What do people who “fall into recruitment” study?

The following article was published on Square Mile

“Education, education education”. These were the words of war monger Jonathan Powell, conveyed to the nation through the lips of the ever coy Tony Blair- the channeler of right wing ventriloquism. Unfortunately these words were not intended to mean we’d become a nation of Chinese or Indian-esque super efficient geniuses. Rather, they meant we’d become so thick we’d conflate the word polytechnic with university.

So now, consultants, risk specialists and investment bankers with PHDs in econometrics and quantitative analysis are subjected to brutal cold calls from those who would have been (happily) decorating their houses and unblocking their drains had the three evil E’s never been implemented in such a grotesque manner.

Recruitment Rehab has discovered the most popular undergraduate courses for recruiters who would have been manual labourers (had the past 14 years of education policy been different).

To end up in recruitment it seems you should (passively) “study” one of the following:

5. Real Estate Management at Oxford Brookes University

4. Administration at South Bank University

3. Fashion Marketing at London Metropolitan University

2. “Business Management” at Brunel University

And the most popular of all...

Employment for Dummies (self taught over 6 years from your bedroom).

You will certainly deserve the letters B.A. after your name and most likely the letters S.T.A.R.D too.

How to escape a life in recruitment

The day you received a letter of acceptance from London South Bank University to study Hospitality Management your life was doomed.

You were always two grades above the class dunce but in the three years of debauchery during which you forgot how to spell, multiply and divide, he excelled through his plumbing apprentice and stepped onto the property ladder. You, after bar work in Buenos Aires and  lazing around a ski resort in Switzerland , decided to “get a real job”. To further prove your lack of brain cells you assumed this to be a job in recruitment.

It started out well. You billed easily, earning as much as the lawyers and doctors who left school with five A’s. You were partying on the continent every third weekend and drunk off free booze on the last Friday of every month.

Now the saturated market has slowed down and you can barely afford to pay your rent. You want out from this soul destroying trap but there are three problems: you have no other skill set to survive a life outside of sales; you don’t have enough savings (or intelligence) to pursue new qualifications; and you don’t have the guts (or ideas) to set up your own business.

Regardless, you come to work every day intending to hand in your notice but become incontinent whenever your boss asks: “so what did you wanna talk about”?

Then a bulb lights up. You will get yourself fired! You will do something so bad that no consultancy will want to hire you again and you will be eternally free from life as a phone monkey. You will sign on and experience something far more stimulating; watching This Morning every day as your mind turns to an even softer, smaller mush.

The problem is - if you were ever unfortunate enough to be half decent - it is easier to get hired than fired in recruitment. Consultancies know idiots who sacrifice their autonomy to do their boss' dirty work (because they are “money motivated”) only come along every second day. As the tuition fees hike comes into effect next year and the number of new graduates from polytechnics decreases, the gold rush of naïve weasels willing to bash phones will fall. Performing or not, your employer needs you as a punching bag.

You can, however, try the following.

1 Get you company kicked off a major PSL

The best way to do this is to blatantly headhunt from such a client. Send out a mass email about a "fantastic opportunity" at a specified bank to all contacts at this account including hiring managers and HR staff.  Follow up with phone calls every hour to the mobile of hiring managers. Ideally you’ll end up pestering one whilst on their summer holiday

.2. Verbally abuse the global head of your practice area at a major account

Simple

3. Turn up late every day

Be creative with your excuses on this one. Try everything from “the sleeping pills were too strong” to “I had an interview with a competitor”.

I speak from experience when I say it is unlikely these will work. If not, tell your boss you slept with his wife. If your boss is single there is no way out!

It can't get any worse for some...

Tuesday morning. Hot and stuffy. You want to be in your shorts driving to the beach. Instead you’re back in the office, yawning. You down your 56^th caramel latte of the month, bored of the taste of repetition. Your only comfort is your survival of yesterday; 4 more days to go then back to the crap pub on a Friday at half five. Then a weekend of sleep. There must be more to life than this, right?

Cut to the chase. You hate your job. No autonomy. No creative input. Just repetition of a process which will never earn you the money needed to get a mortgage.

Staff in IT support who realise this tell themselves: it could be worse, I could be an accountant. Or a recruitment consultant. Worse, a recruitment consultant who recruits accountants. Ouch! It can’t get any worse for some...