How your marketing skills could make you a successful

Marketing and Recruitment - two very different career paths, right? Well, you may be surprised to learn that the common skillsets of a marketing or business development professional are highly transferable to recruitment.

Meeting tight deadlines, managing heavy workloads and effective communication are just some of the skills that you need in BD and Marketing that could also help you to be successful as a recruiter.

Why would I want to change careers to work in recruitment?

There are lots of advantages that come with a career in recruitment, the biggest being that you receive all the benefits of your hard work and success first hand, instead of somebody else taking all the glory.

You already know how to bring in new leads as a BD or marketing professional and you'll be doing this as a recruiter as well. But the main benefit is that you will manage the entire process from lead generation to placing the candidate in the role which is highly satisfying. And getting commission for the work you do is another big benefit!

Below I have listed some of the fundamental transferable skills that apply to BD and Marketing so you can see how these work in the world of recruitment.

1. Time management and organisation

Time management and organisational skills are of critical importance in BD and Marketing where you will often be juggling multiple projects at once. These skills are also extremely important in the everyday world of recruitment.

A career in recruitment requires a lot of plate spinning, so the ability to organise your day and prioritise willguarantee that you keep one step ahead, helping to maintain your success as a recruiter.

2. Working towards tight deadlines

As a marketer or BD professional, you'll be used to having to meet deadlines and working in recruitment is very much the same in this respect. We are constantly up against the clock and you never know what’s around the corner.

A typical day can comprise of a last minute meeting with a candidate to help them prepare for an interview, whilst a client calls in with a job that needed filling yesterday, whilst running out of the office to meet a new client for lunch before you’ve even had time for your morning coffee!

It can seem never-ending, but this is what I enjoy most about my career as a Recruiter. Who wants to watch the clock all day anyway?

The plus side of working to tight deadlines as a recruiter is that all of the hard work you put in benefits you (the more placements you make, the more money you make)! In recruitment, you work on your own projects from start to finish. It can be tough but in the end, you receive all of the benefits and satisfaction that comes with this, rather than never seeing the end results.

3. Ability to build rapport with senior stakeholders

The most successful marketing and BD professionals are able to build strong relationships with stakeholders across the business. Being personable is crucial to the success of the role in order to get buy in from the senior management and/or your sales colleagues. In recruitment, you will need the same skills in relationship building.

Building honest relationships with your clients and candidates is vital to being a successful recruiter. Once you have these strong relationships, clients and candidates know that they can trust you to find them what they are looking for.

These relationshipsenable your success in placing jobs and candidates, which in turn, leads not only to great commission cheques but also huge job satisfaction. Recruiters are actually changing lives!

One of my favourite things about recruitment is placing people in their first ever dream job within a huge corporate organisation, this helps them to start working towards what they have studied so hard to become - that one never gets old!

4. Effective communication skills

Communication is an everyday part of your life in BD and marketing. You need to be able to effectively communicate with a range of people to get your job done as well as understand and communicate the needs of your customer.

Communication is equally as important as a recruiter (essentially we are the middleman between our clients and candidates).

In order to carry out our jobs effectively, we need to be able to communicate between our clients and candidates to fully understand what is important to everyone. Being able to communicate everyone’s needs effectively will ultimately make the whole process run as smoothly as possible, for both them and for you.

5. Marketing and BD skills

As a marketing / BD professional, you already know how to successfully bring in new leads and promote your company and these skills will be hugely beneficial in recruitment. Proactive recruiters regularly carry out marketing tasks as part of their role such as writing job adverts, blogs, creating video content and posting on social media. Business Development is also a huge part of the role, so the marketing and BD skills you already have will be put to good use in recruitment.

Furthermore, you can use your knowledge of marketing and BD to help other BD and Marketing professionals find their dream job which can be very rewarding.

Is a career in recruitment right for you?

There are, of course, both pros and cons to a career in recruitment (as there is in every industry) but if you are a BD or marketing professional who is looking for something new and want a role where you can utilise your skills and knowledge in a different way then a career in recruitment could be for you.

At Ambition, some of our most successful consultants have come from the industry that they now recruit in. Learning the sector you recruit for can sometimes be the hardest part of this job, so having that knowledge and transferable skillset is invaluable.

I started my own career working in events before making a leap into recruitment, so this goes to prove that it’s definitely possible!

If you would love a career where you have the freedom to run your own business inside the safety of a reputable company, where no two days are the same, and if you love being the sole manager of a process from start to finish, then you will find real job satisfaction from a career in recruitment.

If you would like to find out more about starting your recruitment career with Ambition, please feel free to get in touch with me for a confidential discussion or visit our 'work for us' page.