How to Become a Recruitment Consultant
Becoming a recruitment consultant or headhunter is a lucrative career option for people in any stage of their working life. If you’d like to work in a field with generous base salaries and the potential to earn copious amounts of commission and bonuses, read on to learn how to become a recruitment consultant.
Before we start, let’s first talk about what exactly a recruitment consultant does. Recruitment consultants work together with businesses to help them find the right candidates for their job vacancies. They usually work on a target based system and receive commission for every match that they make.
Typical daily tasks of a recruitment consultant could include checking C.Vs, arranging interviews between the client and job candidates, placing job adverts in newspapers and job sites, negotiating pay and salary between the client and candidate and taking care of any administrative tasks that need to be done after the candidate has been employed.
If this sounds like a job that you can excel in, here’s how to become a recruitment consultant today.
Formal Training
There is no formal training required for becoming a recruitment consultant. However, most employers do prefer to hire university graduates. Degree holders from any subject area are welcomed.
If you want to become a recruitment consultant, but do not hold a university degree, there are still options for you. Some employers are open to hiring candidates with college-level degrees or even candidates with no degrees. To compensate, it is usually expected that candidates will have undertaken some relevant work experience such as administration work or sales work.
Build your Sales Skills
Recruitment consultancy is a job which is heavily sales-based in nature. For that reason, it is definitely advantageous for candidates to have strong sales-based work experience.
If you are at university and considering becoming a recruitment consultant after graduating, it would be beneficial to take an evening or weekend job working on a busy sales floor, or in a call centre. Target based sales experience is particularly advantageous so any work in this field would be an added plus.
Search Job Sites
If you want to become a recruitment consultant, you’ll find that jobs are plentiful. Start your search by looking on job websites to find positions in your area.
Many recruitment consultancy jobs are also placed on HR specific job websites. Broaden your search horizons and start looking on a variety of sites to find the perfect fit for you.
It could also be beneficial to sign up with a recruitment company to help you find your job as a recruitment consultant. Since they are experts in their field, they’ll be sure to link you up with a potential employer in no time at all. Plus, they might be able to give you some first-hand advice from their own experience of becoming a recruitment consultant, too!
Start in an Entry Level Field
Most recruitment consultants start their careers working as a trainee in a small team.
One the job training is usually provided in-house for trainee recruitment consultants. Some companies will also give employees the opportunity to study towards professional qualifications and accreditations.
The easiest way to progress as a recruitment consultant is to prove your worth by consistently meeting targets. Having strong skills in sales is a vital step towards becoming a senior recruitment consultant.
If you work within a small company, you might find that you need to apply for external positions in order to progress as a recruitment consultant. The higher you get up the career ladder, the more competitive you’ll find your job search will become. It may also be required that you look for positions outside of your local area for higher level jobs.
Becoming a headhunter is a great career option with a whole host of benefits. Follow our simple steps and you will be on track for a career in recruitment consultancy, today!