If you have chosen recruitment as your career, you have probably come across IT recruitment and thought to yourself “wow! it pays higher than non-IT recruitment, and it can be done remotely, I should go for it!” well, DON’T! At least, not until you review the reasons why you shouldn’t. Here are 6 reasons IT recruitment may not be for you.
The Tech industry is the fastest-changing working niche. When it comes to IT in general “long experience” is not that important, why? Because every couple of years the field changes rapidly and new trends, languages, frameworks, and tools emerge. This fast-changing pace will exhaust you if can’t keep up! You need to dedicate a good time only to learning about the tech field trends and new languages to understand the changing needs of clients/employers every year, and to find them the best people out there who use the latest tech tools and languages.
So one month, you may be looking for a React front-end developer, and the next month, you may be looking for the next JS developer, which is another framework built on top of React. Learning about the tech industry is not a privilege that you can skip, it’s more like a MUST. So think of it in this way, it will be an added workload to you along with your normal tasks as a recruiter. So if you think learning is not your thing, then run while you still can!
In the tech world, the jobs/roles are very tangled and yet very specific. Mind-blowing, right?
Every job position is more like a step on the ladder leading to the big picture and they can intersect with each other and yet be very unique at the same time. So you have designers, programmers, developers, data analysts, testers and the list goes on. Mix this with the numerous languages and tools so you end up with more subcategories of the larger job, so for example developer for each language “React, PHP, C++” or a developer for specific platforms such as Salesforce, WordPress, Shopify, etc. You can’t start looking for a developer or a designer without understanding their type and what specific tools they are using.
You also need to think of the frameworks and methodologies like agile or Scrum, and of course, with different methodologies come new roles! For example, in scrum teams, because as a recruiter, you may be looking for a scrum master or a product owner next month.
So basically you need to know how does it all fits together, like the software development lifecycle. Which means what is usually done, how and when it gets done, and who does it.
Think of it as finding the specific piece of the puzzle that fits exactly in the empty spot and not mistake it for a piece that just looks like it.
Recruitment is all about working with people to understand them and to help them. People who work in the tech field while they are normal people, of course, still have certain aspects about them that stand them out which you need to understand to be able to reach them, keep them interested, and find them their perfect role. One example, they love challenges, roles with great room for learning opportunities and they care about the organized structure where work can go smoothly and successfully.
Also, understanding their mindset helps you as a recruiter to find them in specific places of interest, such as knowing the portfolio platforms, social media tech groups, IT learning platforms, LinkedIn, and so on. After all, knowing where to find them and building your network of tech people is basically the core of your job as an IT recruiter.
IT recruitment is still recruitment, after all, so your workday will include the same tasks every day, such as looking for candidates, sourcing them, approaching them, setting up interviews, introducing candidates to your clients, and closing the hiring, leaving everyone happy.
This simplified recruitment cycle, explained real quick, will probably take 80% of your time if you are a full-cycle recruiter. Take your time thinking if you can see yourself doing these tasks every day and yet you can find happiness and challenges in each step.
If some calls you and you shy out and text them instead, then you need to consider another job at this point. Recruitment includes a LOT of calling people to set up interviews and the calls can be video calls and not only voice calls.
In recruitment, numbers play a major part; starting from measuring the number of applicants, filtering them into smaller numbers for people shortlisted and rejected, then more filtering for people reached out to and those not yet, people who got interviewed and people not, people who passed the interview and so on and so forth. So tracking number is everything. And you also need to score people in each stage, as an applicant, and after being interviewed.
Furthermore, recruitment in itself is similar to sales, you need to keep tracking your conversion rate. In other words, out of all applicants you reached out to or interviewed got actually hired by clients, and how many of them stayed in the job and even excelled!
So if you don’t want to track numbers, or for your numbers to be tracked either, then you may need to look to a more creative working industry.
If you made it up to here, and you think “well, I don’t mind learning, I like challenges, I’m a people person loving helping them, I’m ok with repetitive tasks, I can do calls and I love numbers and analytics” then you would actually make a great IT recruiter and we would love to help you get paired with someone to help you get started!
In our company, we have a team of people who work in different positions so we can easily pair you with someone who has a complementary skill set.
You can also watch videos about some of these opportunities we offer to learn a little more about what it takes to become a Sourcer or a Screener.
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