The Manager's Story

The challenge

It’s been two years since I started working at Response and today I’ve progressed to running my own Branch. As the Manager I have to recruit, train and motivate my staff but I always remember my first days.

Like many new graduates I found myself armed with a degree but with no idea of what I was qualified to do or how I was going to apply the skills I had learnt! I wanted something that would harness my enthusiasm, capitalise on my desire to achieve the best and enable me to deliver something to be proud of.

Having worked as a temp in a recruitment agency during the summer, I thought that recruitment would be an ideal job. I knew the ropes didn’t I, but it seemed that my experience wasn’t enough and I was left on the wrong side of the desk once again!

Finally, after weeks of searching, I saw a job advertised for Recruitment Consultants, no experience was necessary as full training would be given. I sent in my CV and was invited for an interview.

The approach

During the interview process it became obvious that the company preferred to employ Consultants who had little or no recruitment experience. What they were looking for were people who were enthusiastic and keen to develop themselves and their career. They explained all of the ups and downs, but this only made me more determined. I could really make a difference. I decided that the challenge appealed to me and so when the job was offered I accepted it without any concerns.

Starting work so early was hard to begin with, but it meant that you were available to sort out any early morning issues. Practical experience was complimented by the company Operations Manual, which introduced me to the most effective way to deal with life as a Recruitment Consultant. This manual helped me the most, it detailed every single task that I needed to do to provide a focused, quality service to our clients. It did this on an hour-by-hour basis starting from Sunday evening going through to Friday night. It meant that I knew what I should be doing at any particular moment in time and so the clients could be guaranteed a consistently high level of service and support.

For example, we would phone all of our temps on a Sunday night to make sure that they were able to go to work Monday morning. On their first day with a new client we always took the temps to work, introduced them to our contact and explained the job in every detail. On the second and subsequent days afterwards, we always phoned the client 15 minutes after the temp started work to make sure that they had arrived safely. We wanted to ensure we were in control of the whole process and we were ahead of the game if a problem started to arise.

The benefit

After starting work at Response, I began to realise that the recruitment companies I had initially applied to had missed the point. It’s not about delivering any temp to any client, it’s the desire and enthusiasm to do the best for the client and the temp. What’s more, it’s about understanding their issues and prioritising the day to consistently deliver the best service you can, around the clock.

Response Recruitment will only recruit Consultants with the right qualities, not the number of years recruitment experience. We have a comprehensive training system that gives all of our staff the ability to provide a service to our clients that not only has unrivalled care but passion too.