I’m taking
up a new career opportunity with Pigsback next week and waving goodbye to
playing professional cupid at Prosperity. Recruitment is a brilliant business. It's hard work, exciting, rewarding. There are lots of awful recruitment businesses, as there
is lots of awful everything else businesses but Prosperity is up there with the
best. The better recruitment businesses, like every business globally, are run
by people who actually care and give a ##it. The irony is that I placed people
who will work at getting technology to overtake human input, yet people want to
connect with people, on a personal level still. Making this connection the
highest quality is what makes one recruiter stand out from another. The key to
good recruitment is emotional intelligence – looking beyond the black and white
CV, knowing what a company is truly looking for by listening to them and not
just reading the job spec, communicating the corporate culture and essence of a
place and then knowing when you’ve found the right person who can contribute to
that – this goes beyond being taught, but being emotionally in tune and going
to where the book ‘The Social Animal’ http://bit.ly/oiI9js
goes, into unconscious knowledge. I know that
so much of what I learned I will take with me and so much I have to leave
behind, because I won’t be interviewing people now for a living, but I loved
and will miss;
People…lovely good and bad nasty
Overall people are good decent and want the best for others, that's a summery of what I've come across in working with them so closely in this business. The people
I interacted with each day, both on the client and candidate side all have a
purpose and I’ve loved assisting them with this. People are what make a
business – their skills, experience to bring, input, ideas,
energy and hard work. In digital media, marketing and sales, personality too is
very important. I have met the brightest and most brilliant people who are
really inspirational in their creative, planning and execution. Did someone say
success is catching because meeting successful people who have made businesses
a success is electric. Learning about people, where they’ve been and where they’d
like to go, sometimes advising them on how to get there, is a very satisfying
part of the job. Clicking with clients and candidates is an upside, getting on
with people in the business is great, actually liking your candidates and
clients, and them liking you, is the best thing. Then there are really condescending,
rude people who could really upset you by their attitude. I am a naturally sensitive person so this is
where I had to develop a thick professional skin and not take their arrogance and
patronizing attitudes personally and on board. I guess you meet those people
everywhere and unfortunately I, like everyone, will meet similar again. These
people were more often candidates seeking assistance, than clients. The mind
did boggle.
Closing the deal…and not losing it
Getting a
person a step up, sideways into a better company and fulfilling some part of their
dream on the way, is really fulfilling and rewarding. Getting both parties
together so they can create synergy is professional happiness made real. A good
recruiter feels this. There are so many variables involved in recruitment that
getting it across the line can be the trickiest thing. Placing someone in a new
job takes in not only their professional skills but the ‘cultural fit’ as I call
it…will they have the right image for the company/agency (might seem shallow to
some, but true), will they be ‘hungry’ enough for the role (every successful business
appreciates ambition), have they the right prep and attitude going in, and so
many other variables come into this. When it gets to ‘closing the deal’ recruitment
fees are well earned believe me! Reward is deserved and just given up to twelve
people can have been screened and interviewed, half of whom probably have been
sent, each of these in turn being promoted to the client, organised first,
second, possibly third round interviews for up to six people, sometimes more,
sometimes less over what could be three month period. A game of insight,
patience and steel. Or, amazing grace, it could just so happen a job lands on
the desk, you’ve interviewed a star candidate a few weeks back and hey presto…this
rarely rarely happens, but when it does it kinda makes up for the blood sweat
and tears of the other ten jobs you could be working on and not getting
anywhere with….as I said, working with variables. Exciting stuff.
The Prosperity People…brilliant bunch
I will miss
the happy working atmosphere at Prosperity and believe a working atmosphere is
so important, the most unquantifiable thing to achieve in a company, and so
vitality important. I guess it’s a sum of personalities coming together, how
they interact and mix and the positive vibe (that must) come from ‘the top down’
– and did indeed from Gary and Jim who are masters in positive energy. I think having a team spirit is important and have learnt alot about this from working in intensive teams in recruitment. A work
atmosphere gets into your bones after a while and this positivity, onwards and
upwards attitude is something I will carry with me, and hopefully keep, for the
long term. Thanks Guys! I will miss the craic Gary, Ellie, Lorraine, Michael, Tara and all of us had, ‘I love this song’, ‘Snore...’ and more
about the music on the IPod…the banter was brilliant from the start of the day
to the end. I miss you guys already…corny but true!!!
What I will not miss and could live without;
Rejection…never nice
Delivering
rejection is awful and never gets easier. Having to tell a candidate, who could
well have taken two days off work, prepared complex presentations and then being
delivered a ‘no’ is harsh…people get exciting opportunities under their skin
and managing expectations and outcomes is a really emotional part of
recruitment, and a hard part. As you get to know a candidate, you share their hopes
for getting the role, when they don’t get it, there is disappointment for them,
you wanted their dream to come through too...you felt their passion for that
job!! Insightful feedback from a client does help and thankfully was the norm
but when the ‘no’ is a ‘No Further Explanation’ NO, this is worse. I am guilty
of dressing this up to soften the blow I have to admit. Often this isn’t the HR
departments fault as they’re incredibly busy and often need more bodies in
these departments so I have, on just one or two occasions, told the candidate that
the client really really appreciated them interviewing, taking the time off
work, researching all they did for those presentations, getting behind the
company and role…when in actual fact they didn’t so much as acknowledge all
that work the candidate and agency, put into the organising the whole gig.
Tough. This has happened but not too often TG!
As I’m
staying within the sales and marketing arena I will have to manage the
hopefully only occasional rejection of
me, my product and service, for life possibly. It will have to become water off
a ducks back while sitting on the Pigs back!
