How To Position Yourself As The Best Trainee Recruiter!
With a new crop of graduates about to enter the workforce and many others considering a career change, there’s a huge amount of movement afoot in the recruitment industry. For those wanting to become a recruiter or are just starting out in the industry, there are some hints on how you can build the attitude to succeed in the recruitment game….even before you get your very first interview.
Success is about skills, certainly- and you need to gather as many skills as you can, but what separates the goods from the greats in business, is all about attitude. Recruitment is a high-pressure occupation with tremendous highs and difficult lows- so you need to create a winning mind-set in order to position yourself as the best trainee recruiter from the get-go.
Don’t take it from us… take this great advice about attitude from some of the great success stories of our time.
Don’t regret your mistakes
Richard Branson sees regret as a waste of productive time- what a great lesson for trainee recruiters who are bound to make mistakes! You will make mistakes, the key is to not squander time feeling stupid or regretful and not wanting to risk doing so again. So dig deep, analyse your mistakes, and learn from them.
Don’t be scared to stray from the recruitment path you think you want
We sometimes see new recruiters pigeon-hole themselves so firmly in a niche from the beginning that they are blinkered to all the other opportunities in recruitment. It’s great to have a goal, but don’t get fixated on it to the point where you shut the other doors of opportunity without investigating what they might lead to. Writing on Quora, Fortune editor Pattie Sellers likened careers to jungle gyms rather than ladders, and counsels that you don’t have to have it all figured out!
Do the thing you’re most scared of
At the beginning of a recruitment career, nearly everyone is nervous about approaching clients—particularly big clients with important job titles! As a result, many new recruiters spend lots of time building up their candidate list (because they’re not scared of candidates) but then have no jobs to supply them with. Nobody wins. Often, the very call you’re scared to make is the one you really need to make, and the one that potentially holds the most reward.
We’re not saying pick up the phone and start calling CEO’s willy-nilly, rather that you prepare hugely for the right client and then make your move. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook recommends that you ‘Ask yourself how you can improve and what you’re afraid to do’. That’s usually the thing you should try.’
Emulate the successful people around you
Warren Buffet recently counselled a 12 year old that the way to get along in life was to observe and copy the behaviour of those that you admire. Warren Buffet has amassed 63.3 billion dollars with this attitude! Look around – both in life and in the office- and notice any techniques or mannerisms that people use successfully.
Don’t burn your bridges
This is another one from the great Warren Buffet, who says that while it’s easy enough to tell someone ‘to go to hell’ today, it’s a much better idea to wait to see how you feel about it tomorrow. In recruitment, you’ll come across some difficult characters- whether it’s a candidate that bails at the 11th hour and leaves you looking foolish in front of a treasured client, or a client who pays late, argues about fees, or has a terrible communication style. This is not to say you should keep every client and candidate on the books, in fact there’s some clients you should fire, rather that you should always retain good relationships as you don’t know when that person might come in useful in future.
Never eat lunch alone
This little gem of wisdom comes from Salli Setta of American chain Red Lobster, who sees getting out from behind your computer at lunch a valuable opportunity for networking and to get some perspective on whatever you’re working on. As networking is such a vital part of recruiting, this is important- but so too is just getting up and going for a lunch with a friend to recharge your brain- particularly if you’re stressed.
Don’t grab the glory from others
Recruitment is a competitive field, and so you can often see individual recruiters become fiercely competitive and sometimes trying to muscle in on each others’ opportunities. This kind of ‘superstar’ attitude at the expense of others is particularly strong when promotions are up for grabs, but remember that the boss will always be looking to promote team players who allow others to shine as well (particularly if you’re working towards a management role.)
Blackberry CEO John Chen says that grabbing the glory can turn off your co-workers and your boss, and that ‘Trying too hard to show you’re a superstar tells me that you only care about what’s best for you, and not the company as a whole.’
If you can commence your recruitment career armed with an attitude of bravery, fairness and open-mindedness, you can be the best recruitment recruit- right from your first day on the job.
(You can read more success strategies from the original INC article here.)
Until next time,
Cheryl