Advice to Candidates

 

This page of advice is for both experienced recruiters and also to candidates wanting to enter the recruitment industry. We see this information as absolutely crucial to take note of before interviewing. We hope you will find this information useful.
 

Advice to experienced recruiters:

 

– Know your billings for the past 3-4 years! In EXACT dollar amounts (saying ‘I billed around HK$2.5 million’ will NOT cut it with any serious company. Not just your ‘best month’ or ‘best quarter’. If you can’t talk about billings, absolutely no one will take you seriously (unless they are desperate)
– Don’t lie about the billings. We / clients will often ask for evidence (pay-slip / league tables / deal list etc). It’s better to be honest; a couple of mediocre billing years can be excusable if there are reasons to justify why
– Make sure you can talk in a clear, succinct way about why you want to leave your current job. There are genuinely legitimate reasons why some companies are better than others. But there needs to be a substantial reason / set of reasons why you are open to options. Saying ‘the platform isn’t good’ won’t cut it. Why not? Why do you feel the company you are interviewing with will be better for you than your current one?
– Be humble. If you have a good track record then companies will take interest in you, but it doesn’t give you the right to go to an interview for ‘what do you have to offer me?’ attitude
– Don’t chase the base. Most companies offer a ‘commission draw’ policy, so the base will make zero difference once you are billing. If you really want a $40-60k base salary as a consultant, you need to have billed at least HK$2.5-5mn+.

 

 

Advice to candidates wanting to enter the industry:

 

– Make sure you can be absolutely clear about why you want to get into recruiting / headhunting. If you can’t do this in a convincing way, no one will hire you
– Recruiting is a tough job and not everyone survives. You need to show strength of character and talk about examples in your life so far where you have faced difficult challenges and how you reacted
– Being a ‘people person’ and wanting to learn more about different industries is okay reasoning. But you need to show more serious reasoning of why you want to enter this industry
– In most cases, you need to be money-motivated to perform well in the recruitment industry. Show this money motivation to the interviewer and talk about reasons why
– Make sure you can ask some interesting, genuine questions about their company
– Make it a two-way conversation. Don’t sit there just waiting to be asked questions, you won’t be hired unless you can question the interviewer and show curiosity

 

We welcome any thoughts, comments or questions on the advice presented.