Why Choose a Career in Recruitment

Ever wondered if a career in recruitment could be the right fit for you? It’s a fast-paced but rewarding industry where success is driven by your ambition and determination to make a difference. Since joining Koda Staff in September as Internal Recruitment Manager, I’ve had the privilege to be involved in 5 new hires across our teams, and over 50 conversations with established recruiters looking for a move, but also people with no recruitment experience either looking for their first job, or a career change to something more aligned to their aspirations.

If you (or anyone you know) is curious about a career in recruitment, this post should hopefully give you some insight into the benefits, challenges and what to look for in a company if you think it might be for you!

What does a recruiter do?

In its simplest form, recruiters and recruitment agencies make money through companies paying to hire new employees through the introduction of talent (candidates). Our days, weeks and months are filled with:

• Building and engaging with relevant candidate networks and matching them to the needs of our clients.
• Qualifying candidates against the needs of jobs and facilitating enjoyable and effective interview processes
• Expanding our client base through introductions, referrals and mapping out our markets.

What skills make for a successful recruiter?

Our team at Koda Staff is wonderfully diverse, coming from different places in the world, with different personalities, culture is truly at the heart of our business. And although our teams are made up of different people, there are without question some common traits that make up a great recruiter:

• Passion. What excites you? Hobbies? Sport? Having passions in your life that keep you going is so important.
• Hard-Work. Whether at school, university, work or sport, we want to know you have what it takes to really apply yourself and work hard.
• Teamwork. We are a high-energy group of people who thrive off our teams. We want collaborative people who want to be part of something bigger.
• Resilience. Have you had knock-backs? How you bounce back is what we care about, the recruitment rollercoaster will always keep you on your toes
• Emotional Intelligence. We match people and companies not just on technical skills, but values, aspirations and personalities, and truly being able to build those relationships takes active listening and learning.

What can a career in recruitment offer you?

• Career Growth & Progression: Similar to most sales positions, with hard work and passion, a career in recruitment can offer people a range of opportunities from managing teams, opening new offices or leadership positions with no time restriction. At Koda we reward success with progression and want our consultants to always feel like their career is in their own hands.
• Financial Rewards and Benefits: Recruitment can be a hugely financially rewarding career, with commission, bonuses and benefits associated with success. You’ll get to enjoy international holidays, lunches at top restaurants and prizes for hitting and exceeding your targets.
• A real global impact: At Koda, we partner with some of Europe and the United States’ most influential companies. Working with them to scale and contribute to their success is incredibly rewarding

The ups and downs of being a recruiter

Choosing a career in recruitment can have it’s professional and personal advantages. The demand for skilled recuiters has also increased, particularly post-pandemic, according to LinkedIn. As recruiters our job and our success is down to a number of things, and some are out of our control. Navigating through tougher times means that enjoying the highs is that much sweeter.

• People are our product and as a result, sometimes people change their minds, or just don’t get the results we expected. Handling Rejection and failure, and adapting and pivoting is crucial to long-term consistency.
• Market financial difficulties can and do have a direct impact on companies’ ability to hire, which impacts us directly. Throughout financial instability (or global pandemics, for example) things can be difficult e.g. when hiring is frozen, budgets are cut or redundancies become the “norm”.

How to get an interview

I always give the same advice to any of my friends or family when looking for a new job, particularly one they’ve never done before:

1. Update your LinkedIn. That means having a professional picture, a concise and fact-based “about me” section that details what your key skills and achievements are, as well as what you are looking for in your new role.
2. Don’t just “apply” to the role. Does the job ad have the name of the person who posted it? Send them a connection request with a message detailing your interest and relevance to the position and to arrange an introductory conversation to explore.
3. Do your homework for every interview. Look at the website and see the values, culture and type of specific work they do. Have questions prepared that are relevant.

How does Technology impact our industry?

AI has already and will continue to have a huge part in our jobs, but am I scared that a bot will be doing my job for me next year? Absolutely not.

Using AI tools and capabilities has been a huge investment for Koda, where we want to equip our teams with everything that can streamline their jobs without replacing the human interaction. AI note taking tools? Yes please. AI personality profiling to suggest great interview and qualifying questions? Absolutely!

So, do you still want to be a recruiter?

I truly believe that there will always be a need for passionate, knowledgeable and motivated recruiters, who add genuine value to the lives of the candidates and companies we work with and Koda are always looking to help people get into this incredibly rewarding industry.

If after reading this you think you could be potential recruiter in the making and are interested in learning more, to join us please reach out to me (Sophie Packer) on LinkedIn or email.