Not sure whether Recruitment Consultancy is for me....or is it a sector problem?

Hi there,

I landed a Trainee Recruitment Consultant role a few weeks ago, within the 'Construction' sector. Had no idea about the 'Trades and Labour' roles within Consruction. I was very much out of my comfort zone as my previous experience was typically commercial/corporate working in Estate Agency, Public Sector and Retail. Part of the role requires going out on contractor sites and liaising with guys who are Labourers, Electricians, Site manager's etc. I like the fact they are down to earth and dont BS you.

However, I got approached by another recruitment agency to work for them (apparently this is typical once you get a recruitment consultant job), and it's to work within a more corporate division so I would be interviewing candidates, assessing CV and dealing more with 'professionals'. I love the idea of assessing people's CV's and interviewing them, whereas in construction, we dont interview or bother with CV's 99% of the time, we just ask for a relevant construction card.

I have never envisaged working in a sales-oriented role, making commission etc. For me, im a service provider, I like helping people and giving advice. I suppose I can do this in a Recruitment role but again, it's predominantly about sales - it's not a career advisor role.

Be interesting to hear other Recruitment Consultant's viewpoints within their own sector (Construction, IT, Law, Executive etc) and whether they have switched sectors.

I managed to switch from recruitment consultancy to in-house for a large company (pure recruitment - no sales) by doing exactly what you're thinking of doing - working in a consultancy where I also did a lot of work finding, screening and assessing candidates and doing anything I could get my hands on that developed my skills in those areas. If you want to ditch the sales and go more down the recruitment/sourcing or even careers guidance route, it does sound like you're not likely to do that in your current role.

However recruitment agencies vary wildly as places to work. If you enjoy the place you're at and are doing well, I would find out as much as you possibly can about this other place before making a switch. You'll have to be pretty committed as if you move, find you don't like it, then need to move again, that's going to look pretty dodgy on your CV. Just one move wouldn't look as bad. Some questions you might want to ask are: "what support do you give to new consultants/what do you do if somebody isn't reaching their targets?" "would I be taking over any existing accounts or have to find all my clients?" - the top two reasons working at some agencies is a nightmare is a) unsupportive management and b) not being given a fair share of the clients/contacts/areas to scout in.

Of course, there is also the third option of looking for a resourcer role - these are generally seen by agencies as pre-cursors to a full consultant role (and in their eyes less desirable) but if you actually want to go down the recruitment/resourcing route rather than sales, they can be a good 'skills gathering' job.