If there is one thing that this world will never stop needing, it's people who work to find other people jobs, or employment agents. This can be a very challenging and rewarding job. If you have the right personality and can get the most out of both ends of the equation involved, you can make a nice living as an employment agent. What you're about to read is a brief description of what's involved. Obviously, as an employment agent, your job is to find other people jobs. But the obvious doesn't always really tell the whole story of what's involved with a job. Being an employment agent is no exception. The best way to explain the challenges of an employment agent is to give you fictional example of the process. A guy comes into your office and says he's looking for a job. The first thing you do is have him fill out a very long questionnaire. This will give you a good idea of the person's background and what they're looking for. The agent will take some time to look over the application and then call them into the office to talk. The conversation that follows is more to get a sense of the applicant's personality than his skills. Those things are all on paper. The agent wants to get a feel for the person's confidence level with his skills. A big part of getting an applicant a job is knowing the applicant's strengths and weaknesses. You need to be able to play up the strengths and downplay the weaknesses when presenting the applicant to a perspective employer. It is during this interview that the agent will ask the applicant what he's looking for specifically and then what he would settle for as far as position and money. Ideally you want to be able to get him what he wants but in a competitive market this isn't always possible. It is the agent's responsibility to explain to the applicant that he can't be too choosy, especially if he has been out of work for a while. After the interview is over, the agent then gets on the phone with as many companies as he can that are on file with the agency where the job description at least closely matches what the applicant is looking for. In these phone calls it is the agent's responsibility to "sell" the applicant to the company. This is not easy to do, especially when you're representing somebody who has limited skills. This is where you have to be a real sales person. If the agent manages to find a company willing to meet with the applicant for a job interview, the next step is for the agent to call the applicant back in and prepare him for the interview. This is where the agent instructs about dress, what to say, what not to say, how to behave, etc. The agent must leave nothing to chance. He'll then give the applicant directions for the interview as well as what time to be there. Hopefully, when the process is over, the applicant will get the job offer and accept it and the agent will receive his commission. Yes, most agents work on a commission basis. You can make a lot of money doing this. You can also starve to death if you're not good at your job. Being an employment agent requires incredible social skills and patience and it's not for everybody. But if you think you have what it takes and like the excitement of having to sell another human being to a big corporation, this may be just the job for you. |
