Why Move In-House? A Guide For Recruiters Who Are Thinking About Becoming An In-House Recruiter
Moving In-House is a journey.
A journey, with many milestones, twisty paths, steep hills and sunken valleys.
The first step in any journey is making the decision to step out of your door like Bilbo Baggins.
The decision to leave Agency life behind comes easily to some people and, to others, it becomes a drawn-out affair that takes much soul-searching and for others it is thrust upon them, like a Balrog in Khaz-a-doom.
As Recruiters, we also face the same challenges as the candidates that we work so hard to represent, and help find new jobs and exciting career opportunities.
It can be even harder to put ourselves into the same shoes and think clearly, and logically about your next career move.
It’s a weird quirk that we often find it easier to be logical for others rather than ourselves. Recruitment and job hunting is a very emotional process, this is understandable. As work and identity can be closely tied together.
In-House versus Agency is a debate that takes place in almost all professional services businesses from Lawyers to Public Relations Consultants, from Accountants to, yes, Recruiters.
However, in the Recruitment world, it is not talked about in the same way.
For Lawyers, it is seen as a natural part of the career progression. However, some Recruitment Agencies sneer at Internal Recruiters, others will refuse to hire someone who has only worked In-House.
Confession, early in my Recruitment career I was guilty of this.
With this confession in mind, I was to make amends and champion moving In-House. In-House offers a wide range of opportunities that are not on offer at Agencies.
Reason 1: Better Work-Life Balance
Generally speaking, working In-House creates a better work-life balance.
According to Hays 33% of all workers consider Work-Life balance to be the most important aspect of job hunting.
Agency Recruitment does have a problem with making people work long hours for very little extra gain above the 9-5. Generally, most offices work in a 9-5 pattern or have a flexible working regime. As you are moving jobs, you are of course going to have the option to pick a role that suits the type of work that you want.
You will of course have pressures and stresses like any job, however, In-House roles will generally have more flexibility and balance.
Reason 2: Better Working Relationships
We all know a lot of the relationships that we build whilst working at Recruitment with clients and candidates can be a little, how should we say it diplomatically, “transactional”.
This approach is not your fault, the economic and business needs of the Recruitment industry make deep working relationships unprofitable compared with wham, bam, thank you mam sales.
As you are working In-House you will build deeper and more meaningful relationships with both new starters (that you recruited), the managers and leaders across the business and the team you work with day-to-day.
As Helen Keller is believed to have said “Alone, we can do so little, together we can do so much”.
Deeper relationships will make work more pleasant, interesting and sociable.
Finding and hiring new candidates for the organisation is easier and when you are looking to “sell” a job to a candidate you have ‘insider knowledge’ without the fear of zero months.
Reason 3: Stable Income
Working In-House means a stable income compared with an Agency, allowing you to plan and budget more effectively. Why?
Generally across the In-House world, you are paid 80%-95% of your earnings through a salary and around 5%-20% as a bonus. Compared with an Agency where Salary might only reach 50% of your total income, the rest is through sales commission, which is dependent on making sales.
Jobvite (a job board) reported that 61% of Recruiters have felt an increase in stress recently, so do not feel anything bad about this being a reason you want to move In-House. Many people feel guilty about moving away from the model, however, work is about making the money you need for life, and it should not be stressful.
Working on commission is not for everyone. It is tiring having to keep hitting the same numbers each month to get the bonus, especially when the bonus rate is not always very competitive in the first place and the cost of living keeps going up.
In-House your base salary will be predictable.
Comparing an In-House versus an Agency role as a stable income will reduce the stress around payday and make planning, budgeting and financial management of life less stressful.
Reason 4: You HATE Sales
Selling and sales are not everyone's cup of tea.
Moving In-House you are still going to have to “sell yourself” and “sell vacancies”, however, this is not the same as Agency sales.
You are free of the entire “business development” culture that exists within the Agency and that time can be spent just filling vacancies for the organisation. The “quick buck”, the desperate fill, the getting that placement to reach the target is just not there.
The last day of the month placement stress will be a thing of the past. There will be stress in other ways, but sales stress will not be present.
You will be amazed at how much time is taken up with business development calls, negotiating terms, sending across terms, sending invoices, chasing invoices and of course dealing with meetings, discussions and administration around sales.
Reason 5: Professional Growth
Agency is great for learning the ropes of Recruitment, however, after a few years it does become somewhat stale as you start to stall in your learning and development.
This is natural as there is only so much you can learn doing the Agency Recruitment process at one Agency.
Moving In-House will open up a whole new range of formal training and development opportunities as well as informal ones developed whilst you are “on the job”.
Plus many organisations will have many opportunities to take on new roles, responsibilities and projects that would never arise in an Agency setting.
Reason 6: Leave Recruitment
This is fair. Very few people grow up wanting to be a Recruiter. If you know anyone who wanted to be a Recruiter when they grew up, please do let me know. I would love to meet them.
Many people fall into Recruitment and as they spend time in the industry they want to grow beyond being a Recruiter.
Some people grow into sales roles, others into Human Resources, and others use the move In-House to find another role that interests them.
Moving In-House is a great way to help you achieve this goal. It gets you that important first step in the door.
Reason 7: New Challenges
In-House represents a new kind of challenge, a new kind of Recruitment. New growth.
If you are looking for a new challenge, moving In-House offers that challenge.
The challenges you find will be company and industry dependent, but they will be there, and they may surprise you.
My In-House Experience
When I moved In-House my initial thoughts were generally positive. It gave me access to new challenges, learned new Recruitment skills, and I got to recruit in the American marketplace which was new, interesting and challenging.
The great resignation was happening at this time in America and the market was frenzied, fast-paced and cut-throat. I was a British Recruitment pirate plundering the US talent markets. It was so much fun.
I got to speak to people who did not do Recruitment for a living, which was refreshing and at times eye-opening (colleagues). It also taught me some of my assumptions built up whilst working and running my Agency were incorrect. Which was humbling and a nice life lesson as well.
Overall, I would highly recommend moving In-House.
Subscribe to my Blog to stay up-to-date with all the latest from The Naked Recruiter.
I have also published two recruitment books, Recruitment Hacks and The InHouse Roadmap, both available on Amazon.