Did you ever think why candidates as well as clients don't respect us as recruiters? Why is the recruitment job not as reputed as it was before? Why candidates don’t even bother to respond to us properly when we are actually working for their benefit? The reason behind all these things is us. Yes, we are the reason behind such disrespectful behavior of candidates as well as the client. Before candidates lost respect for us, we as a recruiter never respected either candidates or ourselves, we never consider them as human, for us candidates were only like resumes, and we never thought that our one discussion and one wrong advice can change a lot of things in their life and thus now candidates understood that recruiters supposed to work for us but they are just working for their bundle of resumes, not the human. It is very important for every individual, be it a recruiter or not, to respect themselves because when we respect ourselves, we can expect other people to respect us.
To become a recruiter or to be able to work in the HR Field, we must understand to be empathetic and kind because we as recruiters are supposed to work for the candidates. When we interact with candidates we come across all kinds of candidates, so we need to act kindly and with a lot of patience, to be able for the candidate to put certain trust in us. In the ideal life of a recruiter, they are the Cupid of the job world. We make the perfect matches between candidates and organizations using their skills, we are shaadi.com in human resources. We work long hours, attend meetings, build healthy rapport, and ensure all needs and requirements are being met. From getting a good profile on LinkedIn to calling them and convincing them about the work and the culture of our client, then making sure that they trust you a little so that they share the required details with you, and finally submitting them to the client requirement. We even have to work with the client’s unexpected responses wherein sometimes they would take days to shortlist a single profile and today finally you get into interview slots for your candidates, with so many technical discussions, and finally after the world seems to end the candidate gets offered. For a single offer, you have to work really really long hours and be in constant contact with the candidate and the client. But the real struggle starts when the candidate is offered and you can just wait for him to complete his notice and think about whether he would join or not. Hoping positive always we assume that he would join, but even if he ditches you at the last minute be sure to STILL be kind, because what just didn’t happen for you today may happen tomorrow, and so wish him all the luck again and start this cycle all over again. When a candidate gets placed their happiness makes us believe in the magic of our job: the magic of a recruiter.
When we say that the life of a recruiter is so fascinating and inspired by the “Dory” because most of the time we are in a sink-or-swim situation with respect to a candidate or for that matter even to our clients. We come across various types of candidates from say very sweet to extremely rude candidates but being kind always helps, to be able to understand them by putting yourself in the candidate’s shoes makes it much easier to deal with them. From convincing a candidate to sharing compensation details to pushing the HR managers to schedule interviews and then for feedback, everything goes unsaid. But we just have to make sure that the whole recruitment process is in place although it might not be too perfect because as they say “An expert today was once a beginner”.
But then there are days like this where I feel extremely lucky to be able to meet(virtually) people, to be able to speak to various different people with different backgrounds and learn new things about different fields. Sometimes a relationship starting with a candidate and recruiter turns out to be a beautiful friendship that is cherished for the whole life. And I realize at times I should just stop and appreciate the moment.
No matter how much you achieve, there might be times you feel worthless. Wherein you might feel that your candidates are not able to make it or probably aren’t joining. During such times we should always make sure to revisit all our achievements and feel motivated to work harder. We have to be sure that we are able to focus on the good in everything, not letting these dull moments block our light and shine brighter every time.
Being a recruiter we learn patience at its best and to never give up, we just have to hold on in various difficult situations, being persistent and hoping for the best to happen. With patience, we grow and shine so always choose faith over fear and remember to keep swimming….!
So Just like Dory: Keep Swimming!