How To Get a Top Job After University

Stumbling across a career in recruitment is the best thing that ever happened to a few of the leading consultants at The Candidate and quite simply, they’ve never looked back. Some of our top recruiters have previously worked in the marketing sector, the industry we proudly recruit for, but success doesn’t only come from having experience. We’ve seen one of our rising stars work with us part-time during their studies and as they’re now graduating, they have secured a full-time consultant role specialising in IT recruitment, one of the most exciting areas of digital recruitment.

Jack Such took the initiative that all students should take and applied directly to The Candidate for work experience in our award winning marketing department. Executing a social media plans and adding his creative touch to our client’s job specs to job boards is all well and good (and crucial to us), but when deep down what drives you are KPIs and targets, with a desire to achieve, over achieve and impress, he became obsessed with the company’s core service, professional recruitment activities.

In truth Jack has been able to be part of the sector he’s graduating in whilst beginning a potentially lucrative recruitment career. Modern and effective recruitment thankfully isn’t CV spamming, cold calling or shiny shoed meetings in Starbucks where by your 5^th coffee for your 10^th candidate and you still haven’t found the right person. It’s about effectively marketing your roles, PR-ing yourself and building a reputation that makes you go-to for candidates and clients. This can all be achieved by applying his marketing and advertising degree, with a focus on social media and online persona development, to stand out and become effective to develop a great career. 

The Candidate offers great training to graduates who not only want the challenge of becoming a Recruitment Consultant, but a career with The Candidate in marketing recruitment. With collectively combined recruitment experience of over 30 years, successful placement of hundreds of candidates in the fastest growing marketing sector and based in Manchester’s City Centre, the opportunity couldn’t be more attractive. On top of training, you’ll also get free gym membership, healthcare, European City Trips, loads of early finishes, a great salary and bonus scheme, generous holiday allowance and most importantly be part of a work hard play hard environment and culture that’s positive, challenging and rewarding.

At the time of writing, it was Jack’s 21^st birthday, he had just confirmed his bonus for this month after hitting his target and was looking forward to the company trip to Lisbon. Amongst all this we asked Jack for his top 5 tips for getting a job in recruitment after graduating:

1. Attitude – It’s so important that you go into this driven and enthusiastic. Like every job, there are great highs and lows but if your attitude is right you will see it through. It’s hard work but the sense of achievement when you place someone in their dream job makes it worth it!
2. Have a personable approach - You must be a good communicator and able to talk to all types of people in a way that Unfortunately, this needs to be a natural talent and most of us can spot when this isn’t genuine so don’t be over the top either!
3. Be flexible – This is so important, people need to talk to you when it suits them and it isn’t always possible to do this within core working hours. Taking quick 10-minute calls at the weekend can make a massive difference between securing a top candidate and not!
4. Develop yourself - It’ so important that you don’t wait to be taught, build your own knowledge and get your own experience. Volunteering at The Candidate gave me the opportunity to build real life experiences and skills outside of the theory of my university course. I definitely would not have been in the position I am now, without this.
5. Be open minded - I thought I would like a career in marketing and by doing the work experience at The Candidate I was intrigued by recruitment and this has now led me down a totally different path. So keep all your options open and go where the opportunities are and doors will open!

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