Making The Move From Agency To Inhouse Recruitment

This is something I get asked about a LOT!

Most inhouse folk started their recruitment journey as agency recruiters before making the move inhouse.

Many have their reasons for making the move away from agency life and into internal recruitment, I suspect it’s for the same reasons I did initially, I just don’t like business development. And I’m not very good at it.

But what is the move inhouse actually like?

The biggest change for me was the shift in mindset. When I was agency side, hiring managers were my customers, if they didn’t like what I was telling them they had plenty of other vendors willing to do exactly what they wanted them to.

If you do this inhouse you will fall flat on your face. You’ll fall fast and hard.

When you move inhouse you have to ‘level up’ your mindset and start working in partnership with your hiring managers rather than working for them. It’s not a client-customer relationship anymore, sometimes you have to challenge them, disagree with them and even refuse to do what they’re asking you to do.

The other big shift is the volume of roles you are working. When I was agency side, I could pick and choose which vacancies I was going to work on, which are going to be easier to fill and earn me cash or keep a key client happy? I’d probably focus on no more than 5-10 roles at any one time.

Internal is a bit different, I was handed about 40 live vacancies in my first week in one job. I reached breaking point at 92.

I can’t pick and choose which ones I’m going to work on, I have to work on all them. They all need filling.

The broader relationships you need to have was a big eye opener too. You’re not just working with hiring managers, you need to proactively build relationships with the broader people team too if you’re going to succeed in house. The HRBPs to help you influence and drive change, Reward to get roles re-evaluated, but then also finance to help reallocate budget and procurement to bring in new vendors.

The role gets much broader, it’s not just about filling jobs, it’s everything around you that helps and enables you to fill jobs that you need to get involved in.

You need to start thinking strategically too, because yes you might have just filled that super niche and really difficult role, but how are you going to fill it next time because you know it’s going to start becoming a regular hire in the next 6-12 months.

There are loads and loads of other things that are totally different when you move inhouse, but the above were the biggest eye openers for me.

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