Life Changers
Posted by Mitch on 21st April 2015
The next recruiter that tells me they love their job because “they have the power to change peoples lives” is going to get introduced to the business end of my shoe.
If you’re one of those recruiters that actually believes this, allow me to give you a lift back to planet Earth.
You’re not a Social Worker.
You’re not a Life Coach.
You’re not a Career Counsellor.
You’re not some Archangel of Altruism either.
You don’t change people’s lives. You sometimes get paid by companies to provide them with options for jobs they’re trying to fill.
Some of those options attend interviews and a small number of them end-up working for that company. An even smaller number actually enjoy working there.
Of those that do, they made that positive change happen, not you.
Did you only send that one person to the company because you unequivocally knew they were an absolutely perfect fit? No, of course you didn’t.
You either built a shortlist or you spot-traded some candidates out to any number of different potential employers who might entertain the notion of hiring them.
In the same way that you’re not responsible for all the people you’ve placed with a new employer who’ve gone-on to hate that job. And yes, there were some of those too.
Claiming your actions have a direct correlation to people going-on to lead more fulfilling lives is the same as aimlessly firing an arrow and drawing a bullseye around wherever it lands.
You’re a recruiter. Your job is to make hiring easier and/or more effective for companies in exchange for money. If you’re good at it, you probably make a decent living – and in some cases it may even be more money than you deserve. Quit while you’re ahead.
But please, do not try to evangelise that there’s some kind of social significance to what us recruiters do – because there isn’t.
If you want to really change people’s lives, get a job with this company, or go work at your local Job Centre and find jobs for the mentally ill, the disabled and the terminally unemployed.
Now that’s some real life-changing action, right there.
Comments
By Recruiting Animal on Monday, 14 December 2015Hey, Mitch. Too bad you didn’t address the issue in your posting.
Recruiters sometimes do change people’s lives in a major way. Sometimes in a smaller way.
Even if they change them for the worse that is changing them.
The question you answered though was—“Am I deliberately doing this job so I can help people?”
That’s a different question.
By Mitch on Tuesday, 15 December 2015
How do they change other people’s lives in “a major way”?
By Sofia on Tuesday, 23 February 2016
What are we, 17, to think in such absolutes?
Sometimes I change a person’s life by taking them out of a job they hate and placing them into a company they love - that’s something to be proud of. Now, agency recruiters with nothing but shady contracts… that’s another topic. By your logic anyone who’s not saving lives can just sit back and feel like crap about their job and role in life. Come on.
By Mitch on Tuesday, 23 February 2016
Hello Sofia
I would argue that it’s the candidate that has done most of the heavy lifting during the selection process, not the recruiter.
By Mark Pearce on Thursday, 14 April 2016
So Mitch, all these years later the 2nd hand electronic picture frame I received without a power pack from a placed candidate could have been a sign that I didn’t change their lives? I now feel mortally wounded. Mark.
By Mitch on Thursday, 14 April 2016
Hi Mark.
Probably.
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