How I fell back in love with recruitment
Finally I love what I do again, and this is why . . .
As a junior recruiter in one of the large global recruitment businesses, I remember being so proud of my job. I got to work with great people, thrived on winning business but most importantly, realised that I loved delivering great service to the people I worked with and nothing gave me more satisfaction than when clients or candidates wanted to work with me again. In a very target driven industry, I found a balance between meetings KPI’s and doing a good job.
Then recruitment and I had a rocky patch for a while. It seemed that everyone had an opinion about recruitment consultants and I didn’t enjoy having to constantly justify my job or why we charged the fees we did. The industry had become more focussed on the numbers than the value that we added to the process, and I started to feel embarrassed about what I did.
It seemed that sales had become a dirty word, friends and colleagues were leaving the industry, taking a range of roles to get away from the targets and business development. And then there was the the constant challenge of working in a high volume recruitment role, it was almost impossible to keep on top of the number of job applications which just meant that everyone ended up feeling disgruntled and disillusioned in the process, including me. I had started to fall out of love with recruitment.
Fast forward 10 years and I no longer feel like shrinking in a corner when someone asks what I do, instead I embrace the question and have since bored many friends and acquaintances with my enthusiastic insights into the industry or their potential career changes!
I’ve fallen back in love with what I do, it took time and I had to work at it but after some soul searching I realised that one of my core values is authenticity. For me this means having hard conversations, choosing not to work with those companies who just want the CV race, answering the phone to the candidate who didn’t get the job and really getting to know the candidates I work with. The result is that I get to be a true consultant and people trust me to deliver.
Recruitment has become about so much more than hitting targets and filling jobs, it’s giving guidance and support, understanding people’s values and motivations, offering insight and consulting. When we do what we do well, we can make such a positive difference to someone’s life and by approaching things my way, I have re-ignited the passion I had when I first started out.
Recently someone gave me feedback that my approach to recruitment is ‘refreshing, innovative and - most importantly - effective’, and in an industry that is all about reputation, that really does make me love what I do just a little bit more!