December 9, 2021
As we close out 2021, it’s time to think about our goals for the new year. Do you want to exercise more, save more money, or eat healthier? In addition to hitting the gym, are you planning to hit your local library too?
Reading professional development books is an affordable and engaging way to learn more about your industry and build confidence in your skills and leadership abilities. With knowledge and confidence comes more opportunity for career advancement. We’ve compiled a list of books every recruiter should add to their 2022 reading list, broken down by general workplace/work culture reads, and more specific recruiting reads.
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-ass Boss Without Losing your Humanity
By Kim Scott
Kim Scott’s New York Times bestseller explores how to create better relationships in the workplace by leading with, you guessed it…radical candor. With practical advice and stories from her own experience, any manager or aspiring leader will benefit from this book’s perspective on being a caring leader, while still challenging your team.
Why recruiters should read it: Recruiters should read Radical Candor for two reasons. One, as a recruiter, you may be leading a team of other TA professionals. If you’re not, there is a good chance you will be later in your career. Secondly, recruiters hire managers! This book will give you insight into what traits will make for a successful manager at your company or your client’s organization.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
By Patrick Lencioni
Unlike other books on this list, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a work of fiction that offers real actionable steps that can be used to build a cohesive team. It’s an essential read for leaders looking to overcome their team’s shortcomings.
Why recruiters should read it: Recruiters are key players in building out teams whether they work internally or for a recruiting agency. They need to be able to analyze a team’s weaknesses to find candidates with the right traits to make the team stronger.
Work Rules! Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead:
By Laszlo Block
As the former Head of People Operations at Google, Block has the background to back up his advice on how to hire and manage smarter. Not only does Block draw from his own experience but the latest research in behavioral economics and human psychology.
Why recruiters should read it: With a background in HR, Block understands hiring and provides guidance on improving your recruiting practices. Block offers lessons on how to build a high-performing workplace where employees enjoy what they do.
Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them
By Gary Hamel & Michele Zanini
Humanocracy explores how bureaucracy crushes creativity and stifles innovation. In their Wall Street Journal bestseller, Hamel and Zanini lay out a detailed blueprint for motivating employees, escaping traditional corporate mindsets, mobilizing change, and embedding the principles of “humanocracy”.
Why recruiters should read it: This book will help recruiters identify which managers have the characteristics necessary to lead with creativity, ingenuity, and agility. For recruiters managing a team themselves, Humanocracy offers practical examples of how to lead with purpose and confidence.
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do
By Jennifer L. Eberhardt
Eberhardt is a social psychologist at Stanford University and leading expert on unconscious racial bias. Through stories, science, and strategies, Biased addresses how society talks and addresses racial disparities and inequities.
Why recruiters should read it: Bias in recruiting is a huge issue facing organizations today. Whether they are writing job descriptions, sourcing, interviewing candidates, or drafting a job offer, recruiters and managers need to be able to detect bias to foster an inclusive and equitable workplace. Unconscious biases lead to smaller, less diverse talent pools. Diverse teams continuously outperform homogenous ones so help your company flourish by eliminating any bias from your recruiting process!
Full Stack Recruiter: The Modern Recruiters Guide
By Jan Tegze
Tegze is an experienced recruiter who uses his experience to teach other recruiters about sourcing across various platforms like Github, Facebook, Meet-up, etc. He also dives into marketing, candidate engagement, and growing your career as a recruiter. This read is suitable for junior and senior recruiters alike.
Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for Young Talent
By Chris Resto, Ian Ybarro & Ramit Sethi
College campus recruiting has primarily been dominated by large companies that scoop up the best talent. Recruit or Die offers a practical guide on how companies of all sizes can hire top talent for their entry-level positions.
How to Become a Technical Recruiter: A Recruiters Guide to Understanding Technology Based Roles
By Jonathan Kidder
With the goal to help turn generalist recruiters into technical recruiters, Kidder breaks down major tech concepts and helps the reader understand complex ideas in a digestible way. This book is perfect for recruiters hiring for technical roles that want a better understanding of hiring managers’ needs and candidates’ skills. It’s also essential reading for recruiters hiring for tech start-ups.
The Consultative Recruiter: The Key to Faster Fills, More Candidates & Happier Hiring
By Katherine Moody
Recruiters are often frustrated with hiring managers who are too demanding, unresponsive, or indecisive. Moody offers tips and techniques to forming positive and productive relationships between recruiters and hiring managers. Of course, better relationships lead to faster processes and better results.
Redefining HR: Transforming People Teams to Drive Business Performance
By Lars Scmidt
Schmidt dives into the evolution of Human Resources and People Operations. He provides a framework for leaders in the field to assess their current position and adapt to perform to their full potential. Schmidt includes insights from people ops professionals at Hubspot, Reddit, Stripe, Mastercard, Eventbrite, and Asana to add more perspective.
We realize 10 professional development books is a lot to commit to reading in one year. Pick three to five from this list to tackle in 2022, in between your ‘who done it?’ mystery novels. Consider what you’d like to focus on in your career. Whether you want to be a better manager, improve efficiencies within your team or a team you are hiring for, or enhance your recruiting skills, there’s a book to help you think differently about your work on this list!
Check out Fetcher’s other blog posts for more talent acquisition tips and insights into recruiting trends.
At Fetcher, our mission is to introduce companies to the people who will help them change the world. Our full-service, recruiting automation platform automates those repetitive, top-of-funnel tasks, so you can focus more on candidate engagement & team collaboration. Simplify Sourcing. Optimize Outreach. Hire Top Talent. Learn more at fetcher.ai.
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