The ONE reason why Agency Recruitment Professionals Quit
As a headhunter for other headhunters, I have heard all the excuses, rationalizing, and deciding factors on why people exit this career in high numbers which all stems from this ONE thing:
AGENCY RECRUITMENT is a SALES career at its very core.
AGENCY RECRUITMENT being a hardcore sales job IS the reason why so many people can't or won't do it, thus they sooner or later, quit.
Here's the exact breakdown of the major reasons why people tell me why they're leaving our biz*.
*This undoubtedly proves my point: recruitment being a sales career is the ROOT cause of the high turnover rate.
Meanwhile, some key notes I want to zoom in on:
??Recruitment is a hard job!
Clients & candidates are not so nice. They're tough people who create tough situations that you have to handle exquisitely with the best care, empathy, commercial acumen, and deftness so that everyone can win (and you can get paid).
Managing these people and the whole effort that sales requires (tenacity, investment of hard work, time and effort, difficulty, level of personal talent needed to excel in this career), not everyone is either capable of it or even those who are capable, DON'T WANT TO DO THE WORK.
Don't forget: there are plenty of substitute careers that won't pay as high (think internal recruitment, the number 1 job agency recruiters leave for), but good enough to woo a good portion of decently talented people away.
??The reason why so many people don't care to invest into this career is that they're not fundamentally a. willing to work hard and b. motivated by money
This is the reality of the situation. In order to make BIG money ($200k+ is easily what top headhunters make even in Year 2-4 of their career), you have to work REALLY REALLY hard.
Many people simply cannot be bothered to work that hard, despite all the financial gains! First world privilege at play.
If you're not fundamentally SERIOUSLY money-motivated, why the hell would you bust your ass and work hard? You wouldn't, so most don't in developed countries! So it's a chicken and egg situation.
Because there is no true financial ambition or need for money, what would be the point to work hard? A lower or medium level of success is totally OK in a developed countries where even if you earn less than you could be capable of, you'll still have a roof over your head and clean water to drink.
The metric is $75k - if you earn that level in the USA, most people are happy dandy. So why work hard for the $200k? It's a nice to have, but not a must-have for MOST people.
??The level of self-confidence required in this career cannot be manufactured.
In order to win in the marketplace in something as difficult as our job, your self-belief and desire to succeed has to be sizable in order to be crazy enough to dare to dream.
Many people unfortunately don't realize the mental strength, fortitude, and courage required to do this job.
No matter how much you train them, show them, help them, heck, even close their deals for them, many recruiters will never be able to do this job on their own due to lack of ability and confidence. Nothing can force the horse to drink.
So, this begs the question: what can you do, if you genuinely want to succeed in this role?
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Here are the key takeaways and solutions for each of the issues people face when they're trying to 'make it' as a successful agency recruitment professional.
Some things to consider:
?Are you at the right recruitment firm?!
This one is literally the ONLY one out of your control that isn't your fault.
Many people start off in this career totally blind. We all fall into it by accident since some firm convinced us to try it out. We know nothing when we enter the career, much less which employer is best in the recruitment sector we get assigned to.
So if you're getting into it and you realize, you see potential in the career, but you feel that your existing firm/employer is not very good or high-performing, then ABSOLUTELY - this is FULLY in your control. You can switch firms***.
***If you live in the USA and you want to move companies, this is what my recruitment firm, DG Recruit does for a living. DM us up for a confidential discussion. Now back to my other points:
?Are you really giving it your all?
Self-fulfilling prophecies are a REAL thing.
If you think you're going to fail, you will. If you think you're going to kill it and you jazz yourself up emotionally to curate success, you will succeed.
This is why sales success is so nebulous and unpredictable. The human element of mindset and the voodoo of the law of attraction is VERY MUCH A THING.
But you have to put in the work! Think but also ACT to get rich.
Are you adhering to the #7777rule? If not, get on it!!! Grind for 7 days a week for 7 times a year, 7am-7pm (any 12 hour interval works). Are you seeing the results now?
When you start off in this career, you have a very narrow window of time to beat out your internal & external competition. The #7777rule will help you do that.
NOTE ON CLIENTS & CANDIDATES:
This will never change - which is why I X'd it out. They'll ALWAYS be tough.
In Conclusion:
Headhunters get paid massive amounts of money because this job is hard. Thus our fees stay high.
If this job were any easier, our percentages would decrease over time, not increase like how top-billers fees do.
In order to 'make it', make sure you're doing everything YOU can to control all the factors that you possibly can for yourself.