If you’ve been following along in our series, you already know the types of backgrounds that make good recruiters, the transferrable skills you can hope to learn in this career, and the various ways you can impact your clients, the company you work for and the job seekers you serve. In fact, pursuing a career as a recruiter (particularly here at Rivi) can be quite impactful on your own path as well; there’s a great opportunity to quickly progress in your career. There are a few ways you can make sure you’re on the path to success.
Nurture your intellectual curiosity
Along with perseverance, intellectual curiosity is huge at Rivi. You don’t need to be a genius (although it helps), but you do need to be able to get smart about things very quickly. You’re exposed to all types of companies and technology, so you need to be able to listen and understand what the important nuggets are–what is it that can be applied to next conversation, in the next six weeks or in the next six months? This is a mix of reading and continued research at academic level, as well as talking to people and really engaging with clients, candidates and teammates. You can’t be scared to ask questions, but you should do as much as possible to answer them on your own. This will lead you to the wisdom you need to succeed.
Focus on the details
Attention to detail is important in most careers; it’s critical here. You need to digest the details and figure out the patterns. Something that happens in one search may happen once, or it may come up again and again; it’s imperative to recognize that. Also, there’s a ton of communication that takes place up to the point to where a match is made, so you need to keep track of who has talked to who and when. Being on top of the communication and the nitty gritty keeps you on the right track.
Be personable, and a bit of a chameleon
This is an interactive career; you’re not going to be chained behind a computer. So you have to personable and willing to meet people. It helps to be a bit of a chameleon who’s comfortable in lots of different environments. Clients are different from candidates, candidates are different than board members. This can be uncomfortable, but each level of that is a level of learning. Through those uncomfortable experiences, you learn something. What you do with that learning from there matters; setting expectations sets you up for success. Understand you’re going to have difficult searches. Know that going in and be comfortable with that. Having a certain level of comfort in uncomfortable situations will help immensely.
Make it a career, not a job
To really push the envelope, you need to make your career your priority. Go wherever, be wherever, roll up your sleeves and get after it. Letting it bleed into your life while still maintaining balance is the key.
Adapt to new technology
The skill set you develop here will always be relevant, but one of the major perks at Rivi is the company’s investment in technology. While you always need to bring a lot of grit to the table, but technology will continue to evolve the role, removing some of the need for repetitive tasks and excruciating attention to detail and aiding the learning curve along the way. The more you can adapt to the tech tools, the the easier it will be to expend less energy on the points above while still excelling at what you do.