Life as a Tech Recruiter – Day 1

It was my first day as an IT recruiter.

What if I can’t do the job?

As a recruiter, you prepare candidates for first days in new jobs all the time and don’t give it a second thought.

When MY first day came around, I was a little surprised at how nervous I felt.

I wondered what they do for lunch? What my desk will be like? Is the suit I am wearing ok? Hopefully they still actually like me because my interview felt like a lifetime ago. What if I can’t do the job?

It all seemed so glamorous

The office was practically a stone’s throw from my flat in one of those big, serviced office buildings. Overlooking the river, it all seemed so glamorous, especially in the big reception area. They had not one, but two receptionists who offered you a coffee while you waited. They reminded me a little of air hostesses as they were dressed in matching suits with the company’s logo on their jackets .

Waiting nervously

I pulled (doh) and then correctly pushed the door open into reception and explained that I was here to meet Frank. I waited nervously in reception for about 15 minutes which felt like 15 hours. My mantra for a long time now had been “8 minutes early is on time”. Countless people had entered and been collected by the people they were meeting. Hope he hasn’t forgotten me……

Finally he arrived

Frank appeared round the door said good morning, making no apology for the length of time I had spent there waiting.

He took me into a small room adjacent to their main office, which I assumed was their interview room. He then started to update me on the company’s latest successes.

Sales pitch mode

Frank was back in sales pitch mode. I listened diligently to everything he said, trying my best to make sure I remembered as much as I could. I really didn’t understand any of it though….

The words were somewhat familiar around large divestment programmes, mergers, systems integration; something to do with target model and architecture (I am guessing this isn’t anything to do with buildings). There were a few company names I picked up too (their prestigious clients).

Frank then took me into the office and introduced me to the team. Nicole, who I had already met who looked after all their HR and people stuff, Leila and Mary who worked in accounts and that was pretty much it. Another man called Chris, who was there because he wasn’t on site with a client. Chris also turned out to be another owner of the business from what I could gather. I definitely didn’t remember hearing about him in my interview. I smiled and said hello politely to everyone, then sat down at the desk they had for me.

Feeling so lost

My new desk was MASSIVE compared to my last job, I felt a little lost sitting at it.

My old desk was probably only one meter square. With just enough room for the desktop computer, a screen that sat directly on top of it, keyboard, mouse and a set of trays to put CVs in. Aside from the sprinkling of post it note messages, there was little room for anything else.

This new desk was a massive corner desk on a bank of 4T The two screens on it that looked tiny compared to the sea of beige that surrounded them! Wow, I thought, 2 screens! This is something I have never seen before!

I also had a whole set of drawers underneath my desk. Great, I thought, I can put my lunch in there.

I have never done that before

Nicole came around to my desk and started showing me where things were kept. She showed me where they kept their contract templates to create for the people they hired.

This is new, I thought; I had never done that before because we had a team of administrators in my previous job; I kept quiet about it.

Then Nicole showed me the spreadsheet she used which tracked the current resources and the assignments they were on; a traffic light system indicated when they were coming to the end of whatever client they were with. I remember thinking that was quite handy.

Spreadsheet from hell

Then Nicole showed me their resource pool ‘database’.

It. Was. A. Spreadsheet.

Oh no I thought, I haven’t used excel properly since I did ECDL about 4 years ago while I was working the supermarket café, and very occasionally in my office jobs before recruitment.

What if something happened to the spreadsheet and everything was deleted? Or if it didn’t save properly, or if the columns got jumbled up by one of those ‘sort all’ errors that we have all experienced.

It was the “spreadsheet from hell”

I was VERY worried now

At this point I felt VERY worried. My skill set was all geared towards being on the phone talking to people. The most administration I had had to do was updating notes from the conversations I had in to a database.

Fragile and nervous

The “spreadsheet from hell”, I mean resource pool spreadsheet seemed so fragile and I was nervous about potentially breaking it. I didn’t know the first thing about generating and sending contracts of employment, and there wasn’t a single whiteboard on any of the walls. Also, I found the word ‘resource’ a bit strange to use to describe people we were hiring, maybe a bit cold even. I felt much more comfortable referring to them as ‘candidates’.

Have I done the right thing?

I sat staring at my two screens already wondering if I had done the right thing. The office was so quiet at that point, I could hear the second hand ticking on my wristwatch. I had NEVER heard that at the office before.

For the first time ever I was nervous at the thought of picking up the phone. All of these people around me including Frank are going to hear every conversation I have, the pressure felt immense.