I'm thinking of taking a job doing as a recruitment consultant, working for a well respected agency. I'd be starting on a crap basic wage but the bonus is there if I put in the graft. I was just wondering if anyone has any experience of it. i understand it's basically a sales job and I'm prepared to put in the work to earn the cash. I'd appreciate any opinions though as i don't know a great deal about it...

Cheers

Brian

 

Lowest of the low... you must be desperate

 

Worked in recruitment for 18 months...sweat shops.......take it as a last resort to no job at all

 

Be prepared to lose all self-respect. I unfortunately have to use the services of these individuals on a regular basis (as an employer, rather than as a candidate) and have yet to find one who I'd consider trustworthy. This isn't for the supply of shopworkers either - more the £60-70k+ professionals who deserve good representation.

 

One of my close friends is well on the way to making her first million from running a recruitment consultancy. It helps if;

You're an attractive female

You've worked in the industry in which you'll be selling/recruiting

You're prepared to attend a lot of dead-end meetings

You're prepared to be fcuked about with, and generally talked down to, by various HR representatives

You're able to interview people effectively.

 

Lets hope not

 

Yup - I've spent 6 years in the Business - after 10 years in a blue chip organisation. I've doing a mixture of Sales recruitment, Financial recruitment and more recently Marketing recruitment.

Starting salaries in any business are always crap - but now my basic is a much higher proportion of my salary - which I've nearly tripled in 6 years!

3 pieces of advice:
1. Don't work for a High Street agency like Blue Arrow / Kelly etc.
2. Avoid: IT / Sales recruitment as it's too cut throat.
3. Halve whatever they're telling you it's possible to earn in the first year to 18 months.
4. Expect a tough time from Muppets like old Moosey up there. :whatever:

There are plenty of real professionals out there - but we're still tainted by the number of cowboys who used to be in the business 5 years ago (they've now all gone).

 

I didn't say he was, but that it would help generally...!

 

What, you can actually supply top-quality candidates, rather than shovelling rubbish CVs through? I'm not saying that professionals don't exist, I'm saying that I've never met one.

Money where mouth is time. I've an accountancy role on right now which has an £85k package attached. The poor sod has to work for me, but aside from that, it's a good place to be, and is growing rapidly (turnover quadrupled to £350m in the last 3 years). If this is your field, and if you can back up your claims, PM me.

 

Thanks for that, it's good to know it's not all bad.
The job in question is for an agency specialising in the construction trade, they're one of the biggest in the field. I thought that would be an advantage to be honest. The construction field would also be preferable to IT or call centre for me personally.
It's the working with people side of things i like the idea of most, talking them through there options, giving them tips on interviews etc. I can sell anything though, as long as i believe it's a good product. I'd be prepared to do the work to ensure the people i put forward for jobs were the right 'product'

The only things putting me off are the long hours (I don't mind working hard but like to have a life) and the 'cold calling' side of things.

Thaks for all the opinions though, they all help.

 

You never know with you Tel

 

I lastest less than 3 months in recruitment. Hated every minute of it. I quit before I even finished the probation period

But....I have a friend who started the same time, at the same place and she is still in the business (different company now) 2 & half years on.

 

It's horses for courses, I've worked in call centres for ages, it doesn't get much worse than that. Any job that involves the great unwashed is gonna give you grief, at least as a consultant i get to make money off the ones i think are worth it and ignore the rest.

See, I'm starting to think like a recruitment consultant already

 

LOL Not true!! My year working at the Job Center were some of the best fun I ever had

 

so your not skint then...lol

 

I worked for Reed for 7 years and found them to be an excellent employer. Make sure that you get proper training - and I mean more than 1 or 2 days of handover. Agencies have a bad reputation because people simply aren't trained properly. The company has to be willing to invest in you if it's expecting you to produce results.

A lot of companies simply don't understand that their reputation is ruined by badly trained consultants sending out any old CV because they simply don't understand the requirements of the job or client.

Also, poorly trained consultants can put the company at risk as it's very easy to get it wrong in the field of employemnt law and regulations.

Other than that - go for it - it's a tough job and you have to learn to view people in purley financial terms - but then any sales job that promises a decent living will be tough!

 

Hi Moose,

Of course - but then again an increasing amount of what I do is Executive Search - so I will actually go out and headhunt the best candidates in the UK if required (a colleague of mine deals with Europe).

Personally I always go and meet a client - check out the premises - listen and take notes about the product / service the company sells and generally put together a composite of the person / profile that is being sought.

I usually only work on roles that are given to me exclusively, but for some clients where I am on their PSL, I have to compete with other (lesser) agencies.

I never submit more than 5 CV's (and usually only 3) - having interviewed the candidates myself.

We work on roles that are typically £40-100K Basic plus bonus, car etc but I have worked on assignments that are up to £150K basic.

I can't really work on Finance any more as my current employers are Marketing specialists (and so I wouldn't have the database to support it) - but if you're based in the South - I can put you in touch with some old colleagues of mine who I know can do a good job for you.

Feel free to PM me for any help you might need! Regards, Mark.

 

Fully agree with DBW - make sure you know what you're talking about in the industry you represent. Unfortunately MadMark's wrong that the cowboys are all gone (IMHO).

Case in point, all our IT developers are getting the chop as the jobs are off to India; since I write the user guides & online help, I'm going too.

Had a call from a lady at one of the agencies I'm with: "Hi, I see you know HTML, we'd like to put you forward for a C++ programming position!" So apart from the fact that I'm not a developer, and C++ doesn't appear on my CV, I'm a valid candidate - er, no! Her response: "well, it's all software at the end of the day"!! WTF?!

Unfortunately, chatting to the other guys who are being made redundant, mine was by no means an isolated example.

To be fair, MM did say avoid IT! Shame I need to find an agency who knows what they're talking about as IT is the industry I work in!

Cheers,
Steve

 

If you really want to be a recruitment consultant, my counsel would be:

1 Don't oversell a candidate
2 If you can't fill a role, say so
3 Always call back when you say you will
4 Don't call senior management with a "hiiiii, I'm XXX and I've taken over your area ... I have no idea what you do, but I'm just working my way through the leads pile my predecessor left". Take the trouble to read the company website, find out what they do.
5 Get to know the client as an individual. Remember that you're selling this individual to the candidate.
6 Always take the side of the client - they pay your wages
7 Remember that clients have very long memories and would rather cut their arm off than deal with someone who's previously shafted them
8 Don't come across like a wide-boy. You'll only perpetuate the view that recruitment consultants are just one step up from copier salesmen. Dress appropriately, which sounds obvious but incredibly rare. Professionals recruit using professionals.
9 Remember that employers don't care about agencies, but they care about who they deal with. An employer will follow a good consultant regardless of which agency they work for.
10 Differentiate yourself from the others by acting as a business partner. Be prepared to pre-interview, to negotiate on rate, to help to develop a job spec. Just bunging CVs on an e-mail does not rate as service.
11 Make sure that CVs are perfect - if one comes in to me with a spelling mistake, it goes in the bin. That's about 20%.
12 Make sure the employer has reasonable timeframes - manage ALL expectations.

That's it for now - good luck with it if you want to do it. Personally, I'd rather drink a cup of cold sick, but horses, courses, etc.

 

Steve,

I didn't mention it from a candiate perspective - but it's not good to hear that ....

Depends where you are but I understand Crimson, Square One or Swordfish are all good (my brother is recruitment manager for Nortel Networks and uses them).

 

Sorry to hear all that Steve - know all about IT agencies from IM who had hell with them a year or so ago - putting him in unstuiable jobs, him turning up to start temp jobs and finding there wasn't one (it was just an interview but to get him there they'd tell him it was a job - this happened several times!), 'Umbrealla' agencies which seemed to do nothing but cream off several hundred pounds for 'administration fees'.

Really p1sses me off that people can behave like that - 10 years or so ago the industry was regulated properly and you needed a licence to operate, now anyone can (and does) do it.

I've heard Reed still train their guys well - you could try them.

Good luck.

 

The Moose is obviously an old hand at this - because that's all excellent advice - but any good consultant (in my view) does that all the time!

However - he forgets one point - there are a lot of sharp clients out there too!
Some who use agencies to help them write job specs, and offer them vacancies merely to benchmark internal candidates.
They also stop / start recruiting whenever they feel like - and regardless of how much work you've done. I've had 6 clients do this to me in 2005 - 3 months work and £12K (to me) up in smoke as our fees are based on sucessful placement.
I also have a client who always sends me a new vacancy as he leaves the office at 6pm on a Friday and expects me to have some news for him by 9am Monday morning!!

 

Agreed. There muppets on both sides of the fence (including myself, who managed to put a typo in a line complaining about typos ..........).

 

Moose, MM - thanks for the names, will start contacting them tomorrow.

Fully agree with Moose's comment about building relationships and getting to know an individual. When I was contracting, I always went back to the same guy to look for work, even though he changed agencies twice during the 6 years I was a contractor.

Simple reason was that he bothered to find out about me and what I wanted to do, and took the time to search out relevant positions. Shame he's gone to work in a different line of work now.

Cheers,
Steve

 

There are now 60% less recruitment consultants in the Industry than there were 5 years ago ...... sobering thought!