Headhunted

If I wanted to give my ego a bit of a massage, I could tell you I was ‘headhunted’ for this role. That does depend on what your definition of that is (I will talk about this in more depth in one of my future blogs).

After I had cut my teeth in recruitment on the temp desk for a few years, I got a call one day from Mike; his infectious levels of enthusiasm had not waivered since that day he breezed in to reception with the brightest smile on his face to interview me for my dream job as a recruiter.

Mike had since moved on and started up his own recruitment company, I was so proud of him taking this brave step and had kept in touch eagerly following his success. Now it was him, phoning me, to see if I was interested in a new job, he had a client that he thought I was perfect for.

Niche IT Consultancy

The client was a niche IT consultancy and had contracts with some of the biggest organisations in the world, they were looking for a ‘Resourcer’. In the recruitment world, there are many different guises you can take on: Recruitment consultant, talent consultant, head-hunter, resourcing specialist, recruiter. In this situation a ‘Resourcer’ was the person that found the candidates, no need to talk to the clients, all you had to do was find the candidates. That sounded straightforward to me, what’s the catch? No need to worry about difficult clients, all you had to do was find the candidates, there appeared to be no catch, so my CV went in…

1st Interview

I met Frank and Nicole in the cafe area of a Holiday Inn that was conveniently close to where I worked, it was at lunchtime so no need to worry about making excuses to finish early. When I arrived, it was very quiet, Frank and Nicole were the only ones there, so easy to spot. Frank was a broad-shouldered man with dark hair and was wearing mostly black in the form of shirt and trousers. Nicole was a petite beautiful looking woman with long blonde hair and a slightly awkward but very friendly demeanour. I still have never met anyone else quite like Frank, he stood up and shook my hand, the soft, warm tone in his voice instantly made me feel comfortable and had the most endearing character, you couldn’t not be drawn in by him.

Rapid Growth, Prestigious Clients

Frank gave me an impressive pitch describing what the company did using phrases like “rapid growth”, “mergers and divestments”, “prestigious clients” “we choose who we work with”. He explained that they had doubled in size over the last few months and had not advertised a single job, they just find candidates through their network of good people that they know. This sounded brilliant. I thought, all I had to do was line them up, there was already a load of people queuing up to work for them. Frank painted a picture of a baggage conveyer belt at the airport, it was my job to keep that conveyer belt full so that when they had the perfect requirement. It was just a case of picking the candidates or “resources” as he described them off the conveyer belt.

Winging IT

Confidently, I explained my successes in the temp team and that whilst I didn’t focus on IT I had touched on the area having recruited some SAP analysts and administrators that were for specific IT systems, I even threw in the fact that my dad worked for the local authority as a server engineer so I already had someone I could learn about the technologies from.

Between you and me, I was winging it a little, but that was ok, it really is a key skill that you must master as a recruiter. I never would have never got to the dizzy heights of success I knew as a temp recruiter, had I not mastered the art of this.

As a temp recruiter, every time I picked the phone up, I never knew who it was, or what they might need. No matter how urgent, bizarre or practically impossible my clients request I had to make them feel and believe that it was no problem and I had it covered. The last thing I wanted was them calling any other agencies to cover all bases and ending up racing against every other recruiter in town to get to the candidates first.

My clients never knew the feeling of the stress rushing through me as I looked up at the white board with up to 100 available candidates’ names on it, trying to decide who to call first. I drew on all that experience to convince Frank I was exactly what they needed, Frank committed to organising a second meeting for me with one of their ‘senior’ client directors who would meet me at the same place the very next day.

2nd Interview

Mike called me later that day telling me the fantastic news that Frank and Nicole were really impressed with me and confirmed the time and details of my meeting with Steve, their ‘Senior’ Client Director.

Steve wasn’t the tallest person I have ever met but he didn’t need to be, he was the sort of person that you knew was in the room as soon as they walked in, even if you hadn’t seen them yet, you could feel their presence; he immediately commanded a level of respect from me and all he had done was say hello and shake my hand.

The meeting with Steve was less of a sales pitch and more of a deep dive into my experience. I recounted my many successes from my job on the temp desk and he seemed convinced of my abilities. We said our goodbyes and he said they would be in touch.

Job Offer

I got a phone call directly from Frank very soon after that, this was unusual because normally it would be your recruiter that does this. He offered me the job there and then! On a salary, at the time that far exceeded my expectations; it was what I earned in my temp recruitment job INCLUDING my commission. Imagine earning that much every month and not having to worry about how many jobs you have filled, or sales calls you had made? This was a dream!

I gladly accepted the job; I was another step forward in my career and one hell of a long way from that blue apron now.

Going Places

Even though I knew nothing really about the IT industry, I was confident that specialising in one area. After the broad range of roles I looked after on the temp desk could only be a good thing. The company sounded brilliant, fast-paced, rapid growth, prestigious, global clients AND a load of people desperate to work for them? What could go wrong, I was in with the elite, and I was going places…