After reading thousands of resumes, interviewing tons of candidates, and talking to hiring managers every day, a good recruiter learns what makes a solid career. Recruiters can usually tell if a career move helped or hurt a candidate, or if the candidate’s career has stagnated. However, recruiters are notoriously bad at shining this light on their own careers.
For an agency recruiter, of course, if sales are going well and you are earning good money, there isn’t really any reason to change jobs. It’s difficult to get established in a new agency, and particularly hard to work with an entirely new candidate profession or industry. Once you have been successful in one form of recruiting, for example technical, accounting, or financial recruiting, it’s usually easiest to stay in that industry and leverage your candidate and client contacts that you have built over the years. If recruiting sales are going well and your commission plan is at least market rate, there really isn’t any reason to change firms.
For a corporate recruiter, career transitions are also difficult to make. Corporate recruiters build up relationships and a kind of “political capital” with hiring managers very much like agency recruiters do with their clients. Corporate recruiters who stay with the same company for quite some time can become the “go to” people for hiring managers as well as developing influence with senior executives and business strategy. It’s easy to settle into the corporate recruiting job and get comfortable.
Many recruiters think that career progression within the recruiting profession is a fallacy. Some people view it very much like a real estate agent or a stockbroker – can you be a more “senior” real estate agent? Does your title, position, or standing really matter? Is a recruiter with three years of experience really any less “senior” than a recruiter with fifteen years of experience? There is some truth to the argument that career progression for recruiters is difficult and hard to discern. However, instead of using this as a reason to give up on career progression, it should instead be a reason that recruiters should be particularly mindful of their careers.
Just like any other profession, a career in recruiting should be consciously planned and developed. A recruiting career like any other should develop a trend of rising income, increased stability, and positions of greater responsibility.
Ten questions for your recruiting career
For an agency recruiter, of course, if sales are going well and you are earning good money, there isn’t really any reason to change jobs. It’s difficult to get established in a new agency, and particularly hard to work with an entirely new candidate profession or industry. Once you have been successful in one form of recruiting, for example technical, accounting, or financial recruiting, it’s usually easiest to stay in that industry and leverage your candidate and client contacts that you have built over the years. If recruiting sales are going well and your commission plan is at least market rate, there really isn’t any reason to change firms.
For a corporate recruiter, career transitions are also difficult to make. Corporate recruiters build up relationships and a kind of “political capital” with hiring managers very much like agency recruiters do with their clients. Corporate recruiters who stay with the same company for quite some time can become the “go to” people for hiring managers as well as developing influence with senior executives and business strategy. It’s easy to settle into the corporate recruiting job and get comfortable.
Many recruiters think that career progression within the recruiting profession is a fallacy. Some people view it very much like a real estate agent or a stockbroker – can you be a more “senior” real estate agent? Does your title, position, or standing really matter? Is a recruiter with three years of experience really any less “senior” than a recruiter with fifteen years of experience? There is some truth to the argument that career progression for recruiters is difficult and hard to discern. However, instead of using this as a reason to give up on career progression, it should instead be a reason that recruiters should be particularly mindful of their careers.
Just like any other profession, a career in recruiting should be consciously planned and developed. A recruiting career like any other should develop a trend of rising income, increased stability, and positions of greater responsibility.
Ten questions for your recruiting career
- Have you worked for five years at the same employer without a change in title? You’ve probably given this advice to candidates before, but do you apply that thinking to your recruiting career? Of course, title doesn’t matter (in theory), but responsibility does. If you are an agency recruiter with the job title of “Sr. Recruiter,” for example, you may not be able to change (or want to change) your title. However, think about your career like a resume – segment responsibilities instead of titles. Are you doing exactly the same thing year after year? Do you work with a different segment of clients or take over some training functions? If your total compensation is great and you wouldn’t want to change companies, make sure that your responsibilities and/or function continues to progress.
- Have you ever held a position in management or training? Many recruiters wouldn’t ever want to manage other recruiters. There is good reason – the compensation can be lower and the frustrations can quadruple. However, like any other career, if you have never managed people before, it leaves a gap on your resume. Adding management to your list of accomplishments opens up possibilities for the future and lends stability to your career. If you haven’t managed people before, try to work in some aspect of leadership into your role – take on training assignments, steer a technology committee, or do an activity outside of work in a management capacity.
- Has your income or potential for income increased over the past five years? If the answer isn’t yes, ask why.
- Have you performed work in different capacities (employee, consultant, management, independent)? Jobs have different functions, of course, but they also have different structures. If you can demonstrate work in different capacities, for example being a consultant to external clients and also progressing in an internal employee role, it shows that you can adept and be successful in radically differing work environments. Most recruiters look at their different functions and responsibilities (Question #2), but ignore varying types of employment. For example, if you have started your own business, consulted with clients under a parent firm, and managed other recruiters, it demonstrates flexibility and a highly successful personality.
- Have you crossed industries or focus for which you recruit? It is very easy to get locked into one particular industry and cast as one particular “type” of recruiter. Recruiters should not, of course, think that the grass is always greener – hopping from one industry to the next. In general, it’s a good practice to develop strong roots in one particular industry. However, know that if you stay in one industry for your entire recruiting career, you become increasingly unemployable to another. If you can cross industries at least once in your recruiting career, it demonstrates a strength as well as commitment to the profession of recruiting.
- Do you have equity or compensation which is compounding independent of your performance? If you are working at an independent agency, do you have equity? Are you building someone else’s career or your own? If you work as a corporate recruiter at a company, do you have options, a vested 401K program, a stock purchase plan? Because recruiting tends to be rather flat – recruiting professionals are generally performance driven – it is imperative that your financial condition consistently improve and tend toward increased stability. Your recruiting job is measured by performance – your long term financial position should not be. Make sure that you have some ownership, equity, or incentive that increases without your work.
- Are you constantly developing new relationships? One sign of stagnation in your recruiting career is if you consistently fall back on the same clients, candidates, and hiring managers. Look to consistently develop new relationships – these relationships are your future. If you rely too much on your background, you are living off your past work. Be sure to continue developing new recruiting relationships – always work toward making your future easier than your past.
- Is your industry progressing? The particular industry that you recruit for actually shouldn’t matter too much. Oftentimes, being at the tail-end of an industry life-cyle is actually better than being at the forefront. However, you should pay attention to the state of your industry and know exactly where you stand in relation to its progression and hiring cycle. If you are recruiting in a mature industry and you have a well developed client base, it might be a wonderful place to be. However, if you are entering into a dying industry without connections, the entrenched players might have all of the business. in general, recruiters might wish to ensure that their career position roughly mirrors the industry for which they recruit. If you are just starting out, getting into a rapidly growing industry with a bright future might be a good idea.
- Is your understanding of business increasing? Recruiters have the difficult task of ensuring that their knowledge and tactics of recruiting always progress, but also that their knowledge of everyone else’s business always advances as well. If you have worked in the same industry for quite some time, you likely understand that industry from a practitioner’s perspective. For example, if you recruit software developers, you likely understand certain aspects of technical architecture, common frameworks and problems, and the business function of different types of software. However, make sure that your understanding of the underlying business for which you recruit is always advancing. Your thirst for business and industry knowledge should increase as you work in an industry longer. If you find the opposite, it’s time to either find an industry more exciting to you, or do something that radically advances your understanding (like taking courses, etc…)
- Are you happy? Recruiting should be exciting. Recruiters get to talk to people, develop relationships, learn about different businesses, and be rewarded for performance. If your recruiting job is not exciting, if it doesn’t inspire you and make you want to get up in the morning, it’s a definite sign that you need to move on. Only you can judge whether another job in recruiting is right for you or if the entire recruiting profession is not the right one for you. But just like any other job, if you aren’t inspired, it’s time to look for something new.
