Pride or Shame?? A Confidence Boost for Recruiters.

Over the years, I have noticed a lot of animosity towards recruiters and even towards the recruiting profession in general. People love to speak their minds (like I am doing right now) and they'll share whatever pops into their head with society no matter the impact it may have. When I personally started seeing hostile publications consistently from people about how much they despise recruiters and how useless we are, I was very challenged and quite honestly became ashamed by my own occupation. At one point, even though I felt very successful and happy about the work I was doing, I thought about leaving the space altogether simply because of how people viewed my job. I would think of clever and creative ways to tell people that I was in recruiting without telling them I was a recruiter, which is quite difficult by the way!

Then I decided to grow up. Yes... the recruiting industry has a lot of work to do. It is a very low barrier-to-entry field and because of that, it carries some unprofessional and rather greedy people that would do anything for a buck. That said, being ashamed of this will do nothing to change it, and instead, will only make it worse by deeming it okay for adult professionals to make ridiculous comments about what we do for a living. Are you proud to be a recruiting professional, or are you ashamed of it?

Either way, the following remains true:

1. Despite the bad mouthing from people who love to hide behind their keyboards and computer screens, good recruiters are extremely valuable and are absolutely imperative in today's business landscape. As much as business leaders do not want to admit it (for reasons unknown to me), recruiting is an incredibly high priority for them. Without the right people, there is nothing. I'm a firm believer in the value of technology in today's society, but without human beings that can collaborate and work together, a company is worthless. Behind every good business is a group of remarkably talented people who can come together and work within the confines of a specific culture. That is a particularly complicated framework that doesn't just "happen" by accident.
2. While some believe recruiting is easy, they are sadly mistaken. Recruiting is an unbelievably challenging profession. It requires a wide variety of skills that few people have and creativity is definitely one of those skills. This is exactly why if done properly, recruiting is extremely lucrative. If it was as easy as the naysayers believe it to be, there wouldn't be money in it.
3. Recruiters will only become more valuable as time goes on. I can hear the objections from the techies already! But I don't care. As important as technology has become in our world, it is not possible for a technology platform to eliminate human beings in this space. In fact, I see it as the complete opposite. The more that technology is being relied upon in the recruiting field, the more people are realizing the need for extensive human interaction during the process. Companies need talented recruiters now, and they will need them even more in the future as the "war" on talent becomes more fierce.

So what can you do as a recruiting professional? First off, please be proud of what you're doing. For the reasons listed above, or others, take pride in what you're accomplishing and the service you're providing. It is also important that we listen to the naysayers that may be giving us constructive criticism (versus useless bantering) and work hard to take a position of understanding. We need to adapt accordingly to the things the require improvement in our space, which I will cover in a future post.

Finally, be vocal about the pride you have for the profession. Don't make the mistake I once did by shying away from telling people what I actually did for a living. Help others understand the value we add!