What does a recruiter actually do? Job responsibilities, explained

TL;DR: A recruiter is responsible for finding, attracting, screening, interviewing, and hiring candidates for open roles. In UK care, this work is usually done by a registered manager, HR lead, or a dedicated in-house recruiter — not a high-street agency. The day-to-day is far more than posting job ads: it includes compliance, candidate chasing, scheduling, reference checks, and onboarding.

The short answer

A recruiter's job is to fill open roles with people who can actually do the work, stay in the role, and pass every compliance check along the way. They are judged on three things: speed (time-to-hire), quality (retention, performance), and cost (per hire).

The full list of responsibilities

Here's what a recruiter in a UK care setting typically does in a week.

Sourcing

Writing and posting job adverts to Indeed, NHS Jobs, Care Friends, LinkedIn, and sector-specific boards
Managing employer brand — Glassdoor reviews, social content, company page
Running referral schemes with existing staff
Occasionally attending jobs fairs or community events
Working with local colleges for trainee pipelines

Screening

Reviewing CVs and application forms against role requirements
Phoning applicants to check genuine interest, availability, right to work, and driving status (for domiciliary roles)
Filtering out candidates who no longer want the role, already accepted elsewhere, or don't meet minimum requirements
Recording notes, scores, and rejection reasons

Interviewing

Scheduling interviews around the manager's rota and the candidate's availability
Running structured or competency-based interviews
Chasing no-shows
Coordinating second-round interviews, trial shifts, or panel interviews
Providing feedback to unsuccessful candidates

Compliance

Running enhanced DBS checks (eDBS) via an umbrella body
Verifying right to work (RTW) — sometimes including sponsored-worker checks
Collecting and verifying professional references
Checking qualifications — NVQs, nursing PIN, care certificate
Maintaining an audit trail for CQC or Ofsted inspection

Offer and onboarding

Preparing offer letters and contracts
Sharing induction plans and shadow-shift rotas
Handing over to the line manager or training lead
Tracking new starters through their probation period

Reporting

Time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, source-of-hire, offer-acceptance, and 90-day retention
Quarterly review of what's working and what isn't

That is a lot of jobs inside one job. It's why recruitment in care often gets partly done at 8pm on a Tuesday.

The hidden responsibilities no one talks about

Job descriptions miss the reality. In practice, a care recruiter is also:

A therapist — calming a candidate who's been burned by an agency and doesn't trust the process
A project manager — keeping five hiring pipelines moving while your registered manager is pulled into a complaint
A compliance officer — because one missing reference can sink a CQC inspection
A copywriter — because the job ad decides how many applications you get
A data analyst — tracking where good hires come from and where bad ones leak out

Most recruiters never get job credit for any of this. It's just the work.

Why the role is changing

Two things have shifted in the last 24 months.

Applicant behaviour. Care workers now apply to 5+ roles at once. Whichever employer calls first usually wins. The recruiter who gets back within an hour hires. The one who waits a week loses — and the UK average wait is still 9 days.

AI screening tools. A meaningful share of the recruiter's week — chasing applicants, running the first-pass phone screen, scheduling interviews, asking the same questions of 20 people — is now done better by AI. Not because humans are bad at it, but because humans can't do it at 11pm on a Saturday when the candidate is free.

The modern care recruiter's job is shifting towards higher-value work: assessing fit, building trust with candidates, coaching hiring managers, fixing broken parts of the funnel.

Where Lily fits

Lily is an AI hiring platform built for UK care providers. Lily takes the repetitive parts of a recruiter's job — phone screening, scheduling, chasing, basic compliance tracking — and runs them 24/7.

What we see at customers like Sonderwell: recruiters who used to spend most of their week on the phone now spend it on strategy, quality, and manager coaching. Monthly hires went up 127% and admin time dropped by 616 hours per month.

How to structure a recruiter role going forward

If you're writing or rewriting a recruiter job description in 2026, build it around four areas:

Candidate experience — responsible for how it feels to apply, not just the outcome
Quality of hire — retention at 90 days and 12 months, not just filled seats
Compliance and audit — CQC/Ofsted-ready records on every hiring decision
Hiring manager enablement — training managers to interview fairly and consistently

Leave the phone screening, scheduling, and chasing to software.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between a recruiter and a talent acquisition manager?

Recruiter usually fills open roles today. Talent acquisition manager builds the longer-term pipeline, employer brand, and hiring strategy. In smaller care providers, one person often does both.

Do we still need an in-house recruiter if we use Lily?

Most providers still do, but the role looks different. Lily handles the repetitive work — our customers use their recruiter for manager coaching, quality analysis, and candidate experience.

What salary should I expect to pay a care recruiter in 2026?

In-house care recruiters in the UK typically earn £28k–£40k depending on region and scope. Senior TA managers run £45k–£60k+.

Can AI replace a recruiter?

No. It replaces some of the recruiter's tasks. The human job of judging fit, building trust, and coaching managers is still human work.

Next step

If you want to see what a recruiter's week looks like with AI screening doing the heavy lifting, read our Sonderwell case study or book a demo.

Sources: Sonderwell 12-month case study. Skills for Care State of the Adult Social Care Sector report. CQC safer recruitment guidance: cqc.org.uk.