So I am a little late with posting this as I have just returned from my holiday where I was celebrating my Birthday (my 21st birthday – ignore the posts you have seen they are absolutely not true). February/ March feels like a big milestone for me personally and professionally so I wanted to share with you my journey so far.
February 2022 marks 8 years to date working in Recruitment!! 8 YEARS!!! That is a crazy long time and means I have also worked within the insurance and recruitment market for 11 years. My story is probably very similar to a lot of people who “fell” into recruitment. I was working for a small family run broker and felt after 3 years it was time for a change and wanted to increase my earnings. The only logical sense was to continue working as an insurance broker as that was all I knew! Well, actually I also worked in a Chinese takeaway for 5 years before and while I was working as a Broker for some extra cash. So I understood PI and Commercial insurance and I knew the full Chinese menu items, numbers and prices off by heart… Reality was I didn’t want to work 2 jobs anymore and didn’t LOVE insurance so I thought maybe recruitment.. I knew a couple of people older than me that worked in recruitment who made it sound super easy and bragged about the money so naturally my plan was to get rich and go into recruitment! It is safe to say I am not rich, but I am 8 years in and now LOVE my job!
I got my first Recruitment job back in February 2014, initially I was speaking to the Consultant about insurance jobs and after a few months of interviewing, ended up getting a job at that agency! It was a lot to learn and certainly threw me out of my comfort zone but I knew I had to give it everything I had to know if it was the right career choice. I started with supporting with resourcing for Broking roles, as I knew the job inside out and could talk to people with confidence about what they would be doing etc, I then quite quickly started picking up Medical Assistance jobs for a few clients and started slowly getting my head around the assistance world. Medical Assistance Coordinator roles then led to Claims in the PMI/IPMI world which then led language specific roles, Team Leading positions, Clinical positions for Nurses/Doctors/Paramedics and well 8 years later that is all I do! Absolutely anything assistance or IPMI/PMI and language related. I have relocated many many candidates from around the world to the UK and overseas and have supported people in really big moments in their lives and have loved it!
As many of you may or may not know I was made redundant from my last position which came as a shock but also came with lots of positives and the chance for me to consider new things! A lot of opportunities in Recruitment presented themselves, and here I was again thinking, all I know now is recruitment and assistance so what do I do! Well it was safe to say after a break and lots of consideration, my passion for recruitment was because I loved working in the assistance market. Over the years I had gained a lot of knowledge, connections, friends and clients who had worked with me and it only made logical sense to try and carry on doing what I knew I was good at and loved. So here I am 10 months into working for FJN Solutions, doing what I do best and its been great. It is fab to be back doing what I love, working with clients/candidates I know and to continue helping people develop their career in this market. I should also mention I work with a fab new team and have had an absolute scream every day.
The reality is Recruitment can be hard and it certainly has it bad days, its not all sunshine and rainbows and amazing job offers which will never be declined. The “perfect” candidates don’t just apply to your job adverts or grow on trees (absolutely wish they did), and they certainly don’t want to apply to every job which you think is a perfect for them and your client. Job offers aren’t a daily thing and sometimes you have to give people bad news HOWEVER, you do help people with advise, you are that person who gets to listen or the shoulder to cry on, you support with making career plans or in the best circumstances you do get to give them that offer of the dream job or the salary increase they didn’t think they would ever get.
So with all the highs and lows and rollercoaster of Recruitment and this crazy world we live in, lets see what the next crazy 8 years bring.
