How to Get Into a Career in Recruitment

Knowledge of Recruitment Area

If you’re going to recruit people for a particular industry, such as IT, it’s important to have some knowledge and understanding of the field. It’s likely that you’ll need to assess whether people have particular skills and experience, and without at least a moderate level of knowledge you won’t be able to identify who’s got the skills and who’s good at talking. Writing good job advertisements is essential to attracting the right candidates, and good job ads mean understanding what the position is all about. You'll also need to answer potential candidates questions about the role.

Interviewing Techniques

Recruitment agencies are employed by companies to provide them with a high-quality short-list of possible candidates. They are relying on the recruitment consultant to be able to conduct the first level of interviews, so success as a recruiter greatly depends on their ability to able to identify good candidates.

Read Between the Lines

It’s not always easy to determine whether someone will be a good candidate or not. Much of it comes down to the recruiter’s ability to identify elements of a CV that match well to the job description.

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Be a Good Listener

A recruiter needs to have a good understanding of the type of person a company is looking for. Some of it will be down to skills and abilities, while other characteristics, such as negotiation or communication skills, are less evident through CVs and more obvious through speaking with people. Being able to identify whether a applicant is a good fit, both for the skills required and the culture of the organisation, is important for a recruiter.

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Recommended Training to Prepare for Recruitment

• Basic knowledge for area to recruit into
• Interviewing
• Strong telephone skills
• Able to read quickly and scan for content

Things to Consider Before Becoming a Recruiter

• Do you like spending a lot of time on the telephone talking with people?
• Do you have the perseverance to read through a high volume of CVs?
• Do you listen well and have the ability to ask questions to understand further?

Recruiter: A Case Study

While working as a sales woman for an IT software company, Maree identified a need by large organisations for high-quality candidates for temporary and contract roles. Keen to avoid the costly exercise of searching for possible candidates, she decided to grab an opportunity and set up her own small recruitment company.

With a background in IT software development she decided to specialise in this area. Focusing on software development roles she sold her recruitment services to a couple of organisations that she had previously worked with. They liked the fact that Maree had a strong understanding of their industry and that she could immediately recognise the types of candidates they were looking for. She set up a rigorous process for assessing potential candidates and prided herself and her business on only putting forward the best candidates.

The Next Step

Now that you have read through the advice above, you might want to put it into practice. Our Career Change Matcher lets you tell us what is not working and what you want instead and we will match you with career paths that fit. Try it now →