A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT; A ‘NEWBIE’S’ PERSPECTIVE

In this guest blog by Hannah Cuthbert, the newest addition to our team, Hannah describes a typical day in the life of a Recruitment Consultant at Property Personnel:

At around 8.15am, my day starts with a mug of tea and a flick through my emails. The majority of them are job applications, but with the odd head hunting email and an invite from LinkedIn. I’m subconsciously looking out for any ‘shining stars’ that have applied to my job adverts: Does anyone fit the profile to fulfil my clients’ expectations?

At 8.30am we group for our morning meeting. This gives us the chance to discuss the day’s events, (i.e. interviews, client meetings, appointments with candidates, and so forth). We also exchange ideas, brainstorm candidates and decide on suitable vacancies for them. As a team, we all have very different ideas so it’s extremely beneficial to hear other opinions. Seeing as I’m the ‘newbie’ here, my client base and knowledge of the industry is slightly less than that of the rest of the team, therefore, they’ll hopefully come up with a wider variety of ideas.  For each new candidate that I work on, and hopefully place, my knowledge of the industry increases. Furthermore, every single call I make massively boosts my client base, giving me more job opportunities for potential candidates looking for a new position.

By 9am the phones have really started ringing which can make the morning meeting slightly stressful. Therefore, time management is absolutely key within recruitment and I need to make sure that I structure my day to perfection! I need to ensure that I have enough time to make contact with both clients and candidates, and to top it off, I need to fit in a whole load of administrative work.

As the ‘middle man’ and facilitator between candidates and clients, I must make certain that I build solid relationships with both in order that they are completely open and honest with me.

In addition, I’ve realised that simply picking up the telephone and speaking with clients and candidates directly, is a million times more effective than sending an email. It’s quicker, easier to get your point across and, most importantly, allows me to build relationships without even realising it.

The great thing about these calls is that they are not conventional ‘cold calls’. Even if I haven’t personally spoken with a particular client before, at Property Personnel we have a very high profile and work exceptionally closely with all of our clients, so I often only need to introduce myself, rather than the whole company.

At around 11am I start working on my candidates. Even though the market place is pretty tough at the moment, when a new position from a client comes in, suitable candidate names flood to mind. Our information filled data base allows me to search for specific candidates depending on the required criteria, and vice versa. This is a huge help as I’m not completely familiar with all the 2,000 plus companies we work with just yet!

I also use this time, through until around 3pm, for interviews, with a big lunch in between obviously! I always aim to interview at least 5 or 6 candidates per week, as my boss has this theory… ‘6 candidates interviewed, equals 1 candidate placed’.

I spent my first week or so shadowing colleagues’ interviews before I was ready to give it a go myself. Interviewing is a lot harder than people think and I soon realised that giving advice to ‘strangers’ isn’t always trouble-free! I’d like to think that candidates would take my interview advice with no questions asked, e.g. to wear a suit, to be clean shaven and to change the colour of their bright red hair, but it’s never as straightforward as that! It’s therefore extremely important to perfect the interview technique in order to be successful. Is the candidate really focussed on the industry, or is he/she just looking for any old job?

My candidates’ needs are just as much of a priority to me as those of my clients. By personally meeting candidates, I can determine which companies they are best suited to, therefore saving me and my candidates’ time. Furthermore, my interviewing technique has improved massively over time, and it has become easier and easier to spot a ‘placeable’ candidate as time goes on.

I use my afternoon hours to follow up on clients and hopefully make second interview arrangements for my candidates … or even take and negotiate job offers!

To summarise, I absolutely love my job! It sounds cheesy, but it’s true.

Every day is completely different in Recruitment. Every day presents new challenges and by the time it comes to 6pm, I can look back on my day knowing that I have had a productive one. This is a sales role, and it takes a great deal of hard work to achieve targets. My quarterly targets push me to work harder and achieve better, and helping someone to find their dream job is the most fantastic feeling! On the odd day, things will go wrong, but tomorrow is a new day offering me the chance to build new relationships and new successes.

As a recruitment consultant, I am not only rewarded for the achievement of hitting targets and making sales, but I am also rewarded on competencies such as teamwork, customer service and relationship building. It’s a true meritocracy… an individual’s progression is limited only by his/her own performance and ambition.