What Do You Wish You’d Have Been Taught On Your First Day In Recruitment?
An interesting discussion occurred in the office this week, and we thought it would make a great subject for a blog. We were discussing our first roles in recruitment, and how for some of us, we went into it with our eyes wide open, and for others the reality of the industry came as a bit of a shock! We’re obviously doing something right though, and we all love working in recruitment. But it got us to thinking, what do you wish you’d have been taught on your first day? We came up with lots of ideas, and we discuss three of them below. Hopefully, any potential trainee recruitment consultants reading this will find them useful!
1. Recruitment is tough. Get over it.
If you think that a job in recruitment is one of the more cushy graduate jobs, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Recruitment is tough, and it takes a special kind of person to succeed. There will be days that you will face constant rejection, months where you will have to constantly battle just too even hit target and however good your degree is from whichever top university, recruitment is all about results. These are ultimately what you will be judged on. Nothing else.
2. Know your numbers
It is vital as a recruitment that you keep a record and carefully monitor your numbers. Record as much as you can. This should include (but certainly not limited to):
– Number of sales calls made
– Number of client meetings arranged
– Number of candidates met
– Number of CVs sent
– Number of placements made
After a while these figures can be of the utmost value. For example, you can work out how many sales calls it takes on average to get a vacancy. If you want 25% more vacancies next quarter, then you know you have to ramp up your call rate by 25%. The figures can also be used to help you highlight areas you need to improve on. If you’re finding you are sending an average of 15 CVs over before you secure a placement, you may want to spend more time on candidate selection and reduce this number. You will ultimately be judged on your figures as a recruiter, so know your numbers and use their power, and you’ll be a better recruiter for it.
3. Don’t be intimidated about asking candidates ‘difficult’ questions
Thoroughness is one of the hallmarks of a good recruiter. Nothing is ever straightforward, and things aren’t always what they seem. This means that sometimes you have to ask candidates some difficult questions. It may be asking them about a gap in their work history, asking them to explain why they left a particular job, or why they have chosen not to put a certain employer as one of their references. Some of the people you’ll be interviewing may be very senior executives, very powerful individuals who may be of a much greater age. You cannot let this intimidate you, and your client expects you to provide the best candidates you can, which means you need to be thorough and ask the ‘difficult’ questions if required.
We’d love to know what you wished have learnt on your first day in recruitment, let us know by leaving a comment below.
Till next time,
Cheryl