working as a recruiter in an agency

SATSUMA

Does anybody know how to get into this area- i'm thinking its a matter of applying to the individual recruiters...

Im thinking of a career change and i know a fair bit about a particular industry. Does anybody know what the salary is like?

thanks

reallyrose

Apply to the agencies. Most of the big agencies are currently hiring, particularly IT and Technology recruiters.

The basic recruiter has no experience but has some sales and/or customer service experience.

(rejigging and reposting something I posted in another thread)

The basic is fairly low but you earn commission based on how many candidates you place in jobs. This is probably going to be (in theory) uncapped.
The more people you get jobs, the more you can earn.

It's very fast paced, you need to be able to react quickly to what's going on.
If a new job comes in, you need to start calling people, sending CV's over right away - a lot of clients will start working with the first lot of candidates they see so if another agency gets there first, you lose your fee.

Sales experience would help, there's an element of that in the job, telling candidates about the job, telling hiring managers about the candidate.

To be a good recruiter, you'll need good market knowledge. You'll need to know what you're talking about or the candidates won't respect you.

It's very competitive - you'll be competing with other agencies for the best candidates, with the clients (who'd rather hire directly, which is cheaper), sometimes within your own agency, if there are other recruiters who cover similar areas. People will always be wondering how much you're billing and if you're billing more than them.

I love my job. I love being able to find the perfect person for a job - being able to get a job that a person loves. It's so satisfying to look at a job spec and think "I know that client, I know their culture, I was speaking to someone last week that would love that place", and then for them to get the job.
It's great to talk a client into interviewing someone, "I know that's not exactly what you want, but seriously, talk to them."

I basically love getting people jobs.
I had a job offer for a guy this week, his entire company is being made redundant at the end of next month so he was quite worried. The client absolutely loved him and called me to offer him the job right after he walked out of the interview.
It's so NICE to be able to do that.

On another role, I'd sent a good guy in for a job, the client liked him but said he was too senior. I spent about two days back and forth sending increasingly hilariously salesy emails about how awesome he was and totally seriously he wanted to work for their super awesome company (for realz, yo)
They gave him the job, I talked them into it. So much fun.

And, like, the commission is nice too. Especially when you place someone and there's a nice sexy % on it.

It can be stressful, when it's busy, you can't find any candidates that are good for your roles, everyone keeps calling to cancel interviews, targets are piling up, and everything is generally tiring. But it's exhilarating too - I know I can work my way out of any hole. If candidates are scare, I need to look harder. If someone wants to cancel an interview - can I try to change their mind? (probably not. )

This is honestly the best job I have ever had and I can't imagine having one I like better.