology and engineering professionals for clients.
• Research using LinkedIn, databases, job boards, and networking.
• Reach out to candidates via phone, email, LinkedIn, and text.
• Build relationships with candidates and nurture them through the process.
• Assist recruiters with interview coordination and follow-ups.
• Learn about technology roles and help match skills to opportunities.

Skills

People skills

Curiosity

Communication

Persistence

Organization

Tech-savvy

Learning agility

Education

Bachelor's degree helpful

Tools

LinkedIn

Recruiting database

Job description

Are you smart, curious, outgoing, and naturally good with people? Do you enjoy researching, making connections, and figuring out what makes someone tick?

ISSI Tech Pros is looking for a Candidate Specialist to join our recruiting team and work closely with our Director of Recruitment. This is an opportunity for an ambitious early-career professional to learn the recruiting business from experienced professionals while building a career in an industry where your personality, initiative, communication skills, and results can take you a long way.

You don't need to come to us as an experienced recruiter. We're looking for someone with the raw ingredients to become a great one—intelligence, confidence, curiosity, persistence, professionalism, and a genuine interest in people.

What You'll Do

As a Candidate Specialist, you'll be an important part of our recruiting process, helping us identify and engage talented technology and engineering professionals for our clients.

You'll work side-by-side with our Director of Recruitment and recruiting team to:

• Research and identify talented professionals using LinkedIn, our recruiting database, job boards, networking, and other sourcing tools.
• Learn how to creatively "hunt" for hard-to-find candidates rather than simply waiting for applicants to come to us.
• Reach out to prospective candidates through phone, email, LinkedIn, text, and other channels.
• Have conversations with professionals about their backgrounds, career goals, skills, and what might motivate them to consider a new opportunity.
• Build relationships with candidates—even when they aren't actively looking for a new job.
• Maintain and grow our candidate network and recruiting database.
• Help match candidates' skills, personalities, and career goals with opportunities at our client companies.
• Assist recruiters with interview coordination, candidate follow-up, references, and other parts of the recruiting process.
• Learn about technology, engineering, and the different roles and skill sets our clients hire.
• Become a trusted resource to candidates throughout their careers.

Who We're Looking For

We aren't looking for one specific degree or background. We're looking for a sharp, motivated person with a great personality and the ability to learn quickly.

You might be a great fit if you are:

• Naturally outgoing and comfortable starting conversations with people you don't know.
• Smart, curious, and interested in learning how businesses and technology organizations work.
• A strong communicator—both verbally and in writing.
• Organized and able to keep track of multiple conversations, candidates, and priorities.
• Persistent. You don't get discouraged when someone doesn't respond the first time.
• Resourceful and willing to figure things out instead of waiting to be told every next step.
• Comfortable using technology, social media, LinkedIn, databases, and online research tools.
• Professional, personable, and able to build credibility with experienced professionals.
• Competitive and motivated by goals and results.
• Someone who enjoys being part of a collaborative team but can also take ownership of your work.

A bachelor's degree is helpful, but attitude, aptitude, communication skills, and potential matter more to us than having the "perfect" resume.

What You'll Learn

Technology recruiting is a unique combination of sales, marketing, research, relationship building, psychology, and business consulting.

We'll teach you how to:

• Find talented people others can't find.
• Engage passive candidates who aren't actively job searching.
• Interview and evaluate candidates.
• Understand technical skills and career paths.
• Build long-term professional relationships.
• Develop a network within the Central New York technology and engineering community.
• Manage a recruiting process from initial conversation through successful placement.
• Eventually develop and manage your own candidate and client relationships.

A Career, Not Just a Job

We see the Candidate Specialist position as a launching point into professional recruiting.

For someone who performs well and wants to grow, the career path can progress from:

As your skills, responsibilities, and results grow, so can your earning potential and career opportunities.

Recruiting is one of those professions where your success is directly connected to the relationships you build, the effort you put in, and the results you produce.

Why ISSI Tech Pros?

ISSI Tech Pros is an established recruiting firm specializing in technology and engineering talent. We've built our business by developing long-term relationships—not by treating candidates like resumes and clients like transactions.

You’ll join a small, experienced team where you’ll have the opportunity to learn directly from senior recruiting professionals. You won't disappear into a large corporate training program or spend your first year doing meaningless administrative work.

You’ll be involved in real searches, real candidate conversations, and real placements from the beginning.

We work hard, move quickly, laugh a lot, and genuinely enjoy the people we work with.

We're looking for someone who will bring energy, ideas, and personality to the team.

The Person We'd Love to Meet

Maybe you've never considered recruiting before.

You might be graduating from college, working in customer service, sales, hospitality, marketing, communications, or another people-focused role and wondering what your next step should be.

What matters to us is that you're bright, engaging, motivated, comfortable talking to people, and excited about building a professional career.

If you're the person who can walk into a room and connect with people, enjoys a challenge, isn't afraid to pick up the phone, and wants an opportunity where your growth isn't limited by your job title, we'd like to meet you.