Introduction to why I am am starting this blog

This is my first blog, and I am really excited! What a wonderful medium for sharing and learning. I hope that what I write on this forum will be of interest and help to others and that it will become a place of sharing of knowledge and experiences.

I have always said (and have heard from others) that people working within recruitment are a unique breed, I have been in the recruitment business for about 13 years and have faced a number of interesting times / challenges during this period both from a personal and work front. I have come to realize that recruiting is a very challenging, pressurised and some times soul-destroying industry. You need to be tough and be able to take the punches, but if you can survive, I believe it is one of the most exciting, rewarding ways to spend your days.

I hope to hear about how other recruiters feel, the challenges they face and the joys they have experienced. I have over my 13 years developed some exciting tools and ways of making the recruiting process easier and I hope to be able to share this with other recruiters in this forum and get their ideas and feedback.

Lets share our challenges, our successes, our lessons – and then see what we have that can help make our lives easier.

Recruiters (unlike many other industries) come from so many different background, yes, some have backgrounds or education in Human Resources or Psychology, but this can definitely not be seen as the rule. In my time I have met recruiters from marketing, engineering, sales, accounting, business, tourism etc. etc.

I studied marketing, but got into recruitment as my Mother was and had been in recruitment for many years and had started a recruitment company (the one I now run), like most young adults I was not sure what to do with my life and seen as I was working part time in the company I decided to give it a go. 13 years later, here I am.

I am not sure what draws people from so many different backgrounds to recruitment (I have heard so many different reasons), but I do know that once they are in it two things can happen! Either they are chewed up and spat out within a year (recruiting must have one of the largest turnovers in any industry I know) or they tough it out and get so hooked that they are in it for life! I am a lifer.

Recruiting is tough!!! No matter where you do it, for a recruitment company or within a corporate, medium or small company – one of the reasons for this is: we deal with people! Our product is literally People! And people are always a challenge, mostly because we are so unpredictable, we change our minds (frequently), we do what suits us (and not others), we can be swayed by so many things.

Even psychologists don’t know all the answers, yet we as recruiters (mainly not psychologists) are often expected to the have the answers. Yet recruiting from what I have experience is an area that gets little support from the market as a whole, few products are developed to make our lives easier. Although this is slowly changing, it has been slow and many areas are still managed exactly as they have been for years.

Other areas of business often see recruitment as an area to put the blame when anything goes wrong “they chose this staff member who is not performing”, “they are slow in finding the right person for this position” etc. But when a great person is found for a position the kudos is often happily accepted elsewhere.

Having said all of the above – what a ride recruitment can be, dealing with so many different people from so many different walks of life, multi-tasking, dealing with constant deadlines and the accompanying pressures, always on the go, always challenging, always learning!

I have loved and despised our industry and what I do over the time I have been in it, but always land up loving it!

My aim has always been to make it easier for recruiters, to help keep more people within our industry, to build strong resilient recruiters that love what they do and can face up to the challenges. To create tools that simplify the recruitment process for us.

I have over time been involved with recruiting of staff for the recruitment profession and then training them. I have had success and failure in this endeavour with some great consultants and some that have not lasted. During this process I have kept notes and tried many new techniques of training and motivating recruiters and have come up with some great tools and methods that have worked. They have helped keep me motivated, helped keep other recruiters motivated, kept them strong in the difficult times and made all our lives a bit easier. I have also had allot of fun working on technology for our industry. Technology I hope will be of use to all recruiters (and maybe even make me some money). Get a sneak preview of my new technology tool http://www.jobresponder.com to make the applicant ad response management process a breeze, not launched yet as still under development (lots to be added), will be up in a week or so. let me know what you think, I would love any feedback

I hope to, over time, be able to share what I have learnt and developed - via this forum, with as many of you recruiters (and anyone else who is interested at all) as possible and get as much input, feedback and lessons from you as possible so that we can all learn, develop and make each other lives and work allot more rich and fulfilling.

Hope to hear from all who are involved in recruitment in any way or have an interest in this area.
Anything you would like to share regarding recruitment, any support you may need, any lessons or helpful information you have, lets hear it, lets share it!