We’ve seen several recruiters join us from a sales background. Angela Haines previously worked selling classified display ads and in field sales before moving to Handle Recruitment to recruit in our digital division. This is her story.....
“Working in sales prepared me for a move to recruiting by teaching me how to be tenacious and organised, and how to be persuasive rather than pushy. I was attracted to recruitment as it’s more of a consultative role and selling people is more interesting than selling advertising space! I’m grateful for the background I had as the sales training you receive in modern large corporations is excellent, and many of the skills I learnt were fully transferrable.
Recruitment is a great role to come to, from sales, as you have your own business area and if you love building rapport, it’s an interesting sell. Recruitment is all about building relationships with people and establishing the best career path for them, which can have a positive effect on their whole life. That’s a really satisfying achievement. You’re dealing with people and emotional choices, as they decide whether a job is right for them and whether they’re right for a client, so if there’s any doubt or wavering, persuasive abilities combined with real listening skills are crucial and can lead to the experience being very rewarding for all concerned.
Sales experience helps when you’re persuading a client that they need to act quickly to get a good candidate, as other companies and recruiters are also in competition for them. You’re at the centre of the transaction, a facilitator as well as a salesperson, so it’s an amazing feeling when it all comes together - and you get to make commission from it too”!