My 10 Year Old Daughter Could Do Your Job!
Lisa Johnson • April 8, 2015
I got this comment on one of my other posts. It's always so heart warming when someone who can't find a job thinks that children and monkeys can do your job. It goes right along with those old favourites of being compared to real estate agents and car salespeople.* Here is why your 10 year old daughter can't do my job:
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This job is more than 'matching clients and candidates'. If it were that easy, quite frankly there are systems that can do that with word matching from resume to job description. People have been saying to years that our industry will be replaced by clever systems, but they are idiots. This job has very little to do with matching words from your resume to a job spec.
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You have to find a needle in a haystack. Every single day. Sometimes the needle isn't going to be there, so you have to negotiate with employers so that they consider a pin instead of the needle. This negotiation only works if a client trusts you.
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It takes years to gain trust. This is why we have such high staff turnover in our industry. You have to do the same thing again and again for a LONG time before someone actually believes your word. You have to have credibility and confidence. You have to be an expert on the subject matter, and you have to have integrity. Consultants who don't have integrity and credibility are now working in completely different industries.
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No matter how much you like someone, you can't be all things to all people. You have to be able to tell someone that they are not good enough. It's very hard to do this, because you know that you are genuinely hurting someone's feelings. It takes experience and maturity to leave someone feeling positive and valued whilst you have just told them they are not successful. Neither a child nor a monkey can do this. But a good consultant can.
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People expect us to work hard and to work fast, but they don't want to pay a lot for the service. Very few clients or candidates comprehend how expensive recruitment is. You are always being asked to discount your fees. So you have to work twice as hard to make the same amount of money.
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The hours can be crippling. Our best consultants are available all of the time. Some of them hyperventilate if they take a holiday and think they won't be able to check emails and access the database while they are overseas. This is not a job for someone who wants to work 9-5. Just saying.
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You have to deal with really rude people who are disrespectful of the work that you do. I would never ask a child to deal with that.
So, next time you want to blame the recruiter for your lack of work or think of us only as roadblocks to your success – think again. We don't need you to like us, but please maintain some level of respect. Our job is harder than you think. *I bought my car from a really lovely salesman, now I think about that, and the real estate agent I used to buy my house was simply fantastic, so I am not quite sure why being compared to them is all that bad.
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