If you asked a recruiter: What made you decide to pursue a career in recruitment?, few would say, ‘It’s what I always wanted to be when I grew up.’
Instead, it’s more common to hear something like “I fell into recruitment” or “I knew someone who worked in recruitment, and it sounded like something I would be good at.”
Still, when someone does ‘fall into recruitment’, it’s often a job people stick with for the entirety of their career. In-line with National Careers Week, we’ve put together some top reasons why recruitment is a career you might want to consider, whether you’re a school leaver, graduate or are just open to trying a career in recruitment.
Getting Into Recruitment - Alternative Route To University & Apprenticeship
Routes into recruitment vary, but recruitment is not something you can be degree qualified in specifically. Jobs in recruitment are usually awarded based on interpersonal skills and experience. Transferable experience often comes from a sales or management background, but that’s not always the case. Recruitment is often a role that university graduates lean towards as they can apply their in-depth understanding of a sector and utilise their strategic-thinking in a position that makes a difference to people’s lives.
For those seeking an alternative career path to university, recruitment is a great option to consider if you have the mindset and key skills required to be a successful recruiter. Recruitment agencies often offer trainee positions, allowing you to learn on the job. And there are other roles in recruitment than just being a Recruitment Consultant. Some entry-level roles that can develop into a recruitment role if you have little-to-no experience include Recruitment Administrator or a Recruitment Resourcer. In these roles, there is often an opportunity to progress in candidate sourcing, administration or recruitment.
Apprenticeships are another route to beginning a career in recruitment. Increasing the quality and recognition of apprenticeships at developing employable skills is on the Government’s agenda over the next five years. It is a great reason to consider an apprenticeship route into recruitment if you have limited experience and want to try your hand at recruitment whilst learning on the job.
Qualify Your Skills As A Recruiter & Opportunities For Professional Development
We’ve touched on transferable skills, apprenticeships, trainee-roles, and other routes into recruitment. Sound too accessible? Are parents unsure recruitment is right for you? Although recruitment may offer more entry-routes than many other industries, recruiters who are part of the REC (Recruitment & Employment Confederation) are held to specific standards and can access several resources to achieve further professional development.
Employers in recruitment are often willing to support teams who seek professional development to study towards accreditations. The highest level of CPD would be a diploma in Recruitment Management, which is equal to degree level.
Immerse Yourself In Any Sector
Recruitment supports every sector. Being a recruiter makes it possible to add value to any relevant or important industry to you. Surround yourself with networks of individuals who think like you. If you’re interested in architecture, recruit Architects or support the construction process with site staff, Civil Engineers, Planners, Estimators, Quantity Surveyors. If you have generational experience of agriculture, then support farmers with the team they need seasonally or year-round. If you love the cutting-edge tech industry, support tech individuals in finding new roles and be the first to hear exciting tech industry developments.
You can build a network in one industry and stick with it your whole career, or if you feel a change is due, you can build a new network in a new sector by transferring your recruitment skills. You’ll soon learn the beauty of networks and how inter-connected individuals are across various sectors.
As a recruiter, you can work in a recruitment agency or work as an in-house recruiter for large companies that require sourcing talented employees for their business. So if the thought of working in an agency feels too external, you can get even closer to the action with an in-house role. Every industry’s success pivots on the minds they have within their workforce. That’s why recruitment, combined with employer branding, is so significant to attract the most talented employees.
Competitive Industry = High Rewards
As the recruitment industry is highly competitive, top performers will want to be retained by employers so that their clients receive the most reliable recruitment services available in the industry. For that reason, employers will work hard to create an environment that recognises, rewards and retains high-performance with financial incentives, opportunities to grow, company events and often overseas travel!
Uncapped Earning Potential
The most typical payment model in recruitment is a basic salary, supplemented by a commission scheme and company benefits. Commission schemes enable you to increase your income in-line with how successful you are in a role. In most recruitment businesses, commission schemes are uncapped, meaning that it is possible for recruiters to quickly and significantly increase their earnings way beyond their basic salary.
Commission Example
Suppose you were to bill £5,000 within one month. At a commission rate of 12.5%, you would earn an additional £625. Often commission schemes are uncapped and offer a higher percentage for higher billing, so another example would be if you were to bill £20,000 in 1 month, at a commission rate of 15%, you could take home an additional £3,000.
Top-performing recruitment consultants could expect to take home commission payments above their basic salary every month.
Multi-Skilled Role
Recruiters require a varied skill-set to flawlessly execute the spectrum of responsibilities the role entails, including:
- Developing relationships with new and existing businesses.
- Preparing sales pitches to demonstrate how recruiters add value and gain access to Preferred Supplier Lists (PSLs).
- Consulting clients on their recruitment objectives.
- Developing client profiles.
- Sourcing candidates through various recruitment resources.
- Writing job adverts to attract suitable candidates.
- Qualifying and interviewing candidates for appropriate opportunities.
- Building professional networks online (mainly LinkedIn).
- Engaging networks with useful and relevant content and resources.
- Maintaining a recruitment database of skilled candidates and recruiting clients.
- Representing your company in meetings.
…and that’s just an essential list. Each recruiter’s role will vary by level, team size, company size, industry, and experience, so each day and each position can look quite different from the next. Some of the critical skills recruitment businesses tend to look for are:
- excellent communication and listening skills,
- personable,
- quick learning,
- good time management,
- the ability to think quickly,
- resilience,
Most recruitment consultants are ‘360’ recruiters, which means they manage all recruitment processes. Suppose your skill-set leans more towards business development or towards sourcing skilled job seekers. In that case, there are opportunities to find a role in recruitment that focus more heavily on these aspects of recruitment.
Opportunity For Management
If management responsibility is something you seek, that’s also achievable in a recruitment role. When you’ve got as far as you can go in recruitment as an individual, increase your offering by developing a team around you. If you prefer to work alone and the idea of management has little appeal, no pressure as there’s always opportunities to progress as a recruiter without hiring too.
Building relationships and networks
Become an expert at building relationships. By building relationships, you develop a much deeper understanding of your clients and your candidates, making it possible to offer services that add value to their business. Quite often, these turn into rewarding connections with who you can enjoy time outside of your day-to-day responsibilities at things such as industry events, charity fundraisers and industry award ceremonies. It’s an excellent role for building strong relationships.
Are you interested in a role in recruitment? Why not reach out to see if we’re recruiting at the moment. We’re always interested in hearing from talented, ambitious and eager individuals, and we have ambitious growth plans over the next five years, so we may be open to taking on a new hire!
