Our intern has been busy getting to grips with life in a recruitment office. After three weeks in the job, she gives us a rundown on what skills she thinks a recruiter should have.
After four weeks working at Calibre Search I think I’m safe to make a confession. It might sound a little ridiculous, it will probably cause a few eye rolls from my colleagues (as it did my parents) and it will make you question why on earth I’m working here but it’s time to be honest.
When I first applied for the job here, I didn’t really know what a recruitment company did.
I mean you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know the very basic role of a recruiter, you recruit employees for companies. But how they did it, what a usual work day would look like or what skills made a recruiter, I had no idea. When I first told my parents about the company I was working for they looked at me puzzled…
“But Charlotte you don’t know the first thing about recruitment, how on earth did you get that job?”
After trying, and failing, to persuade my parents I am the fountain of all knowledge, including recruitment, and the company clearly saw my potential and talent, I had to admit that my role was to work on social media and I wouldn’t be doing any recruiting. HOWEVER, after four weeks in a recruitment office, sitting next to recruiters, posting blogs, tweets and insta-pics for recruiters I think I am starting to get to grips with what a recruitment company does, what a recruiter looks like and some insider tips to be a good recruiter. From my vast amount of well researched analysis (four weeks of listening in to conversations I shouldn’t be) I can now publish my final report:
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The Recruiter: A (Kind of) in Depth Report
There are several skills you need to have to be a good recruiter, many of which are not made clear on the job description these are as follows
Strong vocal chords
Recruiters spend over half their day on the phone so a good morning vocal routine is advised. Your phone voice will also need to be strong: different from the traditional office phone voice, the recruiter is friendlier, less formal and should include personalised phrases and stories that WILL be used on plenty of phone calls you make. Calibre examples include holiday advice, questions about the weather, good pubs for the weekend and the story of that time you got knocked off your bike on the way to work and needed stitches. I also recommended practicing the art of a good brew to keep vocal chords strong throughout the working day. There is office etiquette with any brew making and I would advise learning this at the earliest convenience.
There is no ‘i’ in team, but there is in ‘winning a competition’
Working as a team is essential to a happy and healthy office in recruitment. Communication and supporting other members of the team to help current clients and gain new ones is expected. However, introduce a light-hearted competition with a small prize, for example, a pack of biscuits, and there is a stark change. Survival of the fittest mentality kicks in and many recruiters will do anything they can to win. This includes trying to put off other teams, cheating or being a bad winner. I recommend practising your table tennis skills if you are looking to join Calibre Search and not making any bold statements about your running ability until you’ve done your research on the rest of the team. Otherwise you may find yourself signing up for a run and a time prediction you certainly won’t be able to manage.
Know your stuff
There is a general assumption that recruitment is simply a sales environment, despite their being some parallels, don’t underestimate how much knowledge recruiters have stored away. Recruiters aren’t selling people to companies or companies to people they do far more advising and informing. They are an industry encyclopaedia, they know what companies want, need and should have, they know the good, from the bad, from the ugly and they know their candidates! I would recommend researching the ins and outs of an industry you want to recruit for, you want to know everything that can help get the right fit for the job. to get the right placement you can’t just look at a company’s location and salary, you need to know the people employers, the career progression, where the company is going and what the office culture is like, to name a few. What recruiters don’t know about a company they are employing for isn’t worth knowing. So, I can’t emphasise enough, KNOW YOUR STUFF! I have worked in sales before, I have pretended to know my stuff about a product, I pretended to know my stuff pretty well, if I even tried to treat recruitment like I did in sales I would lose clients and candidates quicker than I would lose a 100 metre sprint against Bolt! (Despite the running abilities I may have incorrectly boasted about across the office)
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So I may not have been here long enough for anyone to take my analysis seriously but I am pretty sure I have pointed out the key skills and characteristics of a recruiter, or a Calibre Search recruiter at least… who knows this bunch could be in a world of their own!
If you think you think the Calibre team would be a good fit for you. Our Manchester team is recruiting now! To find out more about working with Calibre Search go to our work for us page. Otherwise email your CVs and covering letter to Pete Gillick.
