Becoming a recruitment consultant...
Discussion
Chaps,
Long time poster, I do not want this thread to be associated with my normal account, hence the new nickname.
I find myself looking around for another job but this time I am thinking of a career change and going into recruitment consultancy- my previous industry was Media Sales (5 years experience).
So can someone give me some 'real world' advice on this industry? What can I realistically expect?
From my research so far I gather a very simplistic, typical scenario goes something like this:
-Source new companies (internet, cold calling etc...)
-Source candidates (CV boards, phone ins etc...)
-Marry the best candidate to the job of their dreams
-Sit back enjoy the commission.
Obviously, thats what would happen in a perfect world, but I would like an honest opinion from someone within the industry.
So a few questions:
-What is the job satisfaction like?
-What hours can I expect to work?
-What can I expect as a basic salary (I was clearing mid £30K p/year in my old role with commission, basic of late £20K p/year and I dont really want to drop too much below that...house, wife, kids to support)
-Any other information I need to know?
T.I.A
ET
PS: I know some people think recruitment consultants arent great, but please dont turn this into a bashing thread....
PPS: No, you cant see any pics of my missus
Long time poster, I do not want this thread to be associated with my normal account, hence the new nickname.
I find myself looking around for another job but this time I am thinking of a career change and going into recruitment consultancy- my previous industry was Media Sales (5 years experience).
So can someone give me some 'real world' advice on this industry? What can I realistically expect?
From my research so far I gather a very simplistic, typical scenario goes something like this:
-Source new companies (internet, cold calling etc...)
-Source candidates (CV boards, phone ins etc...)
-Marry the best candidate to the job of their dreams
-Sit back enjoy the commission.
Obviously, thats what would happen in a perfect world, but I would like an honest opinion from someone within the industry.
So a few questions:
-What is the job satisfaction like?
-What hours can I expect to work?
-What can I expect as a basic salary (I was clearing mid £30K p/year in my old role with commission, basic of late £20K p/year and I dont really want to drop too much below that...house, wife, kids to support)
-Any other information I need to know?
T.I.A
ET
PS: I know some people think recruitment consultants arent great, but please dont turn this into a bashing thread....
PPS: No, you cant see any pics of my missus
I did it a long time ago, only for 6 months. I recruited techies, C/C++ and Java in the late 90's. Took me a while to understand the lingo of that particular subset, and found that I needed to understand it to match needs and skills
What I didn't like about it was the amount of manipulation of people's lives in some respects, though that may have been the guidance that I was receiving from above. And I don't mean God by that, I mean management. It's quite hard to realign someones expectations of what they need to do to pay their mortgage with what you've got on a whiteboard in front of you
It was a long day, remembering that candidates in work weren't the easiest of people to get hold of until after 6, and HR depts often used the 'we have a PSL' line on you if they'd take your call.
Loads of CV's that were completely inappropriate, from people outside the country wanting sponsorship and relocation packages for a £50k job where there were people locally who could do that, but wanted to further their careers and learn new things
A lot of it was about managing expectations, it's an out and out sales role in the structure of the job and also the commplans. It was also very tactical - not sure I'd want to do it ever again tbh
What I didn't like about it was the amount of manipulation of people's lives in some respects, though that may have been the guidance that I was receiving from above. And I don't mean God by that, I mean management. It's quite hard to realign someones expectations of what they need to do to pay their mortgage with what you've got on a whiteboard in front of you
It was a long day, remembering that candidates in work weren't the easiest of people to get hold of until after 6, and HR depts often used the 'we have a PSL' line on you if they'd take your call.
Loads of CV's that were completely inappropriate, from people outside the country wanting sponsorship and relocation packages for a £50k job where there were people locally who could do that, but wanted to further their careers and learn new things
A lot of it was about managing expectations, it's an out and out sales role in the structure of the job and also the commplans. It was also very tactical - not sure I'd want to do it ever again tbh
Having experience within a competitive sales environment can only help you make the jump as recruitment consultancy is basically sales. I think you should bear in mind that what the balance of your role will be will effect you job, so will you be placing people from an established database with long term clients or will you be building new versions of both?
I would be prepared to take a hit on basic depending on where you are based. A friend in Edinburgh is only on mid teens basic but earns £40+ OTE.
If you have any particular questions then please feel free.
I would be prepared to take a hit on basic depending on where you are based. A friend in Edinburgh is only on mid teens basic but earns £40+ OTE.
If you have any particular questions then please feel free.
Andy, Jduck thanks for your replies.
I understand what both of you are saying- basically if you work hard then you'll be successful.
Andy, thanks for your honest answer. Did you have experience in the IT industry or were you new to it? I guess it would be alot harder to try and talk to someone about a technical role if you cant talk to them on their level!
In regards to the 'manipulation' of your candidates, I guess that is something which is part and parcel of having a job anyway- people need to work to support their lifestyles, and i guess about telling them they cant expect to be the MD of ICI straight out of University (in a tactful way of course!)
Any other advice?
I understand what both of you are saying- basically if you work hard then you'll be successful.
Andy, thanks for your honest answer. Did you have experience in the IT industry or were you new to it? I guess it would be alot harder to try and talk to someone about a technical role if you cant talk to them on their level!
In regards to the 'manipulation' of your candidates, I guess that is something which is part and parcel of having a job anyway- people need to work to support their lifestyles, and i guess about telling them they cant expect to be the MD of ICI straight out of University (in a tactful way of course!)
Any other advice?
extraT said:
I understand what both of you are saying- basically if you work hard then you'll be successful.
I think if you're reading that into what they've said, you've got a terminal case of Happy Ears which should preclude you from any sales-based role!They've certainly said you'll have to work hard, but I've not seen anyone say you'll be successful. Much of that would come with picking the right recruitment consultant to work for in the first place. There's no point working your arse off for someone with a poor reputation in the industry you specialise in, because you'll be onto a loser before you even begin.
Also, if you're going to go into recruitment, you'd better really, really like selling! After all, there's not many industries where you have to sell your client to your product as well as the reverse.
extraT said:
Andy, thanks for your honest answer. Did you have experience in the IT industry or were you new to it? I guess it would be alot harder to try and talk to someone about a technical role if you cant talk to them on their level!
I'd come to it from ad-sales and new media with past experience in telesales. Industry knowledge wasn't a pre-req of the job by any means, and there were key words to look out for on CV's. I'm the sort of person who needs/prefers to understand what others are talking about to sell effectively, others in the office saw it as white goods and it didn't really matter. Depends which side of the fence you're on I guess. As a result of what I needed, I found it harder to pick up and have a conversation about with clients. Asking candidates to walk me through their experience and what made them tick teased out some knowledge, but techies are a law unto themselves. Elitist b
ds... 
extraT said:
In regards to the 'manipulation' of your candidates, I guess that is something which is part and parcel of having a job anyway- people need to work to support their lifestyles, and i guess about telling them they cant expect to be the MD of ICI straight out of University (in a tactful way of course!)
Not necessarily that. If I give you an example though, my mind's a bit hazy but it'll do to make the point. We'd have jobs that we'd source where the client was looking for someone with 3 years C++ experience to do more of the same. I had candidates who'd got 5 years C++ experience who wanted to move into Java and beans but had no experience server side. So are they the right person for the job? Maybe the client will take a look at them, get pissed off with you not sending through what they wanted, and you'll not get back in with them again. Meanwhile, your competition (including the guys in your office as well as other agents) could find the perfect guy, so you need to talk to the client, go through your C++ guy's CV with them. Explain how they're looking for just this job, and then speak with the candidate to show them that while there's no Java in this role, the company is amazing, it's got progression within 12 months, they might be, maybe at some point get to do what they want.When I said expectations, I should probably have said negotiations...it was looking at what you've got on both sides, knowing you have to place someone because you need the comms (the basics are often crappy) and in some cases you've got a square hole in front of you and a spoon in your hand. There's not even a round peg in sight. And you need to do that 5 times a month on the fees that you'd been ground down to.
It's not a complaint as such, but it was an eye opener for me to have to deal with both sides. Very different from selling any product or service I'd done before, and have gone on to after
I used to do contract IT recruitment in the city years ago, so may be a bit out of date. Absolute key is developing relationships - you need to be able to get recruiters to use you rather than the next firm and the good candidates (crap candidates always talk to agencies :-) to have confidence in you. Most agencies take a "it if breathes hire it and see if it can bill" approach because ultimately you need flair, the strangest people succeed.
Job satisfaction is dire at first because you don't have any clients but it gets a lot better fairly quickly. When you start pump every candidate for information, where are you working, who's your line manager, what's on the horizon, who do you know etc etc. When you find somebody good buy them a beer and sell them to recruiters rather than waiting for a vacancy. If you prove yourself your phone will start ringing fairly quickly. What you absolutely don't want to be doing is sitting at your desk phoning the client contacts in your database and saying got any vacancies? No OK I'll phone you in 3 months. Unless you get very lucky you won't be around to follow up :-)
In terms of hours you need to phone candidates in the evenings etc. Money wise in the late 90s I was on £15k basic + BMW 328 + commission, all up around £60k. If you impress at interview you might be able to negotiate a guarantee, eg if they offer £20k basic but you're doing £30k with commission ask for guaranteed commission for 3 months.
Would be interested to hear how (if) things have changed
Job satisfaction is dire at first because you don't have any clients but it gets a lot better fairly quickly. When you start pump every candidate for information, where are you working, who's your line manager, what's on the horizon, who do you know etc etc. When you find somebody good buy them a beer and sell them to recruiters rather than waiting for a vacancy. If you prove yourself your phone will start ringing fairly quickly. What you absolutely don't want to be doing is sitting at your desk phoning the client contacts in your database and saying got any vacancies? No OK I'll phone you in 3 months. Unless you get very lucky you won't be around to follow up :-)
In terms of hours you need to phone candidates in the evenings etc. Money wise in the late 90s I was on £15k basic + BMW 328 + commission, all up around £60k. If you impress at interview you might be able to negotiate a guarantee, eg if they offer £20k basic but you're doing £30k with commission ask for guaranteed commission for 3 months.
Would be interested to hear how (if) things have changed
extraT said:
Chaps,
Long time poster, I do not want this thread to be associated with my normal account, hence the new nickname.
Christ. I know recruitment consultants have a bit of a stigma attached but to make a new account seems a bit ott. It's not like you're telling everyone you're thinking of getting a gastric band fitted.Long time poster, I do not want this thread to be associated with my normal account, hence the new nickname.
Some good (sort of) comments on here, just to add then from a Recruitment Manager perspective - I have a team of six grad consultants at the moment, I have worked in the IT recruitment industry for the last 14 years, so have a reasonable experience level.
If you want to succeed in recruitment, then the first thing(s) to bear in mind is recruitment is about mindset. You will be putting yourself up for a whole host of rejection, you have to be able to handle that, most new recruits to the industry fall foul of that. Secondly you need to have tenacity, belief (in both yourself and your company), positivity and to be generally pro-active. If you have those abilities then nothing else matters.
The recruitment industry is by and large one of those few careers which do not involve; how educated/qualified you are, who or what you know, physical or mental skills - what you need is determination and an absolute "red hot" desire to succeed. I, and a majority of my colleagues have witnessed £150K+ annual salaries, anyone can achieve this, but it takes time, network building, understanding your particular industry sector and possibly a smidgeon of luck! It took me 3 years of recruitment to start seeing £40K+ annually and 10 years to reach £100K+ but it was worth the hard times to get there.
Ultimately my advice would be, choose what you want to do (industry wise), learn your market, specialism's ( for example, I work in the transfer agency industry, I know how a unit trust works, know what an OEIC is, plus how the systems RUFUS, GFAS, FAST work) and build a network, above all take an interest and the deals will start to come together.
If you want to succeed in recruitment, then the first thing(s) to bear in mind is recruitment is about mindset. You will be putting yourself up for a whole host of rejection, you have to be able to handle that, most new recruits to the industry fall foul of that. Secondly you need to have tenacity, belief (in both yourself and your company), positivity and to be generally pro-active. If you have those abilities then nothing else matters.
The recruitment industry is by and large one of those few careers which do not involve; how educated/qualified you are, who or what you know, physical or mental skills - what you need is determination and an absolute "red hot" desire to succeed. I, and a majority of my colleagues have witnessed £150K+ annual salaries, anyone can achieve this, but it takes time, network building, understanding your particular industry sector and possibly a smidgeon of luck! It took me 3 years of recruitment to start seeing £40K+ annually and 10 years to reach £100K+ but it was worth the hard times to get there.
Ultimately my advice would be, choose what you want to do (industry wise), learn your market, specialism's ( for example, I work in the transfer agency industry, I know how a unit trust works, know what an OEIC is, plus how the systems RUFUS, GFAS, FAST work) and build a network, above all take an interest and the deals will start to come together.
Some great insight there which should by now be helping you decide whether it's the industry for you.
If I could add a few other snippets; notwithstanding the 'desire to succeed' bit, you really do have to be a people person, with empathy and a huge dollop of self awareness. If people like you, and you can reciprocate, you'll make more contacts, but importantly, be able to retain and develop them to the point that people will start contacting you rather than the other way around; I would also add that you do need far reaching insight in to the sector you are going to specialise in, and you have to have a genuine interest too as you'll be around it for most of your waking (and occasionally, sleeping!) moments.
To differentiate yourself and your approach from the many others in the industry (remembering the barriers to entry are quite low so there's plenty of competition), you need to understand what currently is not being provided for. By asking and networking you will soon find out and if you can effectively fill that niche you'll be heading in the right direction. Good luck!
If I could add a few other snippets; notwithstanding the 'desire to succeed' bit, you really do have to be a people person, with empathy and a huge dollop of self awareness. If people like you, and you can reciprocate, you'll make more contacts, but importantly, be able to retain and develop them to the point that people will start contacting you rather than the other way around; I would also add that you do need far reaching insight in to the sector you are going to specialise in, and you have to have a genuine interest too as you'll be around it for most of your waking (and occasionally, sleeping!) moments.
To differentiate yourself and your approach from the many others in the industry (remembering the barriers to entry are quite low so there's plenty of competition), you need to understand what currently is not being provided for. By asking and networking you will soon find out and if you can effectively fill that niche you'll be heading in the right direction. Good luck!
andy-xr said:
What I didn't like about it was the amount of manipulation of people's lives in some respects, though that may have been the guidance that I was receiving from above. And I don't mean God by that, I mean management. It's quite hard to realign someones expectations of what they need to do to pay their mortgage with what you've got on a whiteboard in front of you
I don't blame you for not liking it. It's the very thing which I hate about stereotype recruiters. If they just tell me what they have I'll know if I'm a good match for the job or not, rather than having to eek out of them the detail they know before they send my CV off! It all comes out before you get to a job offer anyway.andy-xr said:
I had candidates who'd got 5 years C++ experience who wanted to move into Java and beans
Especially grates when they manage my expectations while using phrases like this I'm afraid!I know it's virtually impossible for a recruiter to really understand technology they've never used, I just wish they wouldn't try - I'm sure they'd be more productive and the guy I go back to now time and time again does just send me what he has and very quickly we can usually find something worth going for.
sharpfocus said:
andy-xr said:
I had candidates who'd got 5 years C++ experience who wanted to move into Java and beans
Especially grates when they manage my expectations while using phrases like this I'm afraid!I know it's virtually impossible for a recruiter to really understand technology they've never used, I just wish they wouldn't try - I'm sure they'd be more productive and the guy I go back to now time and time again does just send me what he has and very quickly we can usually find something worth going for.
andy-xr said:
If thats your skillset/profession and I've offended you, you'll have to excuse me if I didn't quite get the terminology or phrasing right, it's 12 years ago and I didn't really get into it properly in the space of time I worked in that sector
No offence taken and I'm not trying to have a go at you at all, just clumsily outlining the problem I see with the sector in general.
I'm currently dealing with them as i type.
I'm looking for another job. They are a necessary evil. I have noticed the professionalism of a few has taken a hit. Also the ones i used to use have all moved on or opened their own firms.
I also notice they are getting younger and younger....
I'm looking for another job. They are a necessary evil. I have noticed the professionalism of a few has taken a hit. Also the ones i used to use have all moved on or opened their own firms.
I also notice they are getting younger and younger....
Hmm.
I love my job, and wouldn't rather be doing anything else for a living (besides the military, but medical reasons preclude me from that...). And the prospects and money if you're successful at it are rivalled only by careers which require ridiculous working hours, regular working away from home, relocations and all sorts of other hassles inherent to climbing the "corporate ladder". You shouldn't need to regularly work more than 40 hours a week in recruitment if you use your time properly, and I walk to work every day, with the occassional bit of travel thrown in. And I can live in Devon. What's not to like?
BUT...
It's a very, very difficult job, and an extraordinarily complex one. To compound the problem, most of the people in the industry don't even really understand the mechanics of the profession properly, so your chances of learning everything you need to do your job to the best of your ability from your boss are slim. Case in point - internet job boards and adverts. 90% of recruiters rely solely on these, and yet the best candidates are rarely sourced through either. You can find the perfect candidate for any job, anywhere, without ever seeing sight of a CV, just by picking up the phone...which is the way it should be done, but an art that's been mostly lost from the industry thanks to the crutch of the internet.
And yes, you have to love selling, and being on the phone. A typical day for me involves doing little bits of admin, making the odd catch up call to follow up on any existing activity between 8:30 and 9, making marketing calls from 9-11:45 solid, 15 minutes of admin, an hour for lunch, 1-2PM is either used for admin, client/candidate interview preparation, or any other followups on existing activity, 2-5PM is used for making recruiting calls on existing assignments, and 5-whenever I leave the office is where the end of day planning, emails and next day's admin gets done. So, basically, almost all of the day is spent on the phone - and more importantly, picking up the phone immediately and dialing the next number the moment you're off the phone. All the calls I'm going to make the next day are written out by hand at the appropriate time the evening before.
If you want to be successful, you also have to be very organised, work with laser-like focus and discipline all day, every day, even when it's st, be assertive and dominant as well as personable and empathetic, be able to construct cogent, well-thought out, logical arguments and rebuttals and deliver them excellently, be able to build long-term business relationships, position yourself as an expert in a market full of numpties, make an ongoing lifelong commitment to your own personal and professional learning and development, manage your time exceptionally well, and a number of other equally important skills. To do well, you need to be very good at a lot of different things, and you only need to do one thing wrong working on a deal which may take weeks or months and you risk losing the entire deal and getting paid nothing.
If that doesn't put you off, and you're willing to invest the time and study to master the craft, then I wish you all the best in a fantastic new profession. The vast majority of people who try fail, and most of the rest of them just manage to scrape a living (and there's no point in doing a job as difficult as this one is unless you reap the rewards for it). But when it's good, it's great.
I love my job, and wouldn't rather be doing anything else for a living (besides the military, but medical reasons preclude me from that...). And the prospects and money if you're successful at it are rivalled only by careers which require ridiculous working hours, regular working away from home, relocations and all sorts of other hassles inherent to climbing the "corporate ladder". You shouldn't need to regularly work more than 40 hours a week in recruitment if you use your time properly, and I walk to work every day, with the occassional bit of travel thrown in. And I can live in Devon. What's not to like?
BUT...
It's a very, very difficult job, and an extraordinarily complex one. To compound the problem, most of the people in the industry don't even really understand the mechanics of the profession properly, so your chances of learning everything you need to do your job to the best of your ability from your boss are slim. Case in point - internet job boards and adverts. 90% of recruiters rely solely on these, and yet the best candidates are rarely sourced through either. You can find the perfect candidate for any job, anywhere, without ever seeing sight of a CV, just by picking up the phone...which is the way it should be done, but an art that's been mostly lost from the industry thanks to the crutch of the internet.
And yes, you have to love selling, and being on the phone. A typical day for me involves doing little bits of admin, making the odd catch up call to follow up on any existing activity between 8:30 and 9, making marketing calls from 9-11:45 solid, 15 minutes of admin, an hour for lunch, 1-2PM is either used for admin, client/candidate interview preparation, or any other followups on existing activity, 2-5PM is used for making recruiting calls on existing assignments, and 5-whenever I leave the office is where the end of day planning, emails and next day's admin gets done. So, basically, almost all of the day is spent on the phone - and more importantly, picking up the phone immediately and dialing the next number the moment you're off the phone. All the calls I'm going to make the next day are written out by hand at the appropriate time the evening before.
If you want to be successful, you also have to be very organised, work with laser-like focus and discipline all day, every day, even when it's s
t, be assertive and dominant as well as personable and empathetic, be able to construct cogent, well-thought out, logical arguments and rebuttals and deliver them excellently, be able to build long-term business relationships, position yourself as an expert in a market full of numpties, make an ongoing lifelong commitment to your own personal and professional learning and development, manage your time exceptionally well, and a number of other equally important skills. To do well, you need to be very good at a lot of different things, and you only need to do one thing wrong working on a deal which may take weeks or months and you risk losing the entire deal and getting paid nothing.If that doesn't put you off, and you're willing to invest the time and study to master the craft, then I wish you all the best in a fantastic new profession. The vast majority of people who try fail, and most of the rest of them just manage to scrape a living (and there's no point in doing a job as difficult as this one is unless you reap the rewards for it). But when it's good, it's great.
Edited by repiV on Wednesday 12th October 18:56
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