My first 6 months

Endless options on job boards, countless profiles on LinkedIn, and limitless ideas being thrown at you. It’s a daunting world post-university.

It’s not like studying and analysing a book, or memorising formulas and equations, for which you can sit an exam to determine your success. It’s more than that. It’s complicated – especially within recruitment where people are at the core of everything we do.

6 months in, I’ve learnt that the ultimate formula for understanding people is to truly care for them and to genuinely take the time to understand them. This authenticity is even more significant in today’s world of intense political and economic anxieties across the globe. In such a troublesome landscape, it is no doubt or surprise that people are beginning to value honesty, transparency, and integrity more than ever before.  

I was surprised when a professional who I could not give good news to said: “I really appreciate you letting me know, because there are so many consultants I’ve worked with who don’t even respond back unless I’ve made it.”

In that moment, I realised that it’s not always what we say to our candidates, but how we have treated them throughout the process that holds real value and meaning. One thing I kept hearing after joining the industry was the importance of making relationships, and I felt that the relationship I had made with that candidate was, in many ways, more powerful than the one I had made with those that I had given good news to.  

The question, then, is how do we treat people in a way that will help us make long-lasting and genuine relationships with them?

Whilst there are countless answers we could find for this, the one thing that my first 6 months have taught me, is to be human. To understand people with practicality but also emotion, with logic but also feeling, with reason but also compassion.