Jan 30, 2017
Welcome all once again to the recruiter’s guide to the data world. As we are now in part six, the words seem to be flowing a lot easier and I will try and branch out to more emotional topics. News in my world is that I now manage a team of recruitment consultants giving me added responsibility. I thought about doing a piece about being new to leadership, however, I will leave that a few more weeks while I bed into the role. Today, however, is about passion. People talk about it in life; some of us know what our passion and some of us are still searching. My advice today, stick to your passion and don’t be thrown off that path if it is what you really want to do. This should be a nice short and simple topic to cover off.
Now you may be sitting there thinking, here we go with another follow your passion, do your dream job blog. This is not what we are discussing; my viewpoint as always comes from a recruitment perspective. One of the most frustrating calls that I get as a recruiter starts this way: “I know that I want to work in data however I am not really bothered which industry, type of company, type of role…………. I want. Anything in data will do.” Now I understand that some candidates just want to work with data no matter what, however, this is typically the candidate who after 6-12 months in a role is ringing me saying: “this job isn’t really working for me let’s try something else.” In addition, it is almost harder to find a role for this candidate as if they don’t know what they want how can I?
So what is the flip side? One of the best calls you can receive is: “I am very keen on exploring opportunities in the media and marketing space due to the dynamic nature of that industry. In addition, I have been up-skilling myself in predictive and propensity modeling and I understand this is quite prevalent in that area.” This screams of someone who knows what they want has already started working towards it and once they get it will likely be happy and secure in that position. This is one of the most powerful tools you can have when chatting to recruiters, a candidate who knows what they want is usually a winner.
Now approach two will win you a lot of friends. It doesn’t, however, guarantee you to land that role straight away. If anything it may take longer as you are being very specific. However, the results will be that much sweeter when they arrive. It may be some recruiters don’t have many clients in your chosen field but they are more likely to go out there and search for you if you have a consistent strategy. I’ll leave it there for today as I could keep going and going but to sign off:
