I would really appreciate some advice...

Hi, my name is Gerard and I am a new member. I m looking to make a transition from law enforcement into corporate recruiting.Now thats a statement you don't hear very often. Anyway, I was a recruiter with my police agency for several years and I enjoyed it immensely. Prior to my law enforcement career, I spent several years in corporate sales and I feel I have a lot of transferrable skills. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can successfully make that transition? Thanks!!

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Permalink Reply by Amber on June 15, 2012 at 11:19am

Hi Gerard! If you think you want to get into corporate/internal recruiting, I would join some groups in LinkedIn. Make sure you have your profile current and relevant to what you want to do. There are quite a few that focus on job listings and information for recruiting. If you have jobs you want to apply for, be sure you carefully read the job description and match that against what's on your resume. Revise/edit your resume as needed for each. (With honest info only, of course!)

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on June 15, 2012 at 11:33am

Since you have done internal recruiting for law enforcement, I would suggest looking for a security company or perhaps a company who contracts with the DOE where they have to maintatain security cleared people or have an internal security department. My take is always to try and use what you can bring to the table that other people even with recruiting experience might not have.

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Lee on June 15, 2012 at 12:01pm

Gerad - Congratulations on the transition. You're already doing the right things. Asking for advice, looking into blogs, etc.

1. Do a lot of google searching. This means, read about recruiter experiences, blogs (as you are obviously already doing), and job descriptions. The posted job descriptions should give you an idea of what to expect and what (if any) skills you need to learn. Realize that a lot of the info you'll find is generic and your individual experience will very. I hate to do this but I did write an article not too long ago entitled something to the effect of "31 flavors of recruiting". Look up the different types of recruiters and figure out where you think you would be most comfortable.

2. Recruiting an officer will probably be quite different than recruiting in the corporate world (although some things may stay the same such as looking for people you "click" with and genuinely can "like"). Without knowing what it's like to recruit officers, realize that depending on what you're working on, maybe 10% of the applicant pool in general are even worth talking to and about 50% of that group is worth an interview. The job essentially is to figure out why you SHOULDN'T weed someone out of the process.

Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Amy Ala Miller on June 15, 2012 at 12:24pm

Sandra's advice is dead on. If you're near any military bases, you might even look into staffing agencies that contract with DoD (such as Aerotek) to get more broad recruiting experience. Security companies as well tend to have high turnover so generally need full time recruiters.

Good Luck!

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Permalink Reply by Ben McGrath on June 15, 2012 at 12:53pm

Gerard,

TSA and Homeland Security come to mind as possibilities. The good thing that you are doing is recruiting in an industry that you are famiiliar with. That in itself will make the transition easier.

Best of fortune to you.

All the best,

Ben