When I got confirmation that I was entering the recruitment industry, I was filled with nothing but excitement - and lots of questions! Throughout the final stages of completing my postgraduate degree and during my last summer as a student, I couldn’t help but endlessly research what recruitment was, the industry trends, what to expect, and most importantly, how to be successful. I had countless conversations with family and friends on their thoughts about working in recruitment - the benefits, drawbacks and transferable skills.
More often than not, I was confronted with the slightly negative perception of the ‘typical recruiter’ and the misconception of how recruiters are just sales people and nothing else, and that it may not be the best industry to go into. Words to describe the recruitment workplace included ‘hostile’, ‘KPI’s’ and ‘targets’, if you don’t have a certain amount of calls or if you fail to make a placement in your first month, you’ll be sacked! But I kept thinking surely not, surely there are recruitment firms out there that take a different approach, firms that understand the bigger picture and the importance of relationships. Relationships are not created overnight, they are built over time through trust, performance and delivery. Surely the recruitment firm I’m joining will understand that I’m new to recruitment, with no connections and might need more than four weeks to demonstrate my capabilities and make placements?
Thankfully Marks Sattin did understand. So who are Marks Sattin? They are a specialist recruitment firm founded in 1988 and leading by example for 31 years and counting. They encouraged me to be ambitious and exercise my entrepreneurial flair, giving me the freedom to explore and develop new markets. So what do I do exactly? I work in the professional services team that covers tax and audit specialist markets. I am fortunate enough to be working alongside experts in the fields who are able to offer me great guidance through their knowledge and experience. I’m really enjoying breaking up the daily office monotony by actively booking meetings with my candidates and clients in order to build, manage and sustain lucrative relationships.
What I’ve learned so far
One of my key learnings since I started my career in recruitment is the significance of the external factors an individual must consider before deciding to take that job offer. Complex considerations such as how they perceive their personal progression path, how important work life balance and flexibility is to them, if their commute will change, the overall package on offer, and even more subtle factors like their gut feeling and whether they think the organisation is the right cultural fit. From a client perspective, I must say I did not anticipate the strict boundaries in relation to qualifying candidates, as a candidate might be perfectly suitable to perform the job with adequate experience, but if they do not align with a firm’s culture or requirements in terms of their level of seniority, they may not even be considered for the role.
I’m eleven weeks in and I could not be happier with how things have started and what is to come. I have been really nurtured into the role and the company, there is trust and autonomy for consultants, so long as you are productive of course, and who wouldn’t want to be the most productive they can be when working in such a supportive environment. Additionally, there is an in-depth and very well set up training scheme for new starters, which has proved to be imperative for me and my development. I’m also enjoying the numerous social events which give me the opportunity to meet everyone in the office and feel more settled, and has helped me to gauge more insight into how other teams approach the challenges of recruitment.
So if all of this sounds interesting to you, why not check out the Marks Sattin careers page and get in touch!
