Written by Chane da Costa
Being a Marketing Assistant at a recruitment agency has
definitely taught me a few life lessons. I often have a good laugh at these
meme’s depicting how men and women differ. Having opened myself up to
recruitment to truly understand my market and its needs, I have come to realise
a day of a recruiter is not much different to the meme below, describing the
emotions of a man’s day in relation to the emotions of a female’s day. Recruitment
is in essence a roller coaster of emotions.
Let me explain...
Here are a few lessons every recruiter will learn along the
way.
1. People start getting disappointed that you
don’t possess miracle powers
Your family, friends and acquaintances think
because you work at a recruitment agency you have some miracle powers to
magically get them the job of their dreams with some unrealistic salary
expectation. Yes, we all wish this was
possible and would gladly do it for the people we love, but the truth is we can’t,
we also have a job to do. At times we do
get lucky and get a position that we can attempt to sell your CV to our
clients, but at the end of the day it’s still the clients’ decision.
2. Detach your emotions from your job
This is something I am still struggling with.
Being human, it’s only natural to feel emotionally tied to the people we work
with. As a result, empathy and a desire to help our candidates is part and
parcel of a recruiter’s role. Receiving CV’s from individuals who are struggling
to land a job because they lack experience, or have a gap in their CV as result
of a retrenchment or bumps along the road of life starts becoming challenging. Unfortunately,
a vast majority of candidates misrepresent themselves on their CVs and so those
telling the truth therefore suffer as we start to believe no one. The test lies
in trying to discern the honesty of each applicant while simultaneously
referring only those candidates most qualified and deserving of the role
through to our clients for the vacancy at hand.
3. Get used to unreliable people
If it’s not the candidates, it’s the
clients. People often complain about having to work with recruiters and the
admin involved in finding a new position or even their own staff. At Electus we
are on a quest to revolutionise recruitment. To be honest though, it
occasionally feels as though some people are on a quest to revolutionise our
mood. Providing clients and candidates with a great service can be frustrating when
they don’t respond or provide any feedback. You are probably thinking well that
is not too bad, we all deal with that daily. However, it does get worse…Just
this week I have had 4 candidates cancel their interviews with my key client,
but they are so supposedly so excited for the interview and think it’s a great
opportunity.
Firstly, don’t apply for a position you
aren’t really interested in, not only do you waste a lot of our time but our
clients time as well. And secondly, if you are unable to attend an interview
that’s been scheduled for you, the decent thing to do would be to inform your
recruiter. If you are working with a recruitment agency keep in mind this is
our job, we submit you forward as a standard representation of what our company
has to offer. If you act unprofessionally and are unreliable, this does reflect
negatively on us as well.
4. Be prepared for anything that might come up
The start of my recruitment journey was very
interesting. Taking over an account from a fellow colleague who resigned and my
boss being out of office, I received a call from my client advising a candidate
informed them she will not be starting her new position. Well, did this candidate have a story and a half.
She had over a month to sit and think about the position, but the day before she needed to go into
her new position she changed her mind. Don’t worry we enjoy editing your CV,
creating interview notes and conducting your references and background
checks for fun – said no recruiter
ever. There are many more stories but I
will save them for a rainy day and remember we can see through your emergency
meetings, broken down car and your wife going into labour excuses. Luckily as a
recruiter, experience teaches you to expect the unexpected, to think quickly on
your feet and act accordingly to resolve issues to best suit both the candidate
and client as quickly as possible. No matter how disappointed you might be,
it’s essential to be considerate of the decisions our candidates make and to
simply provide suitable solutions to ensure that all parties are happy with the
outcome at the end of the day.
5. There’s a certain addictive feeling that
comes with changing someone’s life
When things do run smoothly it is definitely
a feeling like no other. Having the opportunity to have helped someone get a
job, who really needed one, Is one of the best feelings in the world. That’s
not all, working with great clients and candidates who keep you informed and
work with you in maintaining a good working relationship is also very
rewarding. These small little things definitely assist in keeping you sane and
in the game.
I have come to realise that recruitment does take a certain
kind of talent to sourcing the perfect candidates and have patience for
whatever might come your way during the recruitment process. You gain life
skills that you would never think you would ever need. It has taught me several
lessons this far. One being, to always stay positive and keeping pushing
forward when everything else seems to be bringing you down, because there is
always rainbow after the rain.
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