Outside to Inside: Making the Switch

A newfound acquaintance asked me for my thoughts on making the switch from agency recruiting to corporate recruiting. I refer to this as inside recruiting vs. outside recruiting. While responding to her I thought, this ought to be a post!

I would first like to state my pseudo-biased opinion that recruiters who have worked on the outside first, make better inside recruiters. This statement is slightly biased, because that was my own career path. However, over the years I have recognized that I share some very common characteristics of the people who also started in agency. I call these foundational skills: Working with a sense of urgency and consultative style.

The world of agency is customer focused, fast paced and often feast or famine. Some work on straight commission, others earn 75% of their income through commissions. The outside recruiter also has fierce competition. Not only are recruitment firms a dime a dozen, but they compete with the employer's recruiter in an already saturated war on talent. I give big props to the outside recruiter. It's a tough gig, a lot of hours, super competitive and sometimes..... endless spinning in mud.

When a professional completes a degree in HR and ends up in corporate recruiting, they never had a chance to develop some of these foundational skills. They never had to work so hard to make sure bills were going to get paid or that they can eat. Therefore, the sense of urgency and the focus on the customer tend to be less developed.

I want to clarify that I am NOT saying that all insiders are without these foundational skills and all outsiders have them. I think we all know the world is not so cut and dry that we can stereotype like that. I am simply saying there are different competences that are developed specifically from environmental factors in agency and it's typical to see these in a person who has come from agency. It is the commission and competition that make it a hustle for the outside recruiter. That hustle though, is highly transferable if you chose to take your career to the inside. In fact, if you ask me, it's transferable to several different corporate positions. If I were an outside recruiter looking to make the move to the inside, I would be focused on these differentiators.

As far as tips for transitioning from the outside to the inside, I personally made the jump through a customer relationship. Maybe it was a stroke of luck that I was hired by a man who is married to a recruiter. He saw my hustle, knew there was a ton of hiring forecasted and had limited resources to make it happen. I had to prove myself. It wasn't easy, and it was a ton of work. I was able to save them money and in turn learned the motivations of the internal staffing function and how goals are vastly different. Eventually it helps to have some education around the HR function as a whole (like a PHR), but you also learn that over time on the job. Although, I have no regrets about my agency beginnings, I prefer my current corporate recruiting career. This is mainly due to the improved benefit plans and the stability of knowing exactly what my paycheck will look like on payday.

So... you want to make the switch?

1.)   Try before you by! How many times has an outside recruiter said that exact phrase?!!! There is merit in that phrase. I personally think that if you can take the risk; find a true temp-to-hire recruiter position. It's your foot in the door!

2.)   If you can't take the risk then... Start getting networked! Yeah-yeah I know you are a recruiter, who is already networked. I am not talking about candidates; I am talking about prospects. Make this about sales. Sell yourself as a safe bet to make the switch. This means:

• Go to local networking events and target the HR colored tags. Introduce yourself, tell them you're not looking to sell services, but rather get networked due to your desire to make the switch. www.networkafterwork.com is in most major cities and frequented by recruiters.
• Leverage LinkedIn. Connect and join recruiting and HR groups! Use the group membership to connect with high level corporate talent acquisition professionals who are also in the group. Let them know you are interested in making the switch. 
• Attend a conference and network there. ERE holds two a year, but you can also attend LinkedIn's or HCI's The key is in networking the right people and focusing your communications around your desire to make the switch. You are on the hunt for yourself and you will need to remember that first and foremost. Anything else is just an added bonus from the process!

3.)   Apply and provide well-written cover letters and follow up emails. Connect your expertise on the outside as an advantage, if given an opportunity to join their team.

Now I ask my recruiter friends, on both the inside and the outside, what did I miss? Any other suggested ways (examples or stories) on making the switch? Please help me and share!!!

Culture or Context?

Culture is one of those buzz words that candidates ask about and employers try to articulate, but in my opinion - you really don't fully know the culture until you are breathing it, living it and judging it for yourself.

Sure employers want to identify culture and use or spin it in a positive light for purposes of branding, attraction and retention. Why not use every arsenal possible?? However, the reality is that often times the way an employer describes their culture is not actually how being in the culture is. If you had an opportunity while investigating whether the company was right for you, wouldn't you like to ask several people of different levels how they would describe the culture of the company? Objective people that have no care for whether you get the job or not? The answers vary sometimes and don't always line up....but when they do, that is also something to pay attention to. I've experienced many cultures in my staffing days and then also as an employee for several.

I have defined a few below (but I am sure there are many other definitions my blogger friends have too):

Brainwashed: This is where the employee brand, mission, vision and values are drilled into the minds of all employees (over and over again) in an attempt to have a uniform voice. Makes sense strategically, but what happens when you start the job and you are subjected to said brainwashing only to find yourself in the job 3 months later going...this is well....Bologna!

Severed Voices: This is where there is no real message and no actual work done on defining the culture. When you ask multiple people, you get varying of answers. One says something cliche' like "we work hard, play hard", while another spouts off some canned response like "our culture is one of collaboration and innovation". These are meaningless to a job seeker because they do not actually represent the culture.

Real Transparent: Very rare, but sometimes employers are open enough to allow a candidate to shadow for the day or attend a company event with the hopes of allowing the candidate to define the culture for themselves. This is unique and it takes a level of confidence on the part of the organization to say, "Who am I to define it? Define it for yourself!"

Foundational: This is usually found in organizations that have the money to actually pull off the whole culture branding thing. There is a person in a desk that owns accountability for this and probably a team of deployment peeps as well. From the website, to the office and through on boarding - you see consistency and the culture is representative even when the honeymoon phase  is over. This is a hard fete and some big companies can't get there because their vision and corporate politics clash.

My advise to a candidate is this: Ask the culture question, hear the answers but know that you will never really know the culture until you experience it for yourself. Each person's experience and definition will vary inevitably. Even the company with the best plan for cultural immersion and employment branding still has the office gossip, the negative nancy, the company champion, the canned responder and the blank stare person.

When on the interview - take in your surroundings. Are people smiling? Are people working together? Or are they whispering by the water cooler? When deciding on the offer - visit the companies facebook and social media pages and look at their pictures and posts! Scope out the LinkedIn profiles of their employees and past employees too. If you see a ton of people who came and went - maybe that is a red flag, but maybe it's not. Be careful with sites like Glassdoor.com, because people typically review a company when they are pissed off. Very rarely do people go.... I love my company culture so much I think I will post a review on Glassdoor! What I think is the most telling is when a company has a high percentage of employee referrals!

So maybe the right questions are:

What percentage of your hires come through employee referrals?
What is the average tenure of your employees?
What do your people like most about the culture?
How can I get a better feel for what it will be like to work for your company?

~ Ode to Recruiting ~

The life of a recruiter is a life among mountains and valleys. Wins, losses, moments of redundancy and the occasional moments of pure dumbfounded-ness. I love every minute of it... I truly do. The chaos of high volume and the countless hours digging online. The intricate puzzle where company and talent dance. The spark of hope that this person will make an impact. The artful mixture of marketing, sales and people. The inspiration of a new leader and the building blocks of company culture. From purpose to frustration; I have dedicated over a decade to you. Thank you for finding me... because recruiting chose me and I chose to stay.