For most people, recruiting is rarely their first career choice. Lately, I've had cause to wonder how and why I came to choose the profession. Ten-to-twenty years ago, many recruiters entered the field in a round-about way. Today, the profession is better established, and recruiting is on the radar screen of many young job seekers. While we've all come into the profession at different times and on different roads, shared is an appreciation of the challenge and excitement of bringing skilled candidates together with employers.

As a management trainee out of college, I dreaded my first rotation in recruiting. Later, struggling to find work in finance or marketing, I took a position as a headhunter. Though initially skeptical, I soon began to appreciate the position for the creativity, variety, and overall savvy it demanded. Recruiting expanded my skills in negotiations, requiring that I master deal making and execute a complex two-way sale. Inevitable misunderstandings and random occurrences further enhanced the challenge for me. As my tenure in the profession grew, I began to view each engagement as a new and unique opportunity to expand my skills.

What do I love most about recruiting? The deal making. Recruiters must execute a complicated two-way sale involving the candidate and the employer. Success requires excellent sales abilities, strong ethics, good judgment, and business savvy. Recruiters must carefully evaluate the candidate and the position to ensure that the fit makes sense. The uncertainty and tension between the candidate and employer evoke a measure of drama, calling for a sales technique that often resembles diplomacy.

Although the challenge of deal making hooked me on recruiting, what's made me stay is the opportunity for long-term independence. The potential for variety and self direction makes recruiting a haven for entrepreneurial self-starters. Independent recruiting combines small-business values with big-business customers. Both require flexibility and the ability to interact with a wide variety of personalities, often in stressful and uncertain circumstances. Successful recruiters find ways to whether the challenges and enjoy the triumphs.

Unfortunately, along with the rewards comes the potential for failure. Most recruiters find ways to deal with situations in which everyone loses. When the perfect candidate pulls out at the last minute, when a company is forced to close a requisition prior to filling the position: these are situations where no one wins. However, the nature of loose-loose ordeals makes the win-win deals something to definitely savor.

While recruiting continues to evolve, the benefit which initially drew me in, challenge and independence, keep me hooked. Ours is a fast-moving and perpetually evolving profession. Despite the current lull, recruiting will continue to grow and attract intelligent, dynamic people who thrive on challenge. As for the downturn, like any deal gone awry, it will just make the inevitable rebound sweeter!
f