Why Some Recruiters Are Superstars In One Market And Not Another – Is Recruitment Really All the Same?
Recruitment – it is all about matching clients to candidates. While on the surface this makes it sound like all recruitment is basically the same thing, when you look a bit deeper, this clearly isn’t the case.
To match the right candidates to the right roles, you need to understand the role as well as the hiring client does. This means being comfortable with all of their jargon, and what the skills they are looking for will entail.
If you are recruiting for a client who wants a database administrator, and you have no idea what MySQL is, how are you going to know if the candidate; whose CV in front of you is competent enough to meet their requirements? Equally, if a job requires a list of professional qualifications and you don’t know what any of them mean or how relevant they are, you’ll struggle.
As well as understanding the client’s industry and needs, you will also be much more successful in sectors where you have put a lot of time and effort into building and maintaining relationships. Nobody can have the same high level of professional network in every industry going, so if you have spent your career working with clients and job seekers in the insurance industry, you’re going to find it much harder to emulate the success that you have previously had immediately if you try and recruit digital marketers.
Recruitment also changes as you move from general positions into senior executive roles. Those recruiting for extremely senior or prestigious roles will find they spend more time head hunting and trying to persuade high profile candidates to move than those who work with vacancies lower down the pay scale.
When looking for more general positions, a recruiter will normally handle more jobs at once and generally be dealing with people who are actively seeking work. The nature of the day to day tasks involved and the skill sets called to the fore most often change.
This is effectively why many recruitment businesses specialise in certain sectors, or at least have teams that do. It is also why one agency can appear to be the very best in one field, but barely scratch the market’s surface in another. The best recruiters know where their strengths lie, and use them in everything they do.
When it comes to recruiting for recruitment itself, this is where a rec to rec company really adds value to its clients and the candidates it represents. At GSR2R, we specialise only in matching the best people to the best roles in the recruitment industry, and because of this, our team and our networks are strongly geared towards understanding and connecting with what really matters in our field.
Of course, this also means working with recruitment businesses that have their own specific spheres of focus, and we ensure we have people on our own recruitment team who are experienced in working in all of the recruitment niches we interact with.
Till next time,
Cheryl