We spent some time with Michelle Dempster this week, owner and partner in You Choose Recruit. Michelle has more than 15 years’ experience in HR and in the recruitment world. She tells a bit about what it takes to be in the recruitment world and what personality would be best suited to this industry:

“You have to love people. You have to love working with them, being around them and helping them. You need to have intuition, a real feel for people.

There is a job for every person and as a recruiter our job is to find the fit between the person and the job. You need to have passion. Passion for the client and their business, you need to love what they do and how they do it so you can put their needs first and want what is best for their business. You need to want to help them to find the right people, you are constantly routing for their success. You need to love being the broker.”

“You don’t just represent the company, you also represent the candidate you put forward.”

“Working in this industry you need to have high integrity and be completely transparent with your clients. You need to want to see the good in people and understand how weakness can be used and supported by others in a team. As a recruiter you are constantly mind mapping.

You’re dealing with people and constantly feeling where they fit in and where they could be used more effectively. You are constantly networking and seeing the bigger picture of businesses and people, you’re figuratively placing them in new or different roles that suit them better and where they can do the most good and use their full potential. You need to be resilient.

You need to be strong and when nothing goes right you need to be able to keep going and start all over again if necessary. You need to care for yourself, you’re projecting the type of people you want to work with and for. Your self-esteem needs to be high and you need to be confident in your abilities and always follow your intuition and gut feelings that comes with experience and knowledge.

Your motivation must come from inside, you are always competing with yourself and your own goals as well as having a healthy competition with others. You have to believe in what you’re doing and believe in the value of human beings.”