Q&A With Tom Beale, Trainee Recruitment Consultant

Q&A With Tom Beale, Trainee Recruitment Consultant

We are looking at more CVs, having more conversations and receiving more feedback as graduate season hits full swing. To get a better perspective of what it is like to look for your first job role after university, we asked our Trainee Recruitment Consultant, Tom Beale about his experience and why he decided to pursue a role in recruitment.

"Can you tell us how you reached your decision to pursue a career in recruitment?"

I went to the University of Brighton after Sixth form to do Geography as that was one of my passions at school. I realised very quickly that it's quite difficult to get into the roles I was after. This is unless I did more science-centric stuff or worked for the government who hired the best of the best. After leaving uni, I was feeling lost so had a stop gap working at Home Bargains. My friend recommended recruitment as I am a good communicator and relentless. I started looking at recruitment jobs and the more I researched the more I liked the sound of it.

"What attracted you to Prime?"

I didn’t have a lot of luck with large companies in Bury. However, Carl (Recruitment Manager) gave me the time of day and let me showcase who I am. It just seemed to be a much more personal company and friendly than the other companies who seemed quite sterile and cutthroat.

"What advice would you offer a graduate about to look for a role?"

It seems silly but tailor your CV to what you’re applying for. I had lots more success when I tailored mine to recruitment and starting a career in recruitment. It is also important to broaden your horizons. I didn’t just look for recruitment but similar fields such as sales and HR, as you could be left waiting a long time.

Don’t panic when you leave uni if your dream job doesn’t just fall into your lap. It took me a year and a half until I ended up at Prime so just keep looking.

"What did you find was the biggest difficulty as a new graduate joining the job market?"

Not having experience, even a lot of trainee roles still wanted a year or twos experience within the field which as a graduate you obviously don’t have. So the most challenging part was trying to find a role that would give me a chance as a bare faced amateur.

"Do you think it is important to upskill and if so how would you go about it?"

Upskilling is important, it’s something I’m trying to do here. I always ask questions about things to better understand them. Plus, throw yourself into the deep end. I started taking calls on my third day instead of second week. During uni I didn’t do too much of this and I think it showed on my CV where I didn’t have many accreditations besides my degree.

"What job boards/social media platforms worked well for him when looking for a new job?"

When looking for a new role, I mostly used Indeed and LinkedIn. I assumed because recruitment was a more desk-based role, Linkedin would be a good place to look and it did provide a lot of jobs to apply for. Indeed is how I first learned about Prime, along with a few other agencies. However, I felt like I had more success searching for recruitment/recruitment roles on Linkedin. I also briefly used TotalJobs but nothing came of that one.

"Being a local Bury St Edmunds lad, was a role in the local town an attraction to you?"

Yes, working in Bury was my main checkbox. Even if the role wasn’t paying well, the savings on transportation would make it worth it and also a massive time saver with travelling. Luckily I found both. However, I would’ve travelled to Ipswich and Cambridge (train connections) for a role if it was required and couldn’t find anything in Bury.

A quarter of our staff at Prime Appointments started as graduates and are always looking for people who have excellent communication, time management and organisational skills. If this sounds like you, then check out our careers page