When I decided to look for my first job I wasn’t aware of recruitment agencies and because of this job hunting was a tremendously tedious and time-consuming task for me.
I painstakingly combed through my CV, editing and rearranging to make sure that everything was immaculate and hand delivered all my CV’s to all the places where I wanted to work. it was no surprise that this method didn’t reap any rewards.
After many months of silence, I was then told by a family member to try posting my CV’s to employers. I had nothing to lose with this method and with immediate action I went through the Yellow Pages and made a list of companies to send my CV to. Again this method yielded no success and became a drain on my limited funds. I continued to exploit this method while getting little to no results until one day I got an Interview request from one of the companies I applied to. This interview led me to get employed to my first part-time job. Happy days!
I was first introduced to using recruitment agencies during my industrial placement year in university. This was a Godsend as it removed the lengthy monotonous headache of manually printing off and mailing my CV to companies. I no longer had to send my CV’s and cover letters to companies in the hope that they had a position available for me. Recruitment agencies only needed one up to date digital copy of my CV and they would provide me with job opportunities all across the country that I could apply to in a fraction of the time, with just a click of a button.
It came to the time when I wanted to have a career and not a job I had no interested in so once again I to the Interwebs and applied for jobs. Now I was experiencing a different type of trouble…lack of experience. The term was thrown my way more times than I can remember and the experience was something that made my job hunting fall short of success. So in order to achieve the illustrious ‘experience’ that employers sought, I took it upon myself to volunteer in my field…unpaid mind you.
For a year I worked voluntarily while working in a full-time job, putting into practice the skills I learnt in university and gaining new techniques on the way. Why didn’t I think about this earlier? a few months after I finished the volunteer and with an updated CV work I started receiving replies from agencies, a definite step in the right direction. Although I was unsuccessful with those jobs, the recruitment consultants gave me valuable advice, changes I needed to make to my CV and additional information that I should include. I took all the advice on board and those changes triggered more agency calls with suitable vacancies.
Without the help from the recruitment consultants, I think that I would have continued to struggle in finding a career in my field. I recommended recruitment agencies to friends and when I was made redundant I returned to using recruitment agencies and job sites. Now I had more experience and the calls from recruitment agencies came in thick and fast. I went to numerous meetings with different consultants who wanted to know more about me personally, my employment background and the skills I possessed. I knew that they were trying to analyses me but I felt the necessity of it, to make sure that I was a good pick for the position. Every consultant meeting was treated as if they were with the employer themselves. To me, this was a chance to prepare my interview skills when I eventually would come face to face with an employer.
In reality, these meeting tended to feel like informal discussions and my anxiety quickly became calmed. I learnt that building a rapport with whoever you're having an interview with is a great way to be remembered. If you are liked, chances are you’ll be called back for a second interview or being offered the role.
The assistance did not stop there, all the consultants made time for me and any questions or concerns that I had prior to the employer interview were answered. If they were not available at the time of my call they contacted me as soon as they could. On the day before the interview, I would receive a call from the consultants giving me last minute advice and wishing me luck.
After the interviews, a majority of the consultants would contact me to discuss the progress, regardless if I was successful. Although, it was disheartening when I heard “Unfortunately, you were unsuccessful” the consultants did reassure me with why I was unsuccessful. It turned out that the employers chose someone with more experience most of the time. There’s that word again.
In retrospect, I should have started using recruitment agencies much earlier. The support I got from consultants were amazing and in a time where looking for a job is a job in its self, the extra help was and still is much needed.
Of course, you might think that it’s their job to find people work but the time and effort they spent with me were unparalleled. They phoned and met with me not only to see if I was the right person for the role but to gain a greater understanding of the type of person I was and what my needs where. At no point did I feel like an assignment to reach their target. It truly felt like they were putting my interests first and doing whatever they could to get me that job.
People may have a different experience with recruitment agencies, but my experiences with them were positive ones.
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