Recruitment Consultant-what is required?

ferry

Any recruitment consultants on board?
Just curious really but can anyone please give some guidelines or advice on becoming/training to become a recruitment consultant?
I consider myself to be good with people,caring,target driven and can guage personalities quite well but I'm sure this is only part of the story!
I dont really have any sales experience or HR (-only from a management point of view)

Any advice on what is involved is appreciated
F

MissSarah1972

I did this and it said I had enough points to apply - was seriously thinking about it.

http://www.hays-careers.com/graduate/the-hays-challenge/index.htm

sammyroser

I did some work experience in a recruitment agency. It is essentially a glorified sales positions job (the recruitment consultants words not mine)

They spent all day cold calling companies in the town trying to book appointments to go to the office and sell to them. They hated talking to 'customers' (those looking for work).

They said if you work in a recruitment agency you quickly learn to hate everybody.

paddyrg

sammyroser wrote: »

They said if you work in a recruitment agency you quickly learn to hate everybody.

At least it'll be mutual

MishOnABudget

I worked in a recruitment agency for almost 3 years. The most important thing is persistence - unless you get given a 'hot desk' (one where you already have clients to recruit for) which is unlikely you'll spend the first couple of months cold calling to companies to build up your business pipeline, most of whom won't want to speak to you!

The job is all about sales so brush up on your selling skills, make sure you know your way around a competency based interview and remember to 'close' at interview!

theoldcynic

ferry wrote: »

Any recruitment consultants on board?
Just curious really but can anyone please give some guidelines or advice on becoming/training to become a recruitment consultant?
I consider myself to be good with people,caring,target driven and can guage personalities quite well but I'm sure this is only part of the story!
I dont really have any sales experience or HR (-only from a management point of view)

Any advice on what is involved is appreciated
F

It depends on where you work and how much autonomy you have within your role.

It also depends on the focus on the company. Some companies are very sales orientated (such as Hays) and have very high and stringent targets for you to meet. Others are more service orientated looking at more of the quality of service you offer (usually for higher fees). You can do general recruitment or specialist recruitment. Specialist recruitment can attract higher salaries. Some companies offer specialist recruitment training courses such as the REC.

Most recruitment roles will require you to make sales calls to companies (clients), attend meetings, secure vacancies and contracts and preferred suppliers lists and fulfil them.

Also meet with candidates (those going for the jobs), assess their skills and match them with appropriate jobs, look at their availability and try to get as much flexibility from them as possible with regards to the types of roles/distances travelled so on and so forth. You will also need to arrange/book the interviews and research the logistics of transport etc.

Some recruitment companies expect you to format/edit poor CVs or advise the candidates on how to do so with mutual agreement, advise candidates on interview techniques/styles and interview dress. You may also be involved in producing and sending out marketing material to both candidates and clients.

So skills you will usually need are good customer service skills, good sales skills, a persuasive yet considerate manner, an ability to multi-task and prioritise, a good standard of grammar/spelling and usually a passion for meeting and dealing with all walks of people and getting people into jobs and of course some confidence!
You would also need an awareness of the laws surrounding recruitment.

I would say in this market with few jobs companies are less willing to pay for agency fees when they may have such a high application rate for few roles so you would need to be tough, have an ability to move on when you don't secure a placement and also be able to have a bit of creative thinking and an ability to stand out from the rest of the other consultants working on the same roles!

It is essential when applying for a recruitment role that your CV reflects how you might be as a consultant ie it is word perfect, sells your skills/qualities well, stands out from the crowd and is well formatted! This is the agencies first way of assessing if you would be suitable for the role!

Best of luck!

ferry

Excellent advice as usual -thanks

agrinnall

MishOnABudget wrote: »

I worked in a recruitment agency for almost 3 years. The most important thing is persistence - unless you get given a 'hot desk' (one where you already have clients to recruit for) which is unlikely you'll spend the first couple of months cold calling to companies to build up your business pipeline, most of whom won't want to speak to you!

The job is all about sales so brush up on your selling skills, make sure you know your way around a competency based interview and remember to 'close' at interview!

From my experience as a contractor I would say the most important thing for a recruitment consultant is the ability to lie through your teeth while sounding sincere.

an9i77

I work with recruitment consultants as the HR contact for my company, I supposed I'd be called a 'gatekeeper'. Every day I have a number of consultants try and cold call me - usually I get reception to fobb them off with my email address but a number of them still get hold of my direct dial or somehow persuade receiption to put them through.

Imagine being busy with 1000 things of your own to do, and getting a call from someone you don't know, asking if you have any jobs going when you know your company is cutting back on recruitment due to the recession and only business critical roles which have got five levels of sign off can be recruited for.

Imagine that you have a number of preferred suppliers that you've worked with before and agreed preferential rates with, and that on the off chance that you do have any roles available that can't be filled with internally you will go to them first.

Now imagine that you really want to get off the phone as you have xyz to do in the next ten minutes but this recruitment agent you don't know won't let you finish the call even though you both know that you don't want to speak to him/her.

Do you still think you can do their job? If so go for it, because that's what a lot of your calls will be like, particularly in these tough times.

mattcanary

Why not just politely but firmly tell them you are not recruiting at the moment? What's wrong with the truth. No need to be on the phone for more than a minute or two!

an9i77

mattcanary wrote: »

Why not just politely but firmly tell them you are not recruiting at the moment? What's wrong with the truth. No need to be on the phone for more than a minute or two!

Oh Matt if only it were that simple! But they don't take no for an answer - they are trained not to! They have all sorts of ways for dealing with 'objections'. They ask all sorts of open ended questions so you can't just say no.

I've had to pretend someone else has just come into the office for a meeting before and stuff like that.

I don't like being rude to them - but sometimes you have to.

Reception are trained not to put them through but they have ways and means for getting round that, pretend I'm dealing with a role they have, etc.

They are not all like this, but a lot are. That's why I ask the OP if they can be like this, because it's not a job I could do.