Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Recruiter?

Do you like working independently?
You will spend most of your time talking with others on the phone, emails, research, developing and maintaining a contact network.

Do you have a lot of self discipline?
You need to be able to devote adequate attention to the various aspects of recruiting – research, finding search orders, finding candidates, screening, following up, negotiating, maintaining your contact database, etc. You cannot focus on certain aspects and neglect others and expect to be successful. Not everyone is equally strong in all areas, but if you are particularly weak in any of them, it will probably impact your success.

Do you have what it takes to overcome adversity and frustration?
Like any sales position, there will be disappointments, busted deals, and things that seem out of your control that impact your success. The fact of the matter is that you can control more than you think, by developing the ability to identify issues early on and avoid them. We can teach you how, but you have to take control and learn. Most people that try recruiting give up after a few months. I would say 75-80% in my experience, 10% achieve some level of success. 5% considerable success, and 1 or 2% spectacular levels, meaning $250K - $1M annually.

Does your financial situation and time horizon make sense?
Depending on variety of factors, it will take time to ramp up. Depending upon your finances, income expectations, age and other factors, are you prepared to commit to this field long enough to make it pay off? If you are used to making $200K annually in your present career, you can achieve that as a recruiter also, however, it may take 2 or 3 or 4 years to get there.

Do you have expertise in a particular industry or function (IT, Finance, Sales, etc) that you can leverage and is that area a good market for recruiting services currently, OR, is there an area which you can and would be motivated to learn that is a good market for recruiting?

Do you have good computer skills, internet skills, google searching, etc?
This isn’t an absolute requirement, but is increasingly helpful in today’s world. There are still recruiters out there who do it all ‘the old fashioned way’ through word of mouth referrals, etc. And frankly, that is still the best way. However, the more tools you have in your toolkit, the more successful you can be, and internet research, and the ability to maintain a database, copy and paste contact info, upload and download documents etc is a part of the job. The more adept you are at these skills, the more useful they are, and the less time consuming.

Copyright 2007 ROI Recruiting