You’ve probably heard that careers in recruitment tend to progress rapidly and promotions are often fast-tracked but what actually are the career prospects for recruitment consultants? In this article, we intend to answer just this as we look into how quickly you can progress in a recruitment position. 

Rome wasn’t built in a day

Unfortunately, your career in recruitment won’t be established after a few good months of excellent performance despite what some job adverts may wrongfully promise you. Sadly, there’s a large number of consultants who spend their days waiting for promotions to fall into their laps after their first real sustained period of success.

Of course, if you’ve met your agency’s criteria for a promotion, you are deserved of a step up. However, you are not yet an established recruiter and your employers will pay far more attention to your ability to succeed in the hard times rather than when everything is going well.

Consistency is Key

There is a large percentage of junior recruiters who have their sights set on becoming top billers or hitting exceptional figures in their first month and while we would definitely encourage you to be ambitious, it’s important to know that the consistency of billings is far more important when assessing career prospects for recruitment consultants.

In fact, most agencies would rather work with a recruitment agent who is consistently good than one who performs exceptionally well one month and then has a dry spell for the following two. 

Believe in the Process of Developing in Your Role

Despite agencies often making what KPIs and billings you need to step up to the next level clear from the start, this isn’t everything that you need to know when you’re looking at progressing in recruitment. So, before you start thinking about promotions, you should start considering what is required of your professional development.

In the first 6 months of your position, you will learn the technical aspects of recruitment and once you’ve got this figured out, the next year is all about learning to control the process, positively influence candidates and clients, and read situations effectively.

A step up

Being a top biller is often thought of as the holy grail of recruitment, but this isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, the top biller may not be the most valuable person in the office in the eyes of your employers.

If you want to become a successful manager, you will have to put your self-interests aside and invest in the training and mentorship of junior staff, which isn’t necessarily associated with top billers. The best candidates for managers will look beyond their own billings and will, instead, take responsibility for the wider success of the company.