Totaljobs.com > Career Advice > Careers in... > Careers in Recruitment Sales > Graduate Trainee Recruitment job description
Job description: Graduate Trainee Recruitment
As a Graduate or trainee in recruitment, you'll be learning how to be the intermediary between organisations wishing to recruit (the client) and people seeking a career move or temporary assignment (the candidate). It's primarily a sales role, and offers great rewards for impressive results.
Typically, when you first start out you'll be tasked with administrative work. This helps the recruitment process run smoothly, and includes things like amending applicant's CVs, obtaining their references, researching, taking incoming calls and questions, maintaining the company database and organising consultant's schedules.
By shadowing more experienced staff, you'll learn on the job and pick up valuable knowledge to help you on your career path. With more experience comes the opportunity to get more involved, interviewing and selecting candidates and working directly with clients.
You could work within an employment agency, where you could specialise in recruiting for a particular industry - say, IT or Engineering. Or, you could work in-house within the human resources department of a company, and recruit for internal positions.
You could be dealing with permanent, contract and temporary placements, and finding suitable candidates at a range of different levels.
Hours/Environment
Your hours will likely run Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm. Although the role is mainly desk-based, you'll get to meet clients and candidates both on and off site.
Skills and interests
To be a good Graduate or trainee in Recruitment, you must:
- have good communication skills
- be able to gain people's confidence and put them at ease
- be persuasive, persistent and patient
- be of smart appearance
- be able to cope with pressure
- be flexible and adaptable
- have a mature personality
- have good organisational and administrative skills
- have the ability to prioritise
- have good IT skills
- be able to work to deadlines
Entry
More and more employers are hiring graduates, in particular for executive placements, so a relevant degree would be an advantage. Alternatively, if your degree is in an unrelated subject, there are a number of courses you can take to add to your qualifications.
Experience is always an advantage, even if you've completed temporary or contract work in personnel, sales or an office during your studies.
Training
Joining a large agency, you're likely to find in-house training programmes to give you the skills you need to progress on your career path. These may include a combination of on-the-job training and courses run by the recruitment agency staff themselves. External courses are also popular and plentiful, and are generally run by the industry body Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).
The REC offers two awards, available through distance learning:
- The Foundation Award in Recruitment Practice. Ideal for the first two years in the industry, or if you wish to refresh basic knowledge and skills. If you want to embark on a career in recruitment or set up your own agency, you could also take the Award.
- The Certificate in Recruitment Practice. With at least one years' experience, you can go for the Certificate; or if you have less experience, but have studied for A levels/H grades, a degree or equivalent.
The REC also offers a range of professional development short courses covering subjects such as sales, interview techniques, employment law, finance and management.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development offers a Certificate in Recruitment and Selection too, available through distance learning, plus a range of professional development short courses in interviewing techniques, employment law and psychometric testing.
An NVQ/SVQ Level 3 in Recruitment Consultancy is another option to think about.
Opportunities
There are thousands of recruitment agencies in the United Kingdom. And they all deal with different industries and specalisms in the job market. If you're interested in a particular field, or your expertise lies in a specific area, there are many opportunities to drill down to this level of detail with your work as a Resourcer.
If you start your recruitment career in a general agency, without focusing on a specialist field, you can transfer your skills over if you decide to follow a more structure path.
With experience, and typically with larger companies, the potential to move up the career ladder can feel more structured. Promotion into a consultancy, business development or management role is a real possibility - especially if you're consistently delivering, or exceeding, targets and making a big impression on clients and candidates alike.
Or if you prefer the idea of going solo, then you could choose to set up your own agency.
Annual income
As a Graduate your basic salary would range between £15,000 and £18,000 a year. Once experienced as a Consultant your salary could increase to between £20,000 and £40,000, depending on the organisation, plus commission. At senior levels this rate can exceed £50,000 and jobs in London will tend to offer higher salaries.
Jobs in Recruitment sales
Other Careers in Recruitment Sales
