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February 9th, 2023
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The alter-egos of a recruiter
Do you know exactly what your recruiter gets up to? Over the last five months, I have been surprised to learn just how multi-dimensional the role of a recruiter can be. To fill jobs properly, ensure both candidates and clients are happy and make long term matches, they need to dabble in a few different professions themselves. These are the alter-egos of a recruiter that I’ve witnessed so far:
The Travel Agent
It takes commitment to travel a long way to attend an interview and we don’t take this lightly. To make this easier for candidates, our recruiters morph into would-be travel agents by researching accommodation, finding out which hotels are the best and sometimes even the ones to avoid!
The idea that a candidate is stuck in traffic or can’t find the clients office can keep our recruiters up at night. To find a great candidate and have them fall at this hurdle doesn’t bear thinking about. So we take measures to ensure we’ve covered everything we can be prevent this. Up to date details on transport links, parking and journey times to our client’s offices are common knowledge at KDR.
A candidate may be confident about their own skills and abilities but pre-interview nerves can hinder some people. Our aim is to take as much of this stress away to allow the candidate to focus on showing the interviewer their true colours. We don’t want them wasting energy by worrying about parking or travel routes when they should be dazzling with their amazing skills and experiences.
The Marriage guidance counsellor
Ok so we’re not actually qualified to provide marriage advice or counselling in this area – but we do encourage candidates to keep communication open at home throughout the recruitment process.
Factors such as long commute times or relocating can affect their whole family so this can’t be overlooked. This is why we take the time to get to know our candidates and their circumstances before they get too far into the interview process. Are they definitely able to manage a longer commute? Are the family happy to relocate? Asking the questions at early stages can eliminate a lot of wasted time for everyone involved and hopefully reduces any arguments at home.
The Secretary
As you may expect, we regularly liaise with both clients and candidates to try and find the best times for interviews, whether on the phone or face to face. Busy diaries and schedules often clash making arranging interviews one of the more complicated challenges in the recruitment process. Simply getting two busy people in a room at the same time can cause our recruiters a few headaches.
Our clients are often managing data projects or meeting other deadlines at the same time as interviewing for multiple roles, whilst our candidates don’t want to mess their current employers around by taking time off last minute. This is where we need to find a middle ground and a level of flexibility as we know that the difficulty of organising an interview can be an issue puts candidates off their job search.
The Motivational coach
We don’t fit the role of life coaches or personal trainers but our knowledge of the recruitment industry has shown us the areas where a bit of motivational coaching can be helpful.
A lack of motivation can hit candidates when some recruitment processes are quite lengthy. Perhaps several people need to sign off on decisions or tests and presentations are required alongside standard interviews. All of this draws the process out but for the right job the wait really is worth it. To combat this, we keep our candidates as informed as possible and aware of time certain processes can take. There’s nothing worse than waiting in the dark, unsure of when or if you will hear back!
The most prominent point in the process where a little extra motivation is required is usually when informing a candidate they haven’t got a job. We don’t want them to take the news so hard that they give up the search but we also want to feedback constructively to ensure they can make any necessary adjustments to their job hunt process. The best recruiters have a good balance of sympathy whilst providing all of the feedback given by the client and are able to turn negative thoughts into a more positive outlook.
We are here to keep our candidates on track by keeping them updated throughout the process and reminding them of why they are there. It is possible to lose motivation after a few interviews but it is important to remember the reasons you are looking for a new job in the first place – the hard work and effort will pay off in the end.
The Fashion adviser
Thankfully, most of the time this role is unnecessary for our recruiters but the occasional circumstance of odd fashion sense can encourage us to step in. The majority of our clients prefer candidates to be in smart business clothing but occasionally the company culture means smart casual is more appropriate.
The relationships we have with our clients gives us this inside information but if in doubt we would recommend the smarter the better. There is a psychological link between the clothes you wear and your interview performance which can be seen in this article No you can’t wear your pyjamas – 5 tips for a successful Skype interview.
Have you experienced any other alter-egos or examples where a recruiter has gone above and beyond to help you in your job search? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences so please comment below.
KDR Recruitment is the home of the best data, technology and analytics jobs. For more advice follow KDR on LinkedIn.
