recruiter

American  

[ri-kroo-ter] / rɪˈkru tər /

noun

• recruiters
  plural

1. someone who engages in finding, attracting, or enlisting employees, new members, students, athletes, etc..

   For all his failings as a head football coach, his predecessor had been an excellent recruiter, and many of his players were potential stars.

   If you are underage, a military recruiter will require your parents' permission before you can enlist.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• recruiters
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of recruiter

recruit ( def. ) + -er ¹ ( def. )

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Explanation

A recruiter is someone whose job involves signing people up as members or hiring them for jobs. Sometimes company recruiters visit college campuses to talk to interested students. A recruiter for a large company might place advertisements for job openings and interview applicants, while a military recruiter works at an office where interested enlistees can sign up to join the armed services. If you work as a recruiter for your school's French club, it's your job to make the club look exciting and fun, and to sign up new members. The origin of recruiter can be traced back to the Latin crescere, "to grow."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

recruiter recruiters

He lasted two days as a Sea Org recruiter, meaning, he writes, “contractually, I owe the Church of Scientology a billion years of labor minus two days.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026

Carlos Ortiz Jr. has worked as a recruiter for the Marines in recent months.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2026

"Don't waltz into your interview all casual with an iced coffee, it just looks like you didn't have time to finish your coffee beforehand," said US recruiter Caitlin Wehniainen.

From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026

“Just bringing a drink to an interview doesn’t mean that they are not good at the job,” said Alina Nguyen, a San Francisco-based recruiter who’s worked at Meta and Google.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

Rocky talked to the recruiter about the training programs while they shook sand out of the brochures and folded them up again.

From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko

We are increasingly using the technology to help us with job applications, graduates, external and recruiters say, with many employers happy for us to do so within reason.

From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation supported the move, urging recruiters not to ask.

From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026

Scammers can wrest control of the verified account—no matter if the profile is a schoolteacher or an engineer—and list themselves as recruiters for real companies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026

LinkedIn asks recruiters to verify their identities, but Rodriguez says verification offers additional context and isn’t a guarantee.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026

“I had no talent for the sagehood, and besides, the King makes it easy to join his Guard. When the recruiters came to Jilin two years ago, it seemed like a good thing to do.”

From "Huntress" by Malinda Lo

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