So you have just stepped into a recruitment services firm, fresh from an engineering school or a business school campus. Accept it – most probably you are here because you could not land up any other job. While you have started working as a recruiter, you secretly hate the job, and you wish to dump this job at the earliest and move on to some well-paying and more respectable job with a corporate. All in all – you don’t consider a recruiter’s job worthwhile.
The above statement may align with what many first time recruiters are thinking within 1 – 6 months of getting a recruiters job.
We think otherwise – a recruiters job is one of the best places to create amazing learning for yourself, and it also allows you to work towards a great career while giving you the opportunity of making more money in form of bonuses.
Some takeaways for you, if you are in a recruiters job and take you work seriously:
Learning’s:
- Exposure is not limited to one company or industry.
- Depending on your firm’s clientele, you have an opportunity to get to know more about various businesses, across industries. If you do your best to support a search, it is important that you do have a good understanding of the client, their business and the industry.
- Depending on the positions you work on, and the people that you interact with, you have the opportunity of learning a lot about other disciplines, functions, and functional areas.
- You get to appreciate and understand the talent flow in various industries, and you also get to learn a lot about people.
- Some behavioral learning’s – Client Handling, Sensitivity, Communication, Ability to handle tough situations, working under pressure etc.
A big motivator:
You don’t just learn recruitment as a HR discipline. You learn recruitment as a business area as well as a functional discipline, you learn business, consultative sales & client servicing and over a period of time you may also act as a P&L head. You create direct revenue for your business. Not many jobs give you such an exposure.
Career Possibilities:
If you are able to actually learn, and deliver in a recruiter’s job with a recruitment firm your remuneration as well as growth with be highly enhanced. The network & contacts that you develop may also help you plan your next move.
Your learning’s may easily get you a corporate HR job or a job in one of the global executive search firms. Both well paying & respectable. In fact you can start out on your own once you have a good exposure and a decent network.
The only expectation – “Keep your eyes and ears open. Keep learning. Do your best.” A recruiter’s job, even at a small firm can lead you to build a great career over the years – with a good deal of freedom, and with ample opportunity of wealth creation.
Praveen is the Founder & Principal Consultant of KHEdge, a boutique HR & Business Process Advisory firm. Over last 15 years he has advised & worked with promoters, founders, business leaders, HR leaders in areas of - Business Strategy, HR Strategy, Organisation Design etc.