I am incredibly lucky to now be in a job that I love. But how I was treated by recruiters last year has really eaten up at me.
I left my job as a primary school headteacher for personal reasons and decided I wanted to move into an industry other than education.
Looking for jobs in education is easy – there are only a few places to look and you don’t need anyone to find you work – the roles are easy to find (although not necessarily easy to obtain, of course).
Looking for jobs outside education is a whole new experience. After applying for jobs myself lots of people told me that a recruiter would help. There were personal recommendations and people on LinkedIn were quick to shout out recruiters that would help.
Not one of them helped me. One told me that businesses wouldn’t take me on. One said that I wasn’t worth them any money. Several took my calls but then returned with nothing.
Lots of recruiters told me that as a former headteacher I had loads of transferrable skills. Some said that I would be a catch and would find work in no time. Yet not one offered any roles whatsoever.
The position I’m in now is working for a local authority. I found the position myself without the need for a recruiter at all.
I’ve come to the conclusion that recruiters are only interested in you if they can make money because of you. I was genuinely in crisis and the people who helped most were people who I knew personally and not recruiters who promised everything and delivered nothing.
If I look for jobs again I will not be using a recruiter.