Recruiting your Own Career

A career as a recruitment consultant is not often one that comes to mind automatically for many people. While they may obviously have dealt with the recruitment department of their company, they will not necessarily have approached an agency for help in their job search.

The basic remit of a recruitment consultant is to match appropriately qualified candidates to the relevant jobs from their database. They are usually paid a fee by the potential employer for finding the best candidate for the role, and it is almost a win-win scenario, as often it is cheaper for the company to outsource their recruitment search as well as benefiting from their specialist expertise, while the recruitment consultant gains through the commission made on placing the candidate.

As one can imagine, there are essentially two types of recruitment consultancy: a general one – similar to the traditional employment agency set-up - and a specialist consultancy. The general consultancy will usually place people in all manner of diverse roles, and there is no specific focus to the type of candidate they are willing to accept onto their books. The specialist consultancy, however, will deal with a specific area e.g. construction, hospitality, accountancy and finance, legal, or banking.

Because today's job search marketplace is probably the most competitive it has ever been, the specialist recruitment consultancy is coming into its own. For this reason, they are often targeting experienced, qualified professionals from one of those fields to join them as a trainee. The trainee brings an invaluable insight into the requirements of a specific career, having directly experienced it themselves. If you as an individual are looking for a change of direction, yet do not want to lose touch with your profession, thrive on the challenge of a sales based role, and enjoy networking, a move into recruitment consultancy could be for you.

There are many opportunities for such people and because of the entrepreneurial skills required, it would make sense for those who would enjoy the challenge of setting up their own business but in a more unusual and novel environment than they might previously have considered. For a list of jobs across the country, including the recruitment sector, check out Reed’s job website.