Recruitment Consultant
Career information and advice on being a Recruitment Consultant

Your job as a Recruitment Consultant is to assist companies in recruiting appropriate personnel and assisting potential employees find suitable jobs either on a temporary, contract or permanent basis.

It is important that in your role you have an understanding of the types of candidates your clients are looking for.  In order to do this you need to develop close working relationships with client companies and their company culture.

Although people skills are highly prized in this job, you will also need to perform administrative functions such as drafting marketing copy, screening candidates, performing interviews and conducting research on candidate’s backgrounds.

Recruitment Consultant functions include

As a Recruitment Consultant, your day-to-day functions may Include using sales and marketing tactics to attract client companies to contact you to use your services.  You will need to place appropriate adverts in relevant market segment journals and publications, the website and local press to entice candidates.

As well as contacting your database of clients you may be expected to cold-call companies to generate new business.  Once determining your client’s needs you will be required to review applications, manage interviews and short list suitable candidates.  For certain jobs you might be required to headhunt candidates that have specialist expertise.

You would be required to verify the qualifications and experience of your candidates and then contact or email prepared resumes to the client.  Once the client has confirmed the candidates that they would be interested in interviewing, your function would be to set up the interviews at convenient times for both parties.

Once interviews have been conducted and a candidate chosen you will inform candidates of the results. You will need to demonstrate your knowledge and experience by offering your clients and candidates advice on specific job selections, appropriate pay rates, training and career development. 

You will have to have knowledge of recruitment policies to ensure that selection techniques and recruitment programmes meet statutory requirements.  You will also need to negotiate suitable agency commission from your client.  Throughout the process you will need to accurately record information onto recruitment software.

A genuine desire to excel and meet targets and working within a competitive industry are essential for this position. You will need to be able to negotiate contracts and deal with candidates and clients at all levels both on the phone and face-to-face.