Would you encourage YOUR child into recruitment as a career?

Mostly, I have had a blessed career in recruitment. Sure there have been tough times and lots of challenges. But mostly I have had immense fun, made life-long friends, travelled the world, learned an incredible amount, and made a pretty good living.

Yet, for the best part of 25 years, as long as I have been a father, when people have asked me the question, “would you encourage your children to go into recruitment”, my answer has always been a very firm, “NO!”

But why is that?

Maybe it was because recruitment can be such a relentless business. Or maybe it was the often-negative reputation of the industry, and possibly, to be frank, it’s because deep down in my unconscious, I never really believed recruitment was a ‘real’ career.

But recently, something has changed.

The bowler in this picture is my son, when he was 18. (Yes, that ball took out the middle stump, in case you were wondering )

And when we were considering his career options, to my astonishment I found that if he showed any interest in recruitment, I would have no aversion to him following that path. (He showed zero interest by the way)

Which is counter-intuitive surely? Why would I point my eldest son into a career that I could not bring myself to recommend for 25 years, at a time where so many people want to tell us that it’s a dying career anyway!

Well the answer is that recruitment is not a dying industry. In fact, despite what you read, our prospects have never been better!

We must reinvent and evolve, for sure, but where we are going, if we get it right, is a far richer, more intellectually stimulating future than any thing we have seen before.

But, recruiter success is not for everyone. In fact most will not ride this new wave of prosperity and fun.

It’s an opportunity, not a right.

The smart, and the quick to adapt will thrive. New skills must be learned and I have spelt out in detail what those modern recruiting skills are.

And so, on reflection, maybe the question is not “Why would you become a recruiter?” maybe the better question is “Why wouldn’t you want to be a modern recruiter?”

Look at what the job involves! (Please review the chart below in conjunction with the DNA of the modern recruiter. It will make more sense)