This is kids stuff. Anyone can do it.
Posted by Mitch on 21st November 2013
Today I saw a job advert for Trainee Recruitment Consultant.
What drew me to look at the ad was the pre-sell that the agency is “ranked 19th on the Recruiter Hot 100 list”, whatever that is.
The ad mostly talked about how lovely their offices are, which is fine if that’s what you think is going to be the most appealing aspect of the job, but it was this sentence particularly caught my eye:
“As a trainee recruitment consultant you will be doing a full 360 recruitment role.”
First of all, even experienced agency recruiters don’t do a 360 degree recruitment role. Only retained external recruiters and inhouse recruiters do that.
This is one of the agency world’s major blind-spots – thinking that what makes a full cycle recruitment job is that they get to deal with hiring companies AND candidates.
There are a lot more angles involved in filling a job than just being sent a job spec and having a few phone screens with candidates.
There’s taking a full brief, challenging the hiring manager on the unreaslitic aspects of what they’re looking for, working out what the sales propositions for that job/company are going to be, how to communicate those sales propositions, interviewing and assessing the right candidates and of course, rejections and general housekeeping.
But a bigger and more pervasively damaging blind-spot is these agencies thinking that inexperienced young people with a desire to earn a lot of money are ever going to be taken seriously by clients with strategically important jobs to fill.
Letting trainees phone potential clients to do anything other than make an appointment for an experienced recruiter to have a phone conversation seems like utter madness to me.
Correction, IS utter madness.
The people who decide to let this happen are either a bit stupid or incredibly arrogant.
Trainees working as 360 degree recruiters?
There’s the problem with many recruitment agencies, right there.
Comments
By Jonathan Reed on Thursday, 21 November 2013Whilst I agree with what you say I would guess It depends on context of their market (not knowing the company you are talking about) that 360 for them means client and candidate contact. Working on managerial and above positions as opposed to filling bulk bookings for unskilled labour with a point of contact client side can both be described at 360. It depends on the type of recruitment you do, and into what markets. There are plenty of delivery only roles out there with no paying client contact. The candidates, once assessed, inducted and registered will be passed over to the account manager, leaving the account manager to do what they should do, drive productivity. Or add value. That naturally is in the context of volume staffing. Is that 180, 240 degree? I have to admit to using 360 degree as a term. I may have to adjust my use of language.
By Mitch on Thursday, 21 November 2013
Point taken, Jon.
The agency in question here is in IT and Oil & Gas.
By Jonathan Reed on Thursday, 21 November 2013
Ah, then its. there’s a phone, there’s a desk, see you in 3 months when you miss the targets set. Not that I subscribe to stereotypes……………
By Chris Gibson on Tuesday, 09 December 2014
I agree. When I initially started in recruitment, I was focused on candidate generation for hard to fill positions. And I could only send those candidates I found to 5 key accounts, each of which had a dedicated account manager. Over time, I built relationships with these 5 key accounts directly, went to meetings with the account manager etc. and this is how I got my first experiences dealing with clients.
This introduction model into recruitment worked perfectly for me and I now have a successful career as a “360” consultant, as do people that I know who have gone through a similar process. I learned how to source candidates, then how to manage them, then how to manage existing clients, then how to bring new clients on board. Natural progression over time worked well!
But I also know a lot of people who were chucked onto a desk, given a phone and a computer and told to make some money! Very very few of those people are still around, and they will all go and tell their friends that the recruitment game is a joke. Such a shame!
By Sam on Wednesday, 11 November 2015
I don’t know which is worse, this or when recruitment companies fail to grasp the concept of peer to peer service and working relationships and appoint trainees into account management roles.
The more experienced consultants win over clients and then immediately hand them on to a trainee and wonder why they lose the account.
In both situations, the trainee is often blamed and ends up either in-house or in HR trying to manage the process or haunting LinkedIn, bitterly chastising recruiters.
By Mitch on Wednesday, 11 November 2015
Great point Sam.
Thanks for contributing.
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