Don't let your recruitment career falter

Nick Boulton is Client Server CEO .

If you started your recruitment career sometime the last 24 months or so, you have only experienced two types of market.?

The first, roughly March 2020 to Nov 2020, during the pandemic was shambolic. Hiring freezes, projects pulled, budgets cut, very few jobs to work and WFH imposed on businesses with no ability or infrastructure to cope, just an order from the UK government to batten down the hatches.

I would hate to know the actual number of businesses that have gone under because of this.

I know that many lives have been saved because of the action taken, but I dread to think what the overall human cost, certainly mentally, economically, and physically has been.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I’m sure conspiracy theorists have be salivating at the bountiful opportunities and details on offer to support their wild theories (or maybe not so wild…)

If you made it through those torrid months of lockdown, you were suddenly, overnight, presented with the most fruitful recruitment market I have every experienced. It was like every business woke up one morning and just said, “Yes, I’m going to hire, and I would like 20 of each please!”

Like kids in a candy store, business feasted on the buoyant hiring market, driving salaries through the roof and recruitment consultants into a frenzy.

From December 2020 until July 2022, companies have been hiring at FULL speed. Recruitment consultants up and down the country have been filling their proverbial coffers faster than they knew what to do with themselves.

Any new recruitment consultant would be forgiven for thinking that this industry is insane and asking themselves, “Why haven’t more people become recruiters?”

I’m not going to start wagging my finger and preaching about how this won’t always be the way, and the recruitment market is going to get tougher blah, blah, blah. But what I will offer a few thoughts on something recruiters will need almost more than new jobs over the coming months: resilience.

The questions that will be asked of those new to recruitment will be: ?

·??????How much of a fundamental grounding have they been given over the last few years?

·??????Have they been trained and equipped with all the tools they will need to navigate the more “normal” recruitment waters when they come up against seasoned professionals?

·??????What experience or training will they draw on when the market gets tougher?

Yes, WFH or flexible working has been a big positive from the pandemic and will hopefully mean people have better work live balance.

But this new hybrid working environment is not the best way to start a recruitment career. ?

Realistically how much can you improve, help, or guide a junior consultant when they are sitting at home? Particularly in an industry that requires a lot of hands-on training.

We have seen a distinct flattening out of consultants learning curves during the lockdowns. I know it suited many people and many industries, but it did not suit ours for people starting out their careers.

In an industry and environment where a lot of your initial training and formative years is done by listening to others, interacting with experienced people, absorbing information and ‘seeing the job being done’ this was effectively removed from the equation.

A lot of the potential shortcomings will have been papered over by how buoyant the market has been, consultants’ skills have not been truly tested over the last few years, recruitment has been “easy”.

But as the market tightens, roles become harder to come by and candidates sit tight with a recession looming, those flaws will be exposed.

So, how do you ensure that this doesn’t happen, and you are best equipped to deal with anything the recruitment market throws at you?

Get an assessment on where you’re at

Speak to your manager, mentor, Team Lead or whoever you think appropriate in your organisation. Ask them what areas you think you need to improve on to become a better more resilient recruiter. Be proactive, don’t wait until you are struggling, now is the time to make sure you fix any chinks in your armour.

Talk to your clients about their plans

Speak to your clients, find out what their plans are over the next 6-12 months, really get close to them. Are there any projects been shelved, have budgets got tighter, are they talking about hiring freezes, even redundancies? What’s the technology roadmap looking like?

Take your candidates’ temperature

Lastly, talk to your candidates about how they are feeling. Have they seen any changes in the market? Are they as eager to move roles? Are their peers looking for new jobs? Have their aspirations or career goals shifted?

Ultimately the key is not to be a passenger in any changing market – you need to be proactive, get ahead of your competitors and make sure you are an assert to your company, your clients, and your candidates. Take control of you career and direction you want to go.

How is your business preparing for the next 12 months? Talk to Client Server today about your hiring plans and goals - www.client-server.com