Recruitment Consultant Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Hays, particularly the variation in the role. During my time at Hays, I was afforded the opportunity to work in a number of different roles and was able to get involved in several different areas of the business. This helped maximise what I wanted out of my placement in terms of progression and development and also gave me a good platform to evaluate my strengths and weaknesses. Some of the additional responsibilities I was afforded in addition to managing a full 360 recruitment desk included; Internal recruitment as a talent scout, developing and writing articles for the Internal newsletter, designing, managing and implementing business development incentives and plans and more!...

Throughout my placement, I never felt like I was of any less value to the team being an Intern, I worked alongside Business Directors and fully fledged experiences consultants on a daily basis and we all contributed towards several projects equally as a team.

My line managers consistent support, recognition and feedback throughout my entire placement was paramount to my numerous successes at Hays. The culture at Hays is that of continuous improvement but at the same time making noise and recognising hard work and talent. I felt like my line manager valued me as a member of the team and also was able to provide constructive feedback on how I could improve moving forward.

Recruitment is such an industry that how busy you are is generally down to your own performance and how much business YOU can generate. Coming in as a newbie to recruitment meant how busy I was would often fluctuate between extremely extremely busy to manageable. It is never a job where you will be bored with nothing to do but it changes from very busy to slightly busy often - unless you are in a big city.

One of the biggest credits I can give to Hays is the responsibility they afford to their Interns. The recruitment and selection process to be awarded an Internship with Hays, is regarded as one of the most difficult in the industry. Therefore once you are successful you are given real responsibility and the opportunity to chair meetings with clients from the onset and rightly so as you would have earned it!

I came into this placement knowing exactly what I wanted experience in and knowing exactly what I wanted to achieve. It is hard work, it’s no ride in the park or tea making experience but if you want a role which will give you bags of confidence, the ability to interact with senior professionals from SME's to FTSE level businesses. The ability to organise your time, build a strong infectious work ethic and maintain motivation throughout times of difficulty. In addition, the opportunity to gain an understanding of how businesses operate and succeed, then an Internship at Hays can definitely give you that so long as you have what it takes to put in the work and be successful.

I came at a time of huge change for my particular office. Hays has over 105 offices in the UK, so I can imagine the culture and office atmosphere will hugely differ depending upon the office you work in. It is a hard-working culture and there is opportunity to learn from those around you.

The Internship programme is very structured and to some extent from the onset you have a good understanding of what is going to happen and when. The start of the Internship has a very structured training programme and as you progress tasks tend to be organised monthly, weekly and even daily.

You are given the opportunity to head to the London offices for classroom based intensive training - ranging from exercises to role plays to traditional classroom learning. In addition, throughout your placement you are subject to reviews with your line manager on a weekly to monthly basis. If there are any areas of significant improvement required, you can create plans and gain help with mentoring in this particular area.

Hays is the market leader in professional recruitment and have an International presence, if I seek to pursue a career within recruitment, I will look to return to Hays in a larger office as I feel I would be more suited to big city life. Never the less, it depends on the individual and whether recruitment suits them as a long term career.

There is opportunity to regularly attend the usual nights out and meals with colleagues, usually on Birthdays, promotions and leaving do's! We also had a paid Christmas party including meal, hotel and travel which was good fun. In addition, we also have a paid end of year party so at least two paid parties to look forward to!

I live at home in Newcastle as I am from here, however in general Newcastle is a really balanced city. If you want the advantage of a big city in terms of attractions, shopping, job opportunities but you still want an affordable place, Newcastle most definitely seems to strike the balance on that front.

Newcastle is well known for its night-life, particularly the fact that 7 days a week there is always a wide choice of places to go out! Whether you are into student nights, rock, or the exclusive scene. there is plenty of variety to choose from and more importantly its always busy and buzzing with students, professional and travelling party go-ers!

Recruitment is an extremely money orientated workplace - if it doesn't make money it doesn't make sense. Therefore typically anything that takes up a lot of time will not generally be a focus during your Internship, UNLESS it can lead to you or your colleague generating fees! I did get involved in organising some client generating events and also regularly attending meetings with local boards and organisations.