6 Ways To Know If Your Current Recruitment Company Values You

With spring around the corner, now is a great time to look back on your goals for this year and evaluate where your career is heading. For those recruiters who were feeling undervalued at work last year and vowed to turn that around in 2017, it’s time to ask the all-important question:

Have you succeeded yet? Or are your efforts to be valued still falling on deaf ears?

If you’re feeling undervalued by your recruitment company,  it’s time to run through this checklist to critically assess if they truly value you, or whether it’s time to move on to a company that will.

6 signs you are valued at work

1. You’re brought in on important discussions, and your opinion is sought out.

2. You know the company goals and exactly how your role helps to reach them.

3. Management values your time and makes an effort to provide flexible working arrangements if requested, and actively try to fulfill your requests.

4. You’re offered training and coaching, and you receive constructive feedback about your performance.

5. There’s talk of your future in the company, and you’re asked about your aspirations.

6. You are given chances to shine, whether it’s an exciting client lead or opportunities to attend or present at conferences.

9 signs you are NOT valued at work

1. You don’t remember the last time you were offered training or coaching.

2. You’re not brought in on news that matters to the company. No-one confides in you about the direction of the company, or your role in reaching key goals.

3. No-one has asked you about your career aspirations.

4. You have not been mentioned for the promotion track, and your attempts to raise the topic have been rebuffed.

5. You aren’t given any exciting client or candidate leads.

6. Your salary has plateaued and there are no incentives for improvement.

7. You are rarely thanked or praised, you feel dislocated from management and that you aren’t being noticed.

8. Your good work is rarely noticed, but your mistakes are seized upon.

9. When you ask for a small thing such as a personal day, it’s as if you’ve asked for the earth.

Why don’t they value you?

Here are some possibilities to consider. Which scenario you think applies to you can be instructive in what your future moves should be.

1. They don’t consider you a star performer that needs to be retained at all costs.

Ouch. It can be a sobering exercise to confront the ‘fact’ that your company doesn’t consider you one of  their star performers, but generally this will only confirm what you already know.

2. Your performance and/ or attitude need improvement.

The harder part of this challenge comes with assessing whether your own performance/attitude has contributed to being undervalued.

If you think that your performance or attitude could do with some work, then good on you!  It takes real guts to acknowledge when you’ve contributed to a problem, and this shows just the right attitude you need to get better at your job. We’ve written many articles on improving your billing numbers and attitude at work, so scroll back through our blog posts to formulate your plan to improve.

Remember, employers want to see people who work hard and have a positive attitude- it’s not all about billing numbers.

3. You’re in a struggling sector.

Another possibility is that you might have been given a poor-performing portfolio in a struggling sector, so you feel your poor billing numbers aren’t really your fault. This can be frustrating when your managers aren’t acknowledging that you’re working as hard as you can, but it’s not translating into placements due to factors outside your control.

4. Your company has a terrible culture.

Perhaps it’s not personal: your company simply doesn’t have a culture of learning and nurturing their employees.  In this case they’re not undervaluing you specifically— they just undervalue all of their employees! This scenario is less offensive from a personal perspective, but even worse for your career as things are extremely unlikely to change.

Should you stay or should you go now?

When making the decision if you should move employers, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do you think you could improve your performance and attitude at work?

If your answer is yes, consider the next question.

If your answer is no, then it’s time to go a job-hunting…

2. Do you think your managers and colleagues will recognise and get behind your new efforts?

If yes, then consider staying and launching your new ‘hard work and charm’ offensive. However, remember that it can be exceedingly difficult to change people’s existing opinions of you, so it may be worthwhile to start afresh with a new company so you can dazzle them right from the word go.

If no, you know where the exit is…

3. Have you learnt everything you wanted to from this role?

If yes, then it’s time to move on to a new challenge anyway!

If no, consider the following:

1. How long will it take to get the skills and experience you wanted to get from this role?

2. Can you hold out with the company long enough to get the skills without feeling miserable and put upon?

3. Can you get those same skills and experience in a role with another company?

Generally, when employees feel undervalued for sustained periods of time, it’s an excellent sign that it’s time to move companies. A word of warning though… if you find yourself undervalued at the next company as well, it’s probably time to consider whether your performance or attitude is at the root of your troubles.

Good luck!

Until next time,

Cheryl