Meet the team! William Johnstone

Meet William, our Senior Account Manager. William works in our Glasgow office and joined us in January 2018 as a graduate trainee. He's one of Net Talent's many success stories!

Quickly rising through the ranks, William is an excellent example of the career progression available with Net Talent, achieved through hard work, ambition and the right mentoring and support from our team.

 

Hi William! You've had an amazing start to your career at Net Talent - can you tell us a bit about your background?

Once I finished school I had no idea what I wanted to do but I liked learning about how people behaved in different places & times so I decided I wanted to go study politics & history. Cut to 4 years later and I had graduated from Strathclyde Uni with a degree I enjoyed but a similar lack of knowledge as to what I wanted to do long-term. I kept an eye on different graduate schemes that could be interesting and spotted a graduate internship in my local council working with business process that I thought could be quite interesting & might tie into some aspects of my politics degree.

So, how did you become interested in recruitment?

I really enjoyed the people I worked with in the council but the job itself wasn’t for me as I found it a bit too slow-paced. It was only a temporary job so I started to look about trying to again summon some level of awareness for what I was looking to get out of my career, something that had eluded me until this point – you may notice a theme here.

In the end, it took a passing remark from a career advisor who had worked in recruitment before saying I might be suited for it. Over the next few months I slowly built up some basic knowledge of what the industry was like and managed my expectations accordingly. After a few months of the idea bubbling away in the back of my head, I started applying directly for recruitment roles.

How did you end up at Net Talent?

The honest answer is sheer dumb luck and a little bit of persistence. After applying for a graduate/ trainee recruitment role which I was rejected from at the second stage, I applied for another role which never went anywhere, then another, then another. A week later I was interviewing at Net Talent. In itself that’s a good lesson for any graduates/ junior candidates looking in the job market – when you don’t have experience you’ll get a lot of rejections & some won’t even let you know you’ve been rejected. Enthusiasm & persistence will see you through.

Once the interview was scheduled, I made sure I was very well prepared. I went to the interview and it just felt right. I wasn’t sold any dream or romantic notion of recruitment, instead it was a lot of direct questions about my motivations, persistence, and expectations. But I was promised that if I worked hard I would get support, training, and eventually success. That was enough for me and when I was offered the job I took a pay cut to join.

What does your role entail?

Lots of communication. On any day it will be a mixture of any of the following: searching for new candidates; chasing down leads; creating adverts; meeting with clients or candidates; reporting on targets & current jobs; doing market or company research; setting up interviews & meetings; all the while trying to communicate with multiple clients & candidates to see what they need, keep them informed, or simply just chat to them to see what makes them tick.

As a recruiter you’re a hand-holder, negotiator, scheduler, secretary, market expert, & search engine.

As I’ve been promoted and gained more experience, the role has changed but not a lot. Mostly it has involved becoming more time efficient, more market aware, and having much more client interaction – the role at the core is still pretty much the same, just with a lot more expectation & responsibility.

What’s your favourite thing about Net Talent?

It’s a cliché as old as time, but the team. We have some exceedingly different personalities & backgrounds within the team which makes it a repeatedly interesting place to work.

It’s also a very nice feeling when you build up a connection to a client or candidate and then help them find the right person or job – that’s the high you’re always chasing really.

Other than that, the fact that you are rewarded for doing a good job in the form of more responsibility & trust. Sounds simple and obvious but I don’t think it’s a policy that is always practiced in some jobs.

What has been your proudest achievement to date?

That I survived the first year of recruitment! It’s not an easy job, especially when you have no network & limited market knowledge as you do at the beginning, now I’m on the other side, I appreciate how important it is to just stick in at it once you start.

Similar to the last question, there have also been a few placements where the personal connection with one of the parties involved did make it feel a lot more special.

 

Thanks for taking the time to chat William! 

 

 

Interested in working for Net Talent? Send us your CV to recruitment@nettalent.net – we’d love to hear from you!

We recruit people who demonstrate the right attitude and behaviours and coach and mentor them in our working philosophy and practice. This includes those searching for a professional career, as well as a number of recent graduates. The result is a team of like-minded people who actively enjoy each other’s company and instinctively know how to do the right thing.

Find out more about careers with us here.