Case studies : Recruitment consultant: Chris

Chris graduated with a degree in accountancy and economics.

I work for a large international recruitment agency based in the City of London; we recruit permanent and contract staff for IT, finance and accountancy roles in investment banks based in the UK and around the world.

I work on the IT team, placing candidates in permanent positions. Day to day my degree isn’t relevant for a role in IT recruitments, but because we recruit for the financial services sector, my degree has given me a head-start in that I fully understand how the industry works.

This is a great industry for career progression because it’s based on consistently hitting your sales targets and I’ve received three promotions since I’ve been here. The downside is that the targets are high, the hours are long and, because there’s potential for high earnings, competition is fierce. I’d recommend anyone thinking about going into recruitment to seriously consider whether they’re happy to work long hours, possibly meeting candidates after work and how motivated by money they really are. Financially you’re rewarded, but you have to work hard.

The best part of my job is getting out of the office meeting clients and candidates, understanding their expectations and making the placements. We are up against lots of different targets: how many candidates we register a month, how many CVs we send to clients in a week, etc. Monitoring CV send outs is the most mundane part of the job, but it has to be done to make sure our clients are receiving enough candidates for their vacancies.

At the moment, I’m happy to stay at my current level to ensure I learn as much about the industry as I can, but in the future I’d like to develop to become a recruitment manager.