Like any industry, there’s a lot of pre-conceived notions about what recruiters do and what it’s like to be one. With our own team expanding, we thought it’d be a great time to share why we love working in recruitment and why making a career out of helping other people’s job prospects can be a rewarding and interesting path to take.
So without further ado, here’s our top 5 reasons why you should consider recruitment as a career path.
#1: The People
One of the biggest elements of recruitment you’ll encounter, no matter what type of agency or sector you work in, is that people are at the core of everything we do. If you’re a self-described ‘people person’, then recruitment is going to play to your strengths.
Working in recruitment gives you the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of people from all walks of life, learning what makes them tick and how they approach the world. Not only that, you also get the opportunity to make a meaningful impact in their lives. Getting a new job is a pretty big deal and you get to share in those life milestones as you help job-seekers build up their confidence and navigate the recruitment process to find their dream roles.
But that’s just on the candidate side of things – you also get a lot of exposure to how hiring managers and organisation-leaders think; what they look for and where they might be going wrong. In recruitment you become a trusted partner that helps inform and influence hiring decisions, playing a part in the success of your client’s business, all in a day’s work! You’ll make meaningful connections with key decision makers; who knows where those relationships might take you!
#2: The Insights
Ask a group of people what’s the best way to tie a shoelace and you’ll likely get five different responses that all achieve the same result but with varying methods on how to get there. Working in recruitment is a little like this – you quickly learn that everyone brings their own unique approach to things, which keeps the process interesting. Even if you recruit within a specific sector or role type, you’ll still be constantly learning new things about people, their jobs and the organisations they belong to. The information you’ll be privy to when working in recruitment is staggering – in a good way!
Of course all of this means you’ll also be working with a lot of confidential information so you need to be able to bring good judgement skills and the ability to handle people’s personal details in a considerate and professional manner.
Working in recruitment puts you in a unique position where you get to learn a little bit about a lot of things, and if you find something that really interests you, chances are you can turn that new knowledge into a specialty!
#3: The Flexibility
The recruitment sector has a huge range of tools and platforms at its disposal which means that flexibility in terms of the hours, location and how you work is commonplace. With work/ lifebalance becoming a priority for many now, recruitment is definitely an industry that can help you work smarter not harder, and more importantly, enjoy your down-time!
Not only is there flexibility with how you work in recruitment, there’s also lots of scope for innovation and new ideas too. Those with a bit of creativity or outside-the-box thinking will find there’s lots of opportunity within recruitment to forge your own path and find strategies and approaches that work for you. Once you’ve found your feet, there’s plenty of autonomy too.
#4: The Diversity
One of the most exciting aspects of recruitment is the diversity you encounter – whether it’s the people you interact with, the types of roles you recruit for or the organisations you support, each one brings something different to the table.
It may sound a little cliché but literally no two days are ever the same in recruitment, and there’s always something new or interesting happening. But don’t worry, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each day. You’ll still have processes and practices that provide consistency in your day-to-day workload, but due to the natural diversity of recruitment, it doesn’t get stale.
#5: The Opportunities
There are so many different paths you can take once you go down the recruitment road. From agency recruitment to in-house, you can also specialise in just about anything – the type of contract (temp, permanent etc), specific job titles, particular industries or you can do a little bit of everything. Not to mention you can work in recruitment without being a Recruiter yourself! Candidate Managers, Para Consultants, Recruitment Coordinators, Talent Sourcers, there’s a lot of variety within a recruitment team itself.
The skills and experience you learn from working in recruitment can be applied anywhere – you’ll learn great time and project management skills, strengthen your relationship building capabilities, become a master of the database, get your head around HR practices, become a great negotiator and get pretty savvy when it comes to digital marketing and engagement too. Not only that, you can also take your recruitment skills pretty much anywhere in the world and find job opportunities and make good money in the process – the possibilities are endless!
If you’re keen to learn more about how a recruitment agency works from both a job-seeker and employer’s perspective, we’ve got you covered!
If you’re thinking it’s time for a change, have strong administration skills and genuinely like people, a career in recruitment is definitely worth exploring!
Good luck,
Kirsty and Nikki
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