Did you really "fall" in to recruitment?

How often do we hear of people claiming that they “fell” in to recruitment. It occurred to me this morning that in some respects this is quite a ludicrous comment to make. “Falling” in to recruitment implies that there was no thought process involved at all, you couldn’t help yourself, you had your hands tied behind your back. Is that what really happened?

If you take a moment to stop and think now, for those in recruitment, there will be a reason WHY you chose recruitment. For me, I started out as a recruitment consultant trainer delivering courses across the South to trainee and experienced recruiters. And I simply thought one day….I want a piece of that! I wanted the thrill of the chase, the opportunity to make a difference and not forgetting the ability to earn more than a standard basic salary and so I started People Prospect Solutions. So I can’t claim I fell in to it at all, in fact it was a very considered decision.

I wonder if people feel comfortable using the term as an excuse when you decide that recruitment isn’t for you anymore. Who wants to admit that a well thought out decision about a career didn’t turn out well in the end, far easier to claim it was never your intention to be a recruiter in the first place. Or perhaps you don’t want to admit that you were turned on by the money and hadn’t really investigated what recruitment was all about in the first place.

Does it really matter I hear you say? Well in a way, yes it does. How many times do we hear the reverse from a candidate at interview who says I went to University to study, knowing that I always wanted to be a recruitment consultant? Or I took a job in telesales to get experience knowing that recruitment was my ultimate goal. Very rarely in 16 years of working in rec to rec!. And there in lies the issue. People (I generalise) don’t see recruitment as a career and never will do when social media portrays recruitment as one of those jobs that you “just end up doing”. Come on, let’s celebrate the positive reasons why people move in to recruitment! Perhaps you saw your best friend buying a flash car at 25 after receiving a big commission cheque and it spurred you on so you investigated recruitment and went hell for leather to do the same. Or you wanted a sales career and could see how success in recruitment could lead you to a director role in the future. To attract new recruiters to the industry, we need to make it an attractive career proposition and not just “another sales role” and a big part of that is making sure that potential new recruiters see the huge benefits that this industry can offer. So let’s STOP saying we “fell” in to recruitment and let’s give real tangible reasons why.

I am keen to hear from you recruiters. Why did you choose a career in recruitment?