Recruiting can be uplifting and rewarding. The moments when you literally change the course of someone’s life are a real high aren’t they? And when you deliver on assignments that were particularly challenging, there’s a real sense of achievement right? Not to say satisfaction, if you have a suspicion that your clients or colleagues may have doubted you could pull this one out of the hat!
But recruiting is also an industry that can be overwhelmingly deal-driven. In many businesses, the pressure to generate a fee can start to consume everything else. In our experience, losing your passion for recruiting is a real problem in the industry. It’s not that you have lost your love of the highs that come from a career in recruiting. Instead the business in which you are operating is simply sapping your enthusiasm with every passing day.
So here is a selection of tell-tale signs that may well mean it is time you thought seriously about moving on.
1. Being asked to focus on KPIs for KPI's sake. You find you are dreading having yet another catch-up meeting with your manager on achieving your KPIs. You are being pushed to send out yet another candidate mailer or make the scheduled quarterly call and it just does not feel right. You feel weighed down because you want more autonomy to do what is right for your client base, your candidates and you yourself.
2. Your desk is being restructured yet again. Just because you are good at building a desk, you do not feel means you should have to do it for every new area the business looks to expand into. Plus having spent so many months building up client relationships you are not too thrilled at being asked to hand them over to someone else .....
3. You have lost respect for your manager and your team. A clear sign that you are in the right job but mired in the wrong culture. Different companies approach recruitment in different ways and it sounds as though you just need to find the right place for you and your recruiting style.
4. You just want to recruit, not be hassled by a manager. You do not want to be a manager yourself but this feels like the only way you can avoid being managed by someone you have little professional respect for!! You love recruitment but you just want to bill and be left alone and entrusted to get on with what needs to be done.
5. You dread attending yet another internal meeting about company strategy that you just don't believe in anymore. You are a manager in a business you have effectively fallen out of love with. Recruitment success and motivation have a direct relationship with each other and when a manager’s motivation is low the team pick up that vibe. Get your motivation back, either get on board with the strategy or seek a company and strategy that you do believe in.
6. You cannot bear to make another marketing call. You are disillusioned and thinking perhaps about Internal Recruitment. After all there is no BD then! Keep in mind there are agency roles with companies that are PSL-driven. Or maybe your current company’s approach to Business Development is stale and unimaginative. A move to Internal Recruitment is not always the right choice, you might be better off landing a more autonomous role and joining a better recruitment brand. The market is seeing an increase of internal recruiters moving back to agency, they miss the commission and ability to control their own destiny.
7. You want to develop your career further but feel stifled. You want to be a manager but there is no opportunity to progress where you are currently working. Or maybe you want to work on higher-fee roles, engaging with more senior candidates and clients. If your aspirations cannot be met where you currently work, it is only a matter of time before this feeds into your enjoyment at work.
So there you have it. 7 unmistakable signs that you need to start thinking about a career move for yourself rather than for your candidates. It may feel like a daunting prospect, but the reality is that someone like you with a decent recruiting skillset is likely to be able to move on to somewhere you will feel more inspired and fulfilled. There are many recruitment companies all with different cultures and recruiting styles. If you would appreciate the chance to have a confidential chat about your options, do give us a call on 0208 123 8292 or email [email protected]
About the Author
Drum Recruitment is a friendly Rec2Rec business, recruiting for the recruitment profession in the UK and Australia. For more recruiting insights, follow us on @drumrecruit
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