When I first joined my recruiting company as a HRM intern, I knew very little about the world of recruitment and the sales-driven approach of these environments. Even though I was aware I would be mostly responsible for the internal communication of the organization, I was excited to experience first-hand, the results-driven approach applied in practice. After 5 months of observing how the recruitment worlds works, I was able to draw various conclusions about it.
One of the first things I realized immediately after joining the organization was that a sales job profile is a hard and intensive work. The first element signalizing the intensity of the job were the working hours. Even as an HRM intern my working hours were 8:30 to 5:30, on-site every day, and for most of the salespeople (recruiters) it was common to come to the office around 8am and leave around 6/7. Another one of the elements signalizing the type of environment of this company that also stood out to me was the strict dress code. Suit and tie were a standard practice, especially for the recruiters (not as strict for me working in the HRM). Overall, it seemed like this corporation environment was much more old-school with employees centering their lifestyle around their work.
The main reason why employees at a recruiting organization like the one I joined are willing to push their work-life balance is the commission-based salary model of this business. The compensation of each employee is highly dependent on how many deals they will be able to make each month, which constitutes as a major incentive to work harder for the recruiters. This salary model can bring a lot of motivation and revenue for each employee, however there are also various negative aspects to this system that I had a chance tp observe.
Another interesting characteristic that I noticed while working for my company is that a lot of the new employees that come to this environment intrigued and excited to be able to work in the sales business, often encounter unexpected by them issues. As everything is dependent on the results, a lot of especially unexperienced with that kind of pressure employees end up very stressed about their work life. This pressure often ends in recruiters even quitting their jobs, as they find this environment too demanding for them. Or that reason it was common to see high rates of leavers and joiners throughout my time at the company.
My main take about the sales-driven job is that even though it seems extremally appealing and intriguing, the employees truly need to be passionate about the job profile in order to be able to sustain working in it. Because of the sacrifices this job design requires, people need more than just commissions to continue working in such high demand environment – they need true passion for sales.