Hands up if you ‘fell into recruitment’
Jason Silk
Director of Sunblink supporting start up recruiters create their own businesses
I am fed up of hearing this phrase! Why is it that when you meet a fellow recruiter you almost always hear that they fell into recruitment rather than it being an aspirational career choice? They knew someone in recruitment at a time of being at a crossroad in their life, they worked in sales and were approached about a role in recruitment, etc…
We now have more than 103,000 people working in the recruitment industry with a combined turnover of £31.5billion in 2014/15 (REC Industry Survey Trends 2014/15). Why is it still that many people outside of our recruitment bubble have no idea what the job involves and, worse still, they simply see it as an HR role.
Maybe this lack of genuine awareness of the lengths good recruiters go to, admittedly tied in with many shoddy recruiters out to make a quick buck with no intention to provide a long-standing quality product, is also why recruiters face clients that have a terrible impression of our profession and try to hammer down the fees to a level that will only encourage a service of speed and poor quality? That is probably another blog posting but one we all can tackle as recruiters to drive up our standards!
Anyway, back to the main point of why people don’t plan for a career in recruitment. I think the simple answer is that there are not enough people out there telling them! There are obvious benefits of creating this greater awareness, most notably that we will attract more individuals with the right attitude, ambition and behaviours to thrive in a professional sales career rather than take that untapped talent into other sales or influencing roles. With this, it is one initial step that takes us closer to driving up standards in our industry and ultimately improving the perception of our services with those that matter the most – our clients and candidates!
Yes, I have a vested interest in this as I am responsible for attracting the best possible talent to join The Highfield Company but I have also been lucky enough to have 17 fulfilling years in this industry and I want others to, at the very least, be aware of it for what it truly is so that they can make a conscious decision to join us or not. I am going to be taking steps by strengthening my relationships with local Universities and Colleges to give careers advice, mentoring and career options. I am also going to continue to push this message on social media.
I now call upon you all to join me in raising a positive awareness of careers in recruitment! Will you do so and if so what will you do?
Improve & Increase Website Traffic | Keyword Research | SEO | Google + Bing Ads | Data Driven Content Strategy | Quality Backlinks | Drive Sales, Profit & ROAS FASTER.
9yGreat call to action at the end of your post Jason Silk I'll tweet and share on social media with you. #loverecruitment #careers
Talent Acquisition Manager
9yHi Jason. I'm a little confused about your comment "and, worse still, they simply see it as an HR role". Recruitment, when we are talking about in-house or RPO for example, can be just that...and, in my opinion, that is by no means a negative thing. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on why you believe an association with HR is indeed negative.
Helping Business Owners & Professionals Achieve Financial Success | Principal at Gavin Ingham Wealth Management | Financial Advisor | Small Business Financial Planning | Tax Optimisation | Wealth Management
9yHaving worked with tens of thousands of salespeople, this is a common comment for all sales jobs not just recruitment. I agree with your comments about raising the profile of recruitment as a career and again this is true for sales too.
Master Connector & Multi Business Owner, "Taking the Pain out of Property" with FM & Commercial Fit Out Solutions. FM Connect - Award Winning Networker- Top 50 Workplace Leader- Past Chair IWFM Women in FM - Speaker
9yAfter many years or carrying out sales roles and customer service. I ending up carrying out a temporary job at the job centre. Whilst I enjoyed meeting new people and matching their skills and personalities to jobs, the pay was poor, so I married my sales and service experience with the job matching and went and sold myself into a recruitment company as a Trainee. Years later I ended up working with you at Hill McGlynn, before moving on and eventually setting up my own recruitment business. I sought it out, I love it and I am proud to be a recruiter but saddened that there are so many bad ones out there. I have been to speak at a few functions about recruitment and people management as a whole. I don't apologise for being in this industry, if you do it right, you can make a really positive influence to peoples lives and well being. Keep spreading the message.
Building Surveyor & Property Developer
9yThanks for commenting on this Katy; I wouldn't have seen the link otherwise. I've shared the article with someone I know who's on the other side of the world at the moment, but thinking along very similar lines to you. Hope that's OK.