Senior Recruiter, doing CIPD L3 in HR, but market is poor.... - HR Qualifications and studying - Careers Clinic

3 Senior Recruiter, doing CIPD L3 in HR, but market is poor....

15 Feb, 2017 13:55

Hi All

I live in Northern Ireland and I've been working as a recruiter in an agency for the last 5 years and have a solid background in recruitment but the sales approach in an agency is starting to wear me down. I started doing my L3 CIPD in HR in September and I'm due to finish in June. I'd really love to move into HR due to the variety of tasks and different things to get your teeth into, so to speak.

I've been looking for jobs as an HR Officer for over 6 months just to get exposure to interview and I'm being choosy about what I apply to. I've noticed there are a few problems: NI is small, HR professionals are generally aware of each other in the industry here so I have to be careful. Salaries are low and no-one advertises their own jobs - they go straight to recruitment agencies more often than not! Those also offering jobs in NI don't seem to recognise the knowledge that recruiters have in Employment Legislation either, and they say my experience in recruitment is irrelevant an HR Officers role.

Another problem here is that companies here don't seem to use CIPD for hiring themselves (there are no NI jobs except for Hays on CIPD - says a lot really!), and it's usually a case of who knows whom so so far, CIPD isn't proving beneficial despite every job advert asking for it as a desirable!

I'm wondering if it's worth my while continuing with trying to push to get into HR and continuing my CIPD membership, or am I actually wasting my time? I'm enjoying the course, I would actually consider doing the Level 5 if I knew that it would be worthwhile.

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Joni | 0 Posts

14 Mar, 2017 13:47

Hi Nicola,

This response is coming quite late - so forgive me if you've already found a solution to your problem!

I think the main issues you have here is that you're being "choosy". Like with any career change (even if recruitment & HR are closely tied), you can usually expect to start from the bottom. Generally L3 - from what I've gathered - is aimed at those just starting out in the HR field at admin level, whereas the L5 would be more suited for a HR Officer role.

Whilst you may have gained a lot of experience and exposure from recruitment (I started out in agency too before getting my first HR Admin role) and the L3 has supported this, it could be that the HR Officer role is maybe a step too senior, too soon? If HR is genuinely something you want to get in to as a career, I would definitely say keep pushing and hopefully you'll find something! Is relocation an option if NI is lacking in roles?

Wishing you all the best in your search!
Joni
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NICOLA | 0 Posts

14 Mar, 2017 14:00

In reply to Joni:
hi Joni,

Thank you for your reply.

Relocation isn't an option at the moment as we've not long bought a house here. A lot of companies are using agencies and asking for a minimum of 2 years experience in an HR role. I have that, albeit from when I first started in HR/Recruitment and I worked as an Adminstrator and was responsible for onboarding with all the admin associated with that and other areas as well as recruitment but I get the impression people have written this off when I apply for roles.

I'm going to keep going and persevere. Recruitment is just fine, but it's not something I want to do long term.

Thanks for your suggestion though!

Nicola
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Simon | 0 Posts

5 Jul, 2017 11:16

Hi Nicola, I'm late to the party too! So hope things have been successful for you in the interim.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, 7 yrs recruitment, many years operational in my sector and over qualified for Admin, under qualified for Officer. From advice on peers in my time since completing the CIPD L.3, I am finding the best option is to make a move to internal recruitment which is absolutely fine and I can focus my specialism in this area, you will naturally gain exposure to wider HR related tasks and sit closely with an HR team dependent on the organisation, which may present the opportunity to move over completely into an HR function.

Having undertaken your CIPD accreditation, it will hold you in good stead for employers to look at you moving internally as some do not favour just taking agency recruiters due to the nature of us not having much formulation of strategy knowledge and our competency based interviewing techniques are generally a lot looser.

If this is a route you'd like to explore, certainly conduct further reading in relation to recruitment strategies, explore workshops and conferences. Connect with leading Talent Acquisition Managers in your relevant field of work and gain insight from them, this will give you the confidence of interviewing well for these roles.

I'm more than happy to share some resources with you that I have been studying and reading.

Simon
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