It’s 7.32am and my phone is ringing. It’s always ringing.

I always do my best to answer every call – you just never know who might be on the other end. Some of my greatest opportunities in life have come from just picking up the phone – including the call that enticed me to come over to my current employer! One of the biggest things in recruitment I do is try to be available; however never too available – it’s a delicate balance of protecting my diary but still being effective and achieving what I need to in my day. Onward with my day and I’m into a team meeting first thing. This morning we are discussing candidates who apply for multiple roles in our organization (and how we manage them and different stakeholders expectations) and a new system upgrade. These meetings are a great way to get a variety of ideas and opinions on things and get the discussion happening! In my world, a quick meeting is a good meeting, so I’m out the door pretty quickly again!

This time it’s off to morning coffee with a senior Hiring Manager. We’re discussing a vacancy that has been hard to fill – it’s a great leadership position, and we are looking for someone with a “particular set of skills”. The standard job hasn’t done the trick, so they’ve called me in to help out… Hopefully I can find them! I make some notes and plan my attack to source the right person in the meeting. Mid morning and the post-caffeine hit has come! It’s a good thing as I am on the phone negotiating a salary with a new hire – it’s another delicate balance of securing the right people but within budget and cost. It’s a tough one, but with some good negotiation and a calm conversation we get over the line and they accept. I call my Hiring Manager to give her the good news and she’s very happy.
I quickly clear my emails and return voicemails before heading off to meet a potential candidate for coffee. A good chat later I discover that they have some really good experience in banking; and although it wasn’t on their CV in great depth it also includes some serious home lending – it always pays to ask the right questions. This is experience my business unit needs, and it will be another conversation with another hiring manager later to secure this talented person.

Back to my desk I start sourcing that hard to fill role – and get a few potential names from searching online and hunting. I send a few messages and write myself a few names to follow up later – this is something I don’t want to rush or do half-hearted – you only get one chance to make a first impression. Grabbing lunch, I’m back on that phone again and heading off to a retail branch to complete a few interviews for leading roles. These interviews are full competency interviews and take a bit of prep and planning. Cleverly, my hiring manager and I left plenty of time beforehand to do so. After three interviews back to back we’ve highlighted the preferred candidate and a potential to refer to another branch in the area that have a similar vacancy they are recruiting for. I’ll be in touch with them later in the week to confirm next steps.

After being offline for just over 3 hours, I’m back in to clear my emails and return voicemails again – hot candidates go quickly so reacting timely to messages is one of my priorities in the day. It’s important to still give a great candidate experience even when you’re busy – sometimes it’s the little things like this that make you the employer of choice.

Now, it’s time for some good news and some bad news. I’m calling the successful and unsuccessful interviewees from earlier this week for another position I interviewed for. I do the unsuccessful candidates first – and give them some good, honest feedback for their next interview or application. They aren’t the easiest calls to make, but it needs to be done and done well. I always imagine if it were me on the other end of the line. I save the best to last and make the day of our newest employee – she’s over the moon she’s being offered the job! It’s a rush, and so great to make someone’s day with a job they really wanted and that she will be great at.

I approve some outstanding expenses (yes, hate to tell you but in the corporate world everyone without a PA has to code their own expenses!) and wrap up my admin – even though I’m in recruitment, I’m still part of HR and everything has to be done correctly. I clear the last of my emails and finish off my “to do list” for the morning before I pack up for the day and get ready to do it all again tomorrow. You just never know what tomorrow might bring – you can’t always plan your day in recruitment, and you must always have a plan B! It’s a pretty awesome feeling do get paid to do something I love and love what I do.

Wait, is that my phone ringing again?

This article was kindly supplied by Haystack Jobs.