Could I work in Recruitment?

What it is really like

Most of your day is on the phone, and the volume is the thing people are least prepared for. You take a brief from a client, search your database and LinkedIn for people who might fit, then ring candidates who were not expecting your call and are often not looking. You reformat CVs onto the agency template, write the summary that goes to the client, arrange interviews around three sets of diaries, and chase feedback that does not arrive. Alongside that sits business development, which is ringing companies who have not asked to hear from you to ask whether they are hiring. Your activity is measured continuously: calls made, CVs sent, interviews arranged, placements closed, usually on a board the whole office can see.

The harder part is that you are managing two sets of people who can both change their minds, and neither of them works for you. A candidate accepts a counter-offer from their current employer the week before starting. A client goes quiet for a fortnight and then hires someone through another agency, or freezes the role entirely. Work you have spent weeks on can disappear in an afternoon through nobody's fault, and because a large part of your pay is commission, that disappearance shows up in your income rather than just your mood. The flip side is real: when a placement lands, someone's working life changes, they usually tell you so, and you find out that week rather than in six months.

The structural thing to understand is that you are paid to sell, and the product is people at a moment when they are unusually exposed. Most of the time those two pull in the same direction, because a good match serves everyone. Sometimes they do not, and you will feel it: a client is keen on someone you privately think would struggle, or your target month is closing and the placement in front of you is a stretch. How you handle that is the job, more than any technique is. It suits people who like pace, resilience and a scoreboard, and it grinds down people who need certainty or who take rejection home, and both tend to become obvious quickly.

What you would actually be doing

• It is Thursday afternoon, you are behind on the number of CVs you were meant to send this week, and a brief has just come in that is too vague to work from, so you have to decide whether to send three roughly-right candidates now or hold out for one strong one on Monday.
• Your strongest candidate rings to say their current employer has counter-offered with more money, and you have to work out how hard to push, knowing your fee depends on them moving and that staying might genuinely be the better decision for them.
• A candidate who has been out of work for several months, and who you have already put forward twice without success, rings for an update, and you have nothing new to tell them.

Want to feel what it is actually like?

Step into a few real situations from this role, then get an honest, behaviour-based read on how you approached the work. No score, no pass or fail.

Want to try this, not just read?

An exploration takes about 15 minutes. You will need a free account to start.

Want the longer version? Try-a-Career works through several situations from the role and gives you a fuller career report. It is a paid exploration, unlike the Career Challenge above.

More in the Career Library

• What a Career in Recruitment Is Actually Like
• The Skills a Recruitment Career Actually Asks For
• Recruitment Interview Questions, and What They're Really Testing