Why Mentally Tough Recruiters Are Always Successful
If there is one single personality trait that marks certain recruiters out for success above all others, it is mental strength, often referred to as resilience.
The mental strength required to persevere, negotiate obstacles, and bounce back from rejection is crucial to success in a competitive industry, and those who display this mental toughness really shine in recruitment.
Luckily, resilience can (and should be) learnt and heavily cultivated, just as any other skill in your professional arsenal.
The key to why mentally tough recruiters have such successful careers comes down to the powerful traits of resilience. Let’s have a look at some of those, and it might help to consider how many of these mindsets or behaviours you already display, and which ones might need a little work.
1. Mentally tough people don’t take rejection personally or beat themselves up about their mistakes.
Instead, they choose to see any setbacks as a learning experience that will make them better in the future. This upbeat attitude in the face of perceived ‘failure’ may seem an impossible ask for those of you who feel each mistake or rejection painfully.
The thing is if you can reframe each setback by assessing what you’ve learnt and how you might do things differently next time, then you are well on the way to mastering resilience.
2. Resilient people generally have a back-up plan.
Many of us come up with an idealistic plan A, and emotionally put all our eggs in one basket— whether that’s signing the lucrative client, forecasting overly optimistic placements, or getting that ideal promotion.
A mentally tough person, on the other hand, will have a Plan B, Plan C and possibly even a Plan D to fall back on, so they never flounder about panicking and wondering where it all went wrong.
3. Mentally strong people don’t give up.
Again, that might seem easier said than done, but if you have learnt to follow steps 1 and 2 above, then giving up just wouldn’t make sense!
Why would you give up if you view setbacks as learning opportunities, and you’ve already put back up plans in place? Resilient people might (and often do) adapt their plan to suit changing events and setbacks, but they don’t give up on the end goal.
4. Resilient people don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves.
Because they have strong self- belief and don’t blame themselves harshly when things go wrong (see point 1), they don’t wonder ‘why me?’; they simply shift gears and implement a new strategy.
‘Every day’s a school day’ is a common thought pattern in resilient people, who pick themselves up, learn what they can about the experience, and move on.
5. Mentally tough people love a challenge.
Where most people shy away from or dread ‘difficult’ situations such as calling that angry client or headhunting an executive who is firmly resisting the recruiter’s advances, a resilient person will rise to the challenge and even look forward to it as an interesting exercise.
Try changing the way you think about issues: if you can start to mentally re-label a ‘problem’ as an ‘exciting challenge’ or a ‘crisis’ as an ‘opportunity’, then you are actively retraining your brain to positively engage with an issue rather than waste time fearing it.
6. Resilient people desperately want to keep growing.
Because they’ve realised from experience what they can achieve if they try, they throw themselves into new activities and new circles of people to push themselves. It is not necessarily that they don’t fear these things, just that they don’t allow the fear to overtake them because they believe any failure they may encounter is both temporary and helpful.
7. Mentally tough people have strong self-belief.
This is the core aspect that all the other traits of resilience seem to flow from, so it can feel daunting to achieve if your self-confidence is a bit low to start with.
However, the only way only way that self-confidence can be built is by trying new things, pushing yourself, changing your thinking, and rising to challenges.
All of these resilience activities build self-belief, which then builds more resilience, and more self-belief. It’s a virtuous circle!
If you’re a person who currently fears failure, takes rejection personally, gives up often, puts difficult things off, and often doubts yourself, then this list might seem impossible to achieve.
The thing is, you can quickly learn these traits of resilience yourself, no matter what your starting point is. The brain is an athlete, and when it is trained right it can accomplish things you never thought possible.
Develop and practice the traits of resilience until mentally strong responses to challenges becomes like second nature. If you are mentally tough, you simply cannot fail.
Until next time,
Cheryl