Why Consider a Career in Recruiting?

November 4, 2015

By Danielle Ketterer, Project Manager, DRI’s Healthcare IT Practice 

When you are younger, no one wakes up and tells their parents that they want to be a recruiter. Young kids might say they want to be a firefighter or a teacher when they grow-up because those are exciting jobs. There isn’t a major in college that teaches you to be a recruiter, “Recruiting 101” or “Qualifying Candidates” are not choices in your school’s catalog of classes. So what makes you want to be a recruiter? Is it the idea of sitting at a desk all day making sixty phone calls to maybe get one resume sent to you or is it the opportunity to make another sixty phone calls where all you do is leave voicemails? To the common eye these might not be intriguing aspects to accept a job, but the end result is what is getting more people to consider a job in the recruiting industry.

The end of your senior year of college means a time for fun with friends, but also is a time to figure out your next step. Some might be continuing their education, serving in the armed forces or even traveling before making any decisions. For others, like myself, spring time senior year meant interviewing with numerous amounts of companies just to find one person or company that saw something in you and was willing to give you a chance.  I went into my interview with Direct Recruiters viewing it as just another interview and I left thinking this is something I can actually see myself doing long term. Here is why:

  1. Helping Others: Recruiting is more than just filling job order after job order. Work is where a majority of people spend most of their day and you are here to help them make a decision on what is going to be the best next step for them. You may call someone who hates their job and you are there to help them find something that they love. The job order that you are currently working on might be life changing for someone on your list of people you have to call. The feeling of knowing you made a difference in someone’s life just by picking up the phone and giving them a call is a great feeling.
  1. Meeting People: As a recruiter, most of your day is spent talking on the phone to people all around the country. You learn about what they have done in their career, what they are looking to do and you might get a little glimpse of their personal life along with that. People come from all different walks of life and you get to learn about many different people. Learning about others’ experiences and their goals in life teaches you so much about what else is out there and can help you find direction in your life.
  1. Control: You have control over your success in this industry. Every day that you come into the office, your approach on the day is going to make a difference in your final outcome. There is so much upward mobility in recruiting, achieving that is up to you. Being able to determine your success is hard to find in a job. If you want to make $100,000 this year, if you come in and have that goal and are willing to do what it takes to make that happen, you can achieve that.

Helping others, meeting people, and control of your destiny are why I pursued recruiting as a career. You may ask other recruiters and they could tell you three completely different reasons. The bottom line is there is a lot of value behind being a recruiter. While I never thought of this as something I was going to be doing after college, others shouldn’t overlook it when considering a new opportunity

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