A Day in the Life
In order to give you an idea of what working in recruitment is like, we asked a few of our employees to put together an account of a day in their life at Quest.
Consultant
In at 8.30 and I get straight on with seeing who has applied to my jobs. The advert I wrote yesterday has yielded a good response so I spend the first part of morning going through CVs and registering the outstanding candidates before briefing them on the role and screening them against the client’s requirements.
Once that’s done I get on with my morning. Business development is the order of the day so I get down to calling companies and trying to pick up leads. One of these calls pays off and I take a brief on an urgent role – the rest of my plans for the day go out the window! After advertising the role on the internet, I begin searching the database for suitable candidates and before I know it I have a shortlist of 4 strong looking candidates on their way over to the client.
This all has to go on hold temporarily because I’m meeting a senior candidate on their lunch break and don’t want to keep them waiting.
I grab a sandwich and get on with my afternoon. The client wants to meet my candidates so I need to arrange interviews as soon as possible. I ring round my short-listed candidates and get them booked in. The interviews are tomorrow so I take the time to brief the candidates on what to expect and make sure they understand the role and where they’re going.
I have a meeting with a different client and our Commercial Director to go to so when all the interviews are booked I head out the door and jump in a taxi. The meeting goes well and we get briefed on three more jobs so it’s back to the office to plan the best way to fill them. I spend what is left of the day headhunting senior candidates for the role and briefing candidates from the database.
Senior Consultant
The first part of the morning is taken up with training. We have a new starter so I’ll be spending a couple of hours with her and talking her through how to develop business with a new client.
When I’m happy she knows what she’s doing I get on with contacting my clients. I’ve got 20 live roles to work on so it’s important I’m in regular contact with them all. Having spoken to them all I identify the most urgent and search the database for relevant candidates. I find three but I’d like two more so I plan a headhunting session for the afternoon.
Time for lunch – I’m taking a client out to impress them and convince them to retain us on a role we’ve been briefed on. It works and we agree to advertise their vacancy in the trade press so when I get back I speak to our marketing team and start writing the copy for the advert. The print deadline is today so we haven’t got much time.
Once the advert is done I get working on the headhunting I planned. I don’t manage to find anyone great but I do pick up a few names of people who would be interested. During the day a very strong candidate has applied to my advert so I register them and arrange to interview them internally. Just one more to find now so I search Monster and find the woman I’m looking for, I give her a call and she’s keen so I invite her in for the next day to make sure she’s as good as she sounds.
I’ve got a candidate coming to meet me this evening so I take a few minutes to look through their CV before they arrive. I spend an hour with the candidate and the interview goes well so I agree to put them forward to a few of my clients.
Managing Consultant
I'm chairing a team meeting first thing this morning so I arrive in plenty of time to set up the room and prepare what we are going to talk about. We are targeting a new sector so I'll be advising my team on the best ways to develop new clients and discuss the businesses we'll be approaching.
After the meeting I have to do some headhunting for a retained role I'm working on so I get down to it and speak to a couple of really good candidates who I call my client about straight away. They seem to fit the brief perfectly so I arrange to interview them both later this week.
Next up is a meeting with the other managers to discuss performance and how the business is doing as a whole. My team has had a great month so I’m very popular! We are actually looking to grow the team at the moment so in the afternoon I meet a potential recruiter who was recommended by another Quest consultant and has already met our HR Manager. He comes across really well and I discuss the role with him, then get him to meet a few members of the team. I also show him round the offices so he has a feel for the working environment. We have a team meeting afterwards and everyone liked him so we decide we’ll offer him the position.
The rest of the day is spent preparing a presentation for a client meeting the next day and organising interviews for some shortlisted candidates. Just as I’m about to leave, a client calls to say they want to offer one of my candidates that they met yesterday. I call the candidate straight away and put the offer to them. They are delighted and accept straight away (it doesn’t always happen that way!).
Then I go out with my team to celebrate the highest ever quarterly billings that we all achieved last quarter.
