Transitioning from Agency Recruitment to HR

Late to the thread but I too would like to stress this can be done, as this time last year I was in the same position as you, and I am now a HR Administrator.

My key points would be:
Temping/voluntary work are great foots in the door
You need to emphasise passion and transferrable skills
Self educate yourself on HR

I think it's really about emphasising the fact that you are passionate about HR, passionate about the people side of things and the business aspect, as opposed to sales and making money, which unfortunately is what may recruitment consultants are pigeonholed as. For me, i've never been a sales person, I fell into recruitment as a desperate graduate looking for work like many, and ended up carrying this 'career choice' on in Australia, as it's one of few opps for brits out there. I stuck at it for just under a year and a half but my heart was never in it. I've always been interested in HR and it was through my career in recruitment I learned more about HR and how opposite it was to agency and how i'd much rather be doing that.

I found it easy to convince interviewers that i'm not a sales person and my passion lies in other areas because it was the truth, but if you are someone who enjoyed the sales side that's okay, but i'd definitely make sure you emphasise more the 'candidate' aspect in interviews. I used examples of interviewing and sourcing candidates, writing job adverts and as I was a temp consultant I was able to emphasise the fact I dealt with their payroll queries , holiday queries, sickness etc (All ER stuff), I talked about training for temp workers and inductions (L&D). I researched HR Admin Job Descriptions and tried to apply everything they required to my role in recruitment, all the while stressing my need to get away from sales and recruitment environment, and showing them my passion for HR by talking about employment law, L&D, employee relations and things I had researched and taught myself, and applying all my recruitment experience to the different areas of HR.

From that I was able to get a temporary contract for an international company as a recruitment administrator, which lasted for 6 months, doing things like writing job descriptions, org charts, compliance. Basic admin stuff but be prepared to start at the bottom. Now I had internal experience I was able to leverage off that and get a general HR admin role where I am now doing note taking at ER cases, coordinating L&D, looking at employee sickness amongst other things. This is also a temporary assignment, reason being I am only looking for temp roles atm due to possibly relocating soon, but I have found temp assignments a great way of building experience in different areas of HR and often easier to get. I am hoping now I have experience in internal recruitment, ER and L&D I will be set up nicely for a permanent position as a HR assistant. I couldn't recommend temping enough tbh if you are struggling, i've been lucky enough to work in 2 completely diff industries in a year and learn different areas of HR.

HR recruitment consultants can also help emphasise all those transferrable skills you need.

Best of luck! This time last year I was still in agency recruitment, now I am 2 months into my 2nd HR contract and loving it.

Hi Catherine and Melissa,

Thank you both for your advice as well as everybody else who has commented on this post. Only recently have I come back to this page 

I have now actually secured a HR Apprenticeship role with my local council which started last week and I’m enjoying thoroughly so far, did some note taking earlier in the week on an ER case will be getting the opportunity to coordinate assessment days, create the policy for the council’s apprenticeship scheme (the area I’m sitting in) amongst other duties to give me a flavour of entire spectrum of HR.

Definitely looking forward to what the future holds, feel I’m in an environment where I’m going to get the opportunity to learn as much as possible putting theory of my level 3 course into practice with a real opportunity to develop. 

Guess I got there in the end 

I'd propose you join your neighborhood CIPD branch and go to their gatherings on the off chance that you're not as of now

I'd propose you join your neighborhood CIPD branch and go to their gatherings on the off chance that you're not as of now