We read 200 UK recruiter job adverts. Here's what agencies and in-house teams actually want.

We pulled 200 UK recruiter adverts from Find a Job (the DWP's official UK board), filtered to genuine recruitment consultant, internal recruiter and talent acquisition roles, and counted what hiring managers actually ask for. The headline finding is one most UK sectors cannot match.

Recruitment is one of the few UK industries that openly tells you what you can earn before you apply. 92% of adverts state an OTE figure. 40% spell out commission structure. 32% explicitly say uncapped. If you are weighing roles, you can compare them on numbers, not on guesses. That alone changes how you should approach the search.

The headline: pay is on the page

Across the 200 adverts, OTE figures appear in 92%. Basic salary appears in 17% on its own, but the dominant pattern is “£28k basic plus uncapped commission, year one OTE £45k, year two £70k”. Compare that to most sectors where you guess the band from the job title. Recruitment puts the numbers in plain sight because the numbers are the pitch.

What this means for your CV: lead with numbers too. If you have billed £200k in a year, made 12 placements in a quarter, or hit 130% of target across six months, those figures belong in the first three lines. Recruiters reading your CV are running a numbers business and they read numbers fastest.

The top 10 things UK recruiter employers actually ask for

Ranked by frequency across 200 real adverts.

1. Permanent, 94%

Almost all UK recruiter roles are perm. Temp recruitment is its own niche (22% mention temp work as part of the role), but the role itself is permanent. If you are open to temp-to-perm or contract, say so explicitly, because the default assumption is a perm seat.

2. OTE stated, 92%

This is the unusual one. State your previous OTE achievement on the CV. “Year one OTE achieved 110%” or “£62k earned against £55k OTE” tells a hiring manager exactly what they need to know in one line.

3. Driven, hungry, self-starter, 55%

More than half of adverts use one of these words. They are looking for a sales personality. Demonstrate it with a number, not the word “passionate”. Sales targets hit, league tables topped, callouts answered. Concrete beats adjective.

4. Communication, 52%

Universal soft skill but worth evidencing rather than asserting. “200 outbound BD calls per week, 30 client-side meetings booked per month” communicates communication. So does “managed a candidate pool of 80 active jobseekers across three sectors”.

5. Sales background welcome, 43%

Sales is mentioned in 43% of adverts as either a required background or a transferable feeder. If you have done sales (B2B, retail, hospitality with upsell targets, telesales), it counts. Name the targets you hit and the conversion rates if you have them.

6. Remote and hybrid friendly, 42%

Recruitment is more remote-friendly than the industry stereotype suggests. 42% of adverts mention remote, work from home or hybrid. 12% are explicitly office-based. If WFH matters to you, filter for it. The flexibility is real.

7. Commission mentioned, 40%

Distinct from OTE. Commission structure detail (percentage of fee, threshold above billing target, accelerator tiers) appears in 40% of adverts. The more detail the advert gives, the more transparent the firm tends to be. Vague commission language is a small yellow flag worth asking about at interview.

8. Sourcing, 36%

Candidate sourcing is a named skill in over a third of adverts. Boolean search, LinkedIn Recruiter, database mining. If you have done it, describe the volume and the quality bar (“averaged 30 qualified candidates per week against a 5-placement-per-month target”). Volume plus quality is the signal.

9. Targets and KPIs, 34%

One in three adverts names specific KPIs (calls per day, CVs out per week, placements per month). If you have run against numerical KPIs before, mirror the language exactly. “Consistently hit 200 BD calls and 25 CV sendouts per week” matches the way these adverts are written.

10. Business development, 33%

A third of adverts explicitly name BD as part of the role. If you have done client-side BD (winning new accounts, growing existing ones, pitching for vacancies), it belongs in the top half of your CV. BD is often the part that distinguishes a 360 desk from a delivery-only seat, and it pays better.

The signals that quietly separate you from the pile

Six signals that do not make the top 10 but appear often enough to matter where they apply.

• Uncapped commission, 32%. A third of adverts make a point of saying uncapped. The framing matters. If you have hit OTE in a capped scheme, that is one story. Hitting it in an uncapped scheme is another.
• LinkedIn, 26%. The default sourcing platform. Name it if you have used it as a primary channel, especially LinkedIn Recruiter (the paid product).
• Compliance, 24%. Right-to-work checks, contract paperwork, IR35 awareness. 18% explicitly mention right-to-work. If you have done compliance-heavy temp or healthcare recruitment, name it. It is a different skill set.
• Resilience, 20%. Specifically asked for in one in five adverts. Recruitment has high attrition because rejection is constant. Concrete example beats the word.
• 360 desk experience, 15%. Explicitly named in 15%, implied by structure in more. If you have done both BD and delivery, lead with that phrasing.
• Trainee or graduate route, 14%. A real path in if you have no direct recruitment experience. Filter for “trainee recruitment consultant” or “graduate scheme” explicitly.

What recruiter adverts barely mention

• Specific ATS platforms. ATS as a concept appears in 9%, named tools (Bullhorn, Vincere, JobAdder) in single digits. Most agencies will train you on their stack. Do not pad with platform names.
• Industry qualifications. CIPD, REC training, IRP membership barely appear in the advert text. Useful if you have them, not a gating screen.
• Degree requirements. Graduate routes exist (14%), but a degree is not a universal screen the way it is in some sectors. Sales background and drive often outweigh it.

Before and after

A recruitment consultant with three years on a tech 360 desk had this summary.

“Passionate and driven recruitment professional with experience in technology recruitment. Strong communication skills and a proven team player. Looking for a new challenge with an ambitious agency.”

Tailored against a real advert using the patterns from 200 real adverts.

“Tech 360 recruitment consultant, 3 years agency-side. Billed £215k year two (138% of OTE), 22 perm placements across DevOps and backend engineering. BD-led: brought in 8 new clients in 12 months from cold. LinkedIn Recruiter and Boolean sourcing, 35 qualified candidates per week against a 4-placement-per-month target.”

Same recruiter, same job. The vague version uses three adjectives (passionate, driven, ambitious) that 55% of adverts ask for but cannot verify. The tailored version puts billings, placements, OTE achievement, BD wins and sourcing volume in five lines. That is what a hiring manager scoring CVs against a target sheet actually reads for.