Intern Recruitment Consultant Review

Since joining Hays in June 2018, I have really enjoyed my internship. I have had a varied and challenging role with lots of responsibility, continued support from colleagues and opportunities for development. Throughout the year, I have attended networking events, taken on new opportunities and attended various social events, including an intern conference, the Hays East of England Christmas party and various office social events. No day is the same and you are thrown straight in to the role facing both challenging and rewarding scenarios.

At Hays, every consultant is an 'expert' in their own specialism. The same applies to interns within the organisation. I have had responsibility of my own desk and own workload to manage, including providing advice and assistance to consultants across the region. Interns are treated no different to any other staff member, with large responsibility and your own specialist area to learn throughout the year at Hays. You are recognised for hard work and efforts, and this was reflected when I won consultant of the month in our office in November, and Support role of the quarter in April for our region.

I have always been supported by my managers whilst working at Hays. Day-to-day I speak to both of my managers and am never be afraid to voice an issue or ask any questions. Everyone at Hays is very approachable and if I ever felt like I needed extra training or had too much on or similarly, too little on then I could let them know and my responsibilities were adjusted. Here at Hays we have official one-to-one's with our manager every period (4 weeks) which is a catch up review of the period where any issues or questions can be officially voiced and recorded.

Every day really did vary when it came to workload. The nature of recruitment is dynamic and therefore so is the workload and how busy you are. There were periods where I had a large amount of work and very busy weeks/months where I picked up additional tasks and responsibilities even in very demanding periods, however my managers were always there to make sure that I could cope with all the workload, and in times where I was less busy, I was given additional tasks to help out with or help my colleagues with to balance out my work and responsibilities. Every day really did vary however but overall I had a busy and fast paced role where there was always something to do.

Throughout my time at Hays, I was given more and more responsibility as I progressed through my year. Starting out in a more supportive/account manager position, after a few months I picked up additional responsibilities including having the opportunity to look after and recruit for my own specialist area, giving me more experience in actually recruiting and being trusted to look after a certain patch/certain roles. I also got the opportunity to become a talent scout for Hays which is the opportunity to, alongside your own role, become part of the internal recruitment team - sourcing, telephone interviewing and doing the first stage interview (an hour long face-to-face interview conducted by myself) for your potential replacement. I also had the opportunity to source for an telephone interview potential recruitment consultants for Hays in the East of England, and also interviewed for (alongside a manager) 3 potential recruitment consultants and telephone interviewed at least 20 potential consultants.

I have developed a lot of skills since working at Hays - I would say the main skills I have developed are: organisation, sense of urgency, confidence, ability to juggle multiple tasks, attention to detail. I believe these skills I have developed will help me not in in my degree, in particular - organisation, but are transferable to every day life and also any future employment.

In our office we had roughly 20 colleagues at a given time, being a recruitment agency in a sales environment the atmosphere is always a buzz, with pressures from management to get on the phones and to encourage every body to make sure they are working hard. We have an open kitchen in the office where we can make drinks/lunch and it was always a pleasant environment to be in. Colleagues were very sociable and you could always engage in social conversations throughout the day whilst getting work done. Sometimes we would have activity days, dress down days and office challenges e.g. one team versus another which made the office a more fun place to work.

The internship is set up and organised very well. In our East of England region there are 6 interns across 6 offices (excluding London who have a larger amount of interns) and then additional interns across local offices Nationally. We met in our training groups, set up in a Whatsapp group, put together in email trails, and had frequent conference calls when we first started to make sure we were all getting on okay. I always had opportunities to go along to events and Hays make sure that you aim to get the most out of your Internship year.

Hays pride themselves on having the best training in the recruitment industry and they invest just as much time into interns as they do for every other employee. When you first join, you have one day a week for four weeks spent in another office training with other new starters whether this be interns or associate consultants. A few weeks in you then go to the London office for a 3 day training course and constantly throughout the year have the opportunity to take part in office training and always encouraged to say if you think you need more training to help your development in any ways and colleagues will be more than happy to provide this, whether it be one to one or group sessions being run in the offices.

Hays offer the chance for interns who do well in their placement year to come back to the company after you graduate on a fast track scheme - you can work in a different office doing a different specialism but the opportunities are there if you want to return. There is also the opportunity to have a temporary contract with a local office whilst back at University if this fits around both the office and your timetable.

At Hays, the social scene is more prominent amongst offices rather than other placement students. For example, I am the only intern in my office of 20 colleagues. This is similar to the other interns in the region. The social scene across each office is always fun - we have the opportunity to have lunch bought for us, drinks at 4 on a Friday and a subsidies

I work in the Chelmsford office, which Is where I live when I am not at Uni. It is fairly close to London and is located in central Essex. I wouldn't describe it as good value however it isn't the most expensive area either. I would say that prices are pretty standard, maybe slightly more expensive than some, in comparison to the rest of the UK.

Chelmsford is the only city in Essex with lots of bars, clubs, pubs and restaurants to go. There is a gin bar opposite our office which we sometimes go to on a Friday after work. London is half an hour away by train and when rewarded for hitting our office target we all went to Flight Club in Shoreditch for the evening one Friday.

We did quite a few activities as an office throughout the year, including bowling, various nights out, pub on a Friday, bottomless brunch, outdoor cinema showings and if someone wanted to arrange an activity, we would have the majority of the office come along which made it good for us to bond as a team outside of work.