Sure, I’ll admit it I’m a recruiter… I’ll even admit it in public. I’m proud of what I do and how I do it. Yes, there are a few charlatans out there who give my profession a bad name but in the whole the people that I have had the pleasure to work with are true professionals who are artisans at their chosen craft. In the most recruiters fall into this profession with one main thing in common, the desire to help people. The rewards can be great in terms of money and the satisfaction of helping both client and candidate alike. The unseen downside is long hours, high pressure which burns a lot of people out of the profession. For a trade that advises organisations on retention, our retention rates are some of the worst of any profession. I once heard that the average length of tenure in recruitment (not with one company but as a foray into this field) is only 8 months. Sounds incredulous but try to find any one of us who has been doing this for more than a couple of years and you’ll soon see that we are a rare breed.
We’re referred to as pimps, hustlers, headhunters, leeches and the list goes on. For every one of these negative comments there are far more people who are thankful for finding us the right employee or employer. So why mention all of this right here right now? I guess you will see a number of posts about how wonderful remote working is and I didn’t want to bore you with the same sort of content. What I will say is that I have been able to do what I do whilst ensuring that I have the pre-requisite amount of caffeine in my system to keep up with the frenetic pace of emails and calls. Other than the caffeine, I’m driven by making sure that every interaction I have is a positive one for all party’s involved. Can I do that here? It seems that I can. I have everything I need to help me succeed in what I do and this has been a great week so far and a great experiment, especially the coffee.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Dave Taylor // Apr 3, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I know Paul 99% of recruiters make the rest look bad
2 David M. Williams // Apr 4, 2008 at 10:44 am
I have to confess to having had less than pure views of recruiters in the past.
I have loads of stories! I remember applying for a Solaris admin job once. The recruiter asked me if I had “DEC” experience (at least, I assume it was “DEC”, maybe she meant “DECK” or “DECQ” or some other thing.)
I asked her to clarify; I was thinking DEC was a big company. Did she mean experience with DEC dumb terminals? DEC’s version of UNIX, Ultrix? DEC’s major operating system, VMS?
She couldn’t answer, she just kept repeating “DEC” as if somehow repetition would make it clear to one or both of us. It was quite exasperating.
However, you guys sound like you know your stuff
3 Ineke Kay // Apr 4, 2008 at 12:39 pm
This is a great post. You are right Paul, recruiters don’t always get the best reputation. I have heard them in the past be compared with Used Car Salesmen.
It is so great to see one that is so professional.
4 Peter // Apr 4, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Congrats Paul on your approach to your work.
Unfortunately, one bad recruiter tarnishes the image of others.
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