A day in the life of a Recruitment Consultant.

A day in the life of me, Samantha Gillespie, Senior Principal Recruitment Consultant Extraordinaire at Lily Shippen!

What do I do all day?  Huge amounts of talking, sharing advice, guiding and supporting while working at pace to keep on top of administration to ensure everything can be tracked  - essentially making fantastic connections to support my clients and candidates throughout the minefield of hiring/finding that perfect role.

While there’s no such thing as a ‘typical’ day (I often find I have to be reactive to jump on an incoming enquiry or a last-minute need to reschedule interviews), here is what I got up to in one particular day as the Senior Prinicipal Recruitment Consultant at Lily Shippen.

After my usual routine of sorting out the troops at home, walking the dog and drinking my first cup of coffee, it’s full steam ahead with the Lily Shippen team.

8.30 am : First things first, I check my emails for any urgent messages and will start by looking through job ad responses. This is something I do throughout the day, calling and emailing applicants and booking them in for video and telephone conversations as I go.  

9.00am: Catch up with the team to check the status of our live roles, suggesting candidates that my colleagues might like to brief about their roles. 

9.15am: Check in with a candidate who verbally accepted an offer yesterday. Explained she should receive the contract today – turns out she has already handed in her notice! Suggested I would happily backfill her role if her current employer needed support with finding a replacement. Happy candidate and happy client - Great start to the day.

9.30am: First candidate interview of the day. Spend about half an hour running through their experience and discussing an opportunity that they have applied to.  She is excited by the role and would like to have a quick look at the Job Description and company website to see if she would like to explore further. 

10.00am: Continue screening incoming ad responses and make a couple of candidate calls to brief on a new Fixed Term Contract role I am handling – great to keep updated on my candidate’s activity elsewhere, managing timelines, and expectations and sharing information. Shortlist is coming together nicely.

10.30am: Start to run some searches to see if I can find someone for a tricky role – it’s full-time and office-based, and location is key, so I will check the commute and base my searches off this. 

Good news! Incoming email from my earlier candidate registration - keen for me to share my CV with the client so I will write up my summary and profile and present it to the client. 

11am : Second candidate interview of the day via Microsoft Teams. It was a great call, and although the role we discussed wasn’t quite the right level for the candidate, we discussed the market and I shared some tips and advice on CV formatting, which was well received and appreciated!

11.30am : Jump on an incoming client email as they are looking to arrange a couple of interviews for another live role. I will reach out to candidates and update those that weren’t selected. Will start to compose interview briefing documents so that it’s ready to share with candidates once the day/times are confirmed.

12 noon : Incoming new client enquiry. Arranged to speak tomorrow to take the full brief and explain our process – sounds like a fantastic opportunity!

Lunchtime: -  although I must confess, I have been snacking most of the morning, so a quick cup of soup will do the trick. I have a few incoming emails to respond to and will take a longer break later.

12.45pm: Call candidates to check they are all set and prepared for their interviews tomorrow and answer any last-minute questions they may have. 

1pm  : Incoming role from one of my favourite clients. I have some great people springing to mind, so spend the next hour updating the team and reaching out to potential candidates, all the while updating the database with candidate availability and collating ideas for an initial shortlist.

2.30 pm: Write an enticing Job Advert and post to a variety of platforms, update my LinkedIn with a catchy ‘hot job’ alert, which will hopefully attract some interest and potential recommendations.

3pm: Check in with a couple of my long-term temporary workers to see their progress within their roles. Heads up that there may be another holiday cover incoming soon, so will keep that in mind as I speak to my candidates throughout the course of the afternoon.

3.30pm: Share CVs with a client for a new role that I am working on, and wait to hear which ones they are happy to proceed to interview with. 

4pm : Admin Hat on! Finish writing up candidate summaries from today’s registrations and send over availability and suggested interview times for interviews next week for live roles.

 
5pm: Write a brand new ‘to-do list’ for tomorrow. I always like to plan ahead when the day I have just completed is fresh in my mind. Then it is time to step away from the screen and get some fresh air. The dog is looking pleased about this! 

6pm : I made a couple of final calls to candidates that I couldn’t reach during the working day, and I plan to keep an eye on my emails, so I am all set for the same again tomorrow!

Throughout the day, I have had some laughs and caught up with my colleagues.  It’s so busy, but it’s been a great day of making some great connections, and throughout, I am thankful for the conversations and support from my amazing team.

It’s a rollercoaster of a ride, but the pace and wonderful people I get to speak to throughout the day make it interesting, fun and worthwhile.