This September not only marked my 25th birthday but also my promotion to Senior Consultant at Greenfield IT Recruitment🎂
Coming from a retail background where I managed up to 80 staff at any one time, I knew the resilience I had built up would contribute to having a strong foundation which would enable me to be a fast learner in any new environment.
As I’d hoped, I soon hit the ground running. I can proudly say that since my first placement back in May 2022, there has not been a month where I haven’t contributed to a deal🙂 which is a hard feat considering the bumpy roller coaster that the UK IT recruitment industry can be!
As part of my anniversary, I wanted to share some of the lessons I’ve learnt with both hiring managers and candidates so they can understand my day-to-day life and how I can contribute to their success.
Resilience unlocks success.
If I had a drum which banged resilience into recruiters, I think I’d have a billion-dollar product and you’d find me on Dragons Den. I cannot stress highly enough how important being resilient has impacted my experience and how this has correlated to me having a successful recruitment career.
I think naturally some people have a higher resilience tolerance than others, but it’s still something you can build through being in the right environment and surrounding yourself with the best people. But if you have both like me, then even better!
Emotional Intelligence has helped me close deals.
The art of delivering/negotiating offers really can set you apart from other recruiters. High emotional intelligence has helped me understand candidate’s needs & wants, plus be able to empathise and get “on a level” with them.
At the end of the day, recruitment aside, if I build a natural rapport with someone, I do genuinely just want what’s best for them. So being in a position and having the knowledge to advise the best next steps to candidates is invaluable and this helps me build long-lasting relationships.
What sort of recruiter would I be without soft skills?
This doesn’t need to be wordy. What is a recruiter without soft skills? Recruitment is essentially a sales job and people will always buy from people. I have the ability and skill to hold meaningful conversations which naturally breeds more success and has helped me build a large network.
Every Sector is different – Adaptability is key.
Throughout my recruitment journey to date, I have been lucky enough to gain exposure in different sectors of recruitment. What I wasn’t ready for was how different each sector is from one another. I made it my mission to learn how to adapt and convey confidence to clients, no matter their requirements.
I have worked on god knows how many different roles to date in various industries. As an example, Commercial recruitment moves quickly due to market demands, while IT roles can be slower with interview processes lasting up to 2-3 months depending on project requirements and lifecycles.
Is Tech Slang a different language?
Do you have experience using Symfony, Django or maybe Ruby on Rails? These all sound like either a musical instrument or a woman called Ruby having a mid-life crisis. But surprisingly, they are web frameworks/languages. It took me a while to learn all these off by heart, but now when talking to a developer they do believe I have a good software development understanding which does help me when trying to sell opportunities.
Some hiring managers think I’m the devil.
There is a small percentage of internal hiring managers who truly believe agency recruiters are real live devils. I probably wasn’t prepared for the read and no response to messages, being told my call can’t be transferred, and sometimes the odd piece of rudeness. We all have bills to pay, and money won’t grow on trees. My approach is to be organic and genuine with internal talent teams / hiring managers and I do believe it helps me find success. As at the end of the day, people buy off people!
It is easy to get frustrated when receiving no responses but it’s not something I take to heart. As most the time, it’s not just me, it’s purely down to the fact some internal teams will just not get back to any recruiter as instructed by their business or line manager. I just keep at the chase and continue to communicate across various channels.
Building relationships have made my job easier.
I now have over 2500 connections on LinkedIn. Mostly either hiring managers or fantastic IT candidates across the UK. This network only makes my job easier. In the last few months especially, there have been several occasions where I have managed to fill roles within a week or two purely based on having the connections in my network. No need to post adverts, or send LinkedIn messages, it was all from just building relationships with the right people.
I’ve learnt to love competition and be DIFFERENT to the rest.
I recently spoke to a very good client of mine who explained that they receive 12 or so emails a day from different recruiters expressing a desire to assist with their recruitment. Not only this but they also received on average 2 calls a day from agency recruiters.
This made me think, how can I be different to stand out from the crowd? I find including the occasional joke or pun seems to be effective. 🙂
Recruitment is a roller coaster but I enjoy the ride!
Have you ever ridden the Nemesis roller coaster at Alton Towers? Well, that is pretty much how recruitment is. Some days you go home on cloud nine and others you question your ability. Fun fact, actually not so fun, but only 50% of people who start a career in recruitment make it 2 years in!
My most important takeaway to date (no, not my beloved Pizza Hut), is to enjoy the ride and to celebrate the small wins. I remember when I first started out in recruitment, I used to beat myself up when I made a mistake. Over time though, I have translated this frustration into taking positives and lessons from the situations. I still get my bad days where deals fall through, candidates reject their offers and jobs are pulled for no apparent reason, but I still take all the positives out of the situation where I can.
I capture and celebrate the small wins and use these thoughts to motivate me when I am feeling up against it, as this spurs me on and drives me to succeed.
In conclusion, need I say no more than I do genuinely just love recruitment and I will continue to keep a smile on my face day in and day out! If you are a candidate looking for a new role, or a hiring manager reading this realising I am not in fact the devil, I’d love for you to reach out so we can have a conversation about how I can support your search / business! 🙂
