The Differences between being an Internal and External Recruiter

Alison Livesey has recently joined The Candidate as our new Recruitment Business Manager. With over 7 years’ of recruitment experience under her belt, she brings with her a wealth of knowledge! Read her story and the differences between internal and external recruitment!

I worked in sales roles throughout college and university and having graduated I got a full time business development role for a small PPC Agency.  After a year in this role and feeling a little disillusioned, a friend suggested I join her in digital recruitment.  I’d already got the PPC knowledge from my then role, and really liked the idea of helping people find their next position rather than one call sales!

For the next 7 years I worked in recruitment agencies in Manchester specialising in placing digital experts in roles cross West Yorkshire and the North West with a focus on search marketing.  I recruited for agencies and a real variety of client side positions too.

Just over a year ago I made the decision to move in house.  It wasn’t a really tough choice. It was a move to a client I’d worked with for many years and loved (and still do).  In essence,  the roles don’t seem too far apart - It’s finding the right people for a role but after a year with that company I made the decision to move back agency side to The Candidate and here are some of my reasonings why, and the pros and cons to agency side recruitment.

Cons

Knowledge of a business – I understood the business I worked for really well,  what they were looking for and the type of person we needed.  As an agency recruiter it’s much harder to nail that on the head after an hour meeting and you can only know a business and its’ culture so much without working for it

Channel knowledge - I sat amongst marketing experts in my internal role.   Answers to my questions were a few steps away and I feel like my understanding of digital grew vastly in in my time there.

Watching the candidate you placed grow and develop – As an agency side recruiter it’s so important to keep in touch with those people you place in new roles and see how there doing but the there’s so much satisfaction in being inhouse and seeing team members (especially junior ones) flourish!

Pros

Variety - In client side recruitment there’s obviously different roles to work on but for me the excitement of finding a new client and learning about a new business is something that makes me happy.  Going to meetings and getting under the skin of a new brand is so interesting.   I now recruit for channels and certain roles which I wouldn’t have been able to as an internal recruiter as it wasn’t a service the digital agency offered.

Being part of a team – In my inhouse role I was the only recruiter which at times is great but at times can seem a little tough.  There’s nobody to share your candidates with and nobody doing the same role as you.  Like in any position it’s comforting to have peers doing the same as you to lean on. 

Resource – Working alongside 20 other recruiters who networking hard each day give you access to so many more great candidates who you wouldn’t necessarily meet or talk to when you’re working by yourself and recruiting for one business only. 

Recruitment agency vibes – at the right recruitment company there’s nothing like a team coming together to hit target / find the right person / support each other and have fun while doing it.

I love the working at The Candidate, the speed we work at here is incredible and every day is different! It’s great to have such a variety of roles to work on and the team here are amazing.

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