Becoming a recruiter without experience: what you bring and what we teach you.

Hardly any school teaches recruitment. Most people who start in the trade come from another job or straight from their studies. That’s not a drawback: what you learned there, you bring with you.

So with us, you don’t need experience in recruitment. We look at who you are: your appetite, your drive and how you deal with people. To find out whether that’s you, read Is recruitment right for you? This piece is about the switch itself.

What you bring

What you do today is worth more than you think. A few examples.

From sales

You can pitch, you’re used to hearing no and you work with targets. That’s a big head start. What’s new: you’re not selling a product, but a step in someone’s career, and you have two buyers who can both say no. Listening becomes at least as important as persuading.

From hospitality or retail

You think on your feet, you talk to everyone and you keep a cool head when it gets busy. What’s new: long processes. A placement takes weeks, and you follow up dozens of conversations at once.

From your sector

Did you work on a building site, at an engineering consultancy or an accountancy firm? Then you know the language and the people of your market. Candidates and clients trust you sooner, because you know what you’re talking about. What’s new: selling. That’s where you’ll grow most.

Fresh from your studies

You have no habits to unlearn and you soak everything up. What’s new: just about everything, and that’s exactly the point. If you’re eager to learn and not afraid to pick up the phone, you learn fast.

What you learn here

What you don’t know yet, you learn on the floor, with a coach beside you. Your first two months are a training programme in three parts:

• Candidates. Calling people who aren’t looking, getting to know them, finding out what they really want and selling them their next step.
• Clients. Finding the decision-⁠maker, landing a vacancy, agreeing your fee and presenting candidates.
• From interview to first day. Planning and debriefing interviews, the offer, the notice period and the follow-⁠up after they start.

Each time, you learn the theory, apply it on the floor and get feedback from your manager, who you sit down with every morning to plan your day. You can read what that work looks like in What does a recruiter do? Our training on the craft is in the Hub too.

How you start

If you’ve never sold before, you start as a trainee. You learn the trade and close your first deals. After four deals, you become a consultant and run your own market. If you have sold before, we look at what level you start at, based on what you achieved with your previous employer.

You start as an employee, with a permanent contract, a fixed salary and commission on every placement, plus a company car and the usual fringe benefits. You can read what that adds up to in What does a recruiter earn in Belgium?

Let’s not be naive about it

Switching has a cost. Your fixed salary may be lower than what you earn today, especially if you’ve already been working for a few years. The first months are tough: a lot is new, and the bar is high. And in a new line of work, you’re the new kid again, even if you were somebody elsewhere.

So why would you do it? Because in the first years, you’re not working for today’s salary, but for what comes after. With us, a career unfolds in three steps:

1. Learn. You soak everything up: from your coach, from your colleagues and from every call on the floor.
2. Invest. Two to three years of calling, placing and repeating, until you can do the job with your eyes closed. Your commission grows with you, with no ceiling.
3. Capitalise. Then you reap the rewards: as a partner with your own office or team, with a stake in what you build, or as an independent at Shortlist, where you keep up to 75% of what you bill.

That’s the carrot, and it’s not out of reach. Romina started with us as a trainee, was a principal four years later and is a partner today: she runs our Antwerp office. And our fastest trainee was heading up their own team after sixteen months. You can read how a career like that unfolds in Your career in recruitment.

How to prepare

• Pick a sector that fascinates you. You’ll be calling people from it every day. If you’re genuinely interested in their work, they notice.
• Read up. Start with What does a recruiter do? and Is recruitment right for you?
• Know why you want it. We ask about it in your interviews with us: what attracts you, and what do you expect from us?
• Shadow us for a day. On the Experience Day, you spend a day on the floor next to a senior consultant. Afterwards, you know whether it’s for you.

Take a look at the sales consultant vacancies in construction, finance and engineering, or have a chat with us.

Frequently asked questions

Can you become a recruiter without a degree?

You don’t need a specific degree. What counts is how you deal with people, whether you dare to pick up the phone and whether you want to win. You learn the trade on the floor.

Do you need to have worked in sales first?

No. If you’ve never sold, you start as a trainee and learn the trade from scratch. If you have sold before, we look at what level you start at.

How soon do you make your first placement?

After two months of training, you work on your own deals for real. As a trainee, you aim for four deals in your first six months. Then you become a consultant.

Do you start at the bottom if you already sell?

Not necessarily. If you’ve sold before, we set your starting level based on what you achieved with your previous employer.

You’ll find all the steps at a glance in our guide Becoming a recruiter in Belgium.