There are plenty of preconceived notions around recruiters, particularly agency ones so I am here to clear up any misconceptions you may have about us.
1. We provide an expensive service that you could do yourself
Recruitment is like a tooth extraction - you could do it yourself, but the likelihood of a positive outcome is far higher if you have an expert in control. While a recruitment fee may seem to be quite substantial, when you break it down, it’s no more expensive than the cost of a coffee a day (if you’re buying for say 7 to 10 people). Jokes aside, if the fee was not worth it, the industry wouldn’t exist. I mean, who else do you know who would be happy to spend 3 hours straight head down in CVs on a Friday night?
2. We sell candidates into jobs just to get a fee
Gross. This is everything wrong with recruitment and goes against every fibre of my being. What makes me sad is that this stereotype exists because unfortunately there are some recruiters out there who actually do this. I’m not saying all are this way, but there are certainly some bad eggs. It’s like any industry really. Except for bakers. No one who wakes up a 2 AM to deliver the public freshly baked cakes and bread can be a bad person.
3. We only talk about sunshine and roses
Look, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t focus more on the positives than negatives when chatting to a candidate and to be fair, if a position has more negatives than positives we say “NO”. Success in recruitment is not in placing a candidate, it is in a candidate staying with a business over a long period and a key to this is laying all your cards out on a table. It’s like a relationship really. You should address the elephant in the room at the beginning rather than revealing the skeleton in your closet five years in.
4. It’s a glamorous job, filled with coffees, drinks and looooong boozy lunches
OK, so this one may be a little true but bear with me. Glamourous – absolutely not. Coffees – every day. Drinks – Will not comment. Loooooong boozy lunches – 99% of the time, my lunches are not long and certainly not boozy, but when that 1% does happen, you know I’ll be talking about it for the next six months.
5. If we can’t place you, you aren’t important
No candidate is more important than another. Everyone deserves to be treated equally whether I can help them or not. I have no issue with taking time out of my day to offer advice, encouragement or a bit of comic relief to someone who needs it. One thing that was drilled into me from day one at Itch was that everyone leaves with something. I encourage you to take this approach in your line of work. Trust me, it’ll make you a better person for it.
Lauren Vocisano
Recruitment Consultant