I read a semi-interesting Herald article about anti-abortionist Chris Luxon this week. Being semi-interesting, it was of course behind a paywall, so apologies if you can’t read it. For those who refuse to pay for news, it highlights how Luxon’s approval rating is at a two year low, having dropped three percent, and now barely hovers above Chris Hipkins as our preferred leader. The article opines that he’s too far gone and now has the chance of a “managed exit” or a vote of no confidence. As quickly as he arrived on the scene, Luxon may be gone.
Being a former Prime Minister is a pretty sweet gig however. From a financial perspective, the PMship is a mere apprenticeship. The real bunce comes with what you do afterwards. There’s something about those contacts, that understanding of the workings of the inner sanctum, that tee you up for some pretty sweet little earners. Be it on the board of a major bank, the Grand Poobah of the UN, or just a world speaking tour – being a Prime Minister or President sometimes seems like the necessary hard yards someone has to put in before the main event. Luxon will be no different.
Being a former recruitment consultant might be slightly different.
Last week’s blog got me thinking about this. No, not about people’s addiction to virtue signalling in the comment section, but what we can all do when we get out of this crazy industry. The economic conditions of the last two years have created more former recruiters than new recruiters (a very rare occurrence), and these people must go somewhere. Just what does the unique skills and experiences of being a recruiter set you up for given the UN don’t seem interested (trust me, I’ve tried)?
Once upon a time, there were four pathways for the agency recruiter at the start of their career. Option one was inertia. To continue doing what they are doing. Typically working for a global, you would be a Hays/Walters/Page boy/girl from school. Starting as an Associate Consultant in the Swindon branch, you’d slowly climb the ranks – not necessarily through skill, but more time-served, politics, and the ability to always bill just enough. This path has taken some to branch management, some to national roles, and some to manage multiple countries, until the mortgage is paid off, the pension pot is full and they retire to some nice-enough suburb of a nice enough city.
Option two was for the more buccaneering recruiter. After two years at Hays, you and your gobby mate leave to either set up shop yourself, or work for someone who has. The end aim regardless being to have sizeable equity in a business that you would one day sell. Selling recruitment firms for loads of money was a “thing“, and many have retired early because of this. Some have retired early, sniffed away all the cash, and done it again.
Option three was to “go internal”. Now here’s where some of you will judge commentary as opinion. Going internal was, for many years, seen as the escape route for those who were good at filling roles, but consistently failed at picking them up. I am not saying that internal recruiters are failed agency recruiters. Actually I am, but failing at the aggressive sales tactics used in the London market probably makes you a good person.
Option four was to fail entirely. This would see people returning to whatever industry they came from, or sliding down the ranks of increasingly high volume (but low margin) sales roles. From Consultant at Hudson, to sales person at the Carphone Warehouse, to door-to-door energy sales.
In 2025, the landscape looks quite different, especially in Aotearoa. If we look at the global firms, with Robert Walters being a case in point, they’re not necessarily the place to have a long career. Unfortunately, we’ve seen office closures and redundancies (or at least “downsizing”) across the board. Yes, you can still stick around and become a manager, but you might not be managing any staff. And if you look at the share price of Robert Walters, it’s about a sixth of what it was in 2022. A tough place to see out a career until retirement.
Setting up your own firm is probably even less likely to see you out of the launch on your 50th birthday. Most recruitment firms which have launched in the last two years have been “lifestyle” businesses. They’ll pay the bills sure, but will never be sold. And if we look at what public listed recruitment firms are currently worth, I don’t see there being much appetite for any sizeable acquisitions. Credit to Pete Stewart right!! Jason Walker was very proactive on the launch of Recruitment Entrepreneur in New Zealand, and I think signed up one “entrepreneur”, and that person was already running their own recruitment firm. Sadly, be it timing or culture, this doesn’t seem to be the market for it.
Option three is even harder. More internal recruiters have lost their jobs this time round than agency. I never thought I’d see it, but agency recruitment has been the safe have from the internal storm. And if we leave the recruitment industry, but stay in sales, do we move to a industry which is booming currently? Can anyone tell what industry actually is booming right now and I’ll get my CV across.
There’s a new option now, or at least one that wasn’t common when I started my career, and that’s to have the bizarre and sadistic notion to move into generalist HR. Now why you’d do this is anyone’s guess, but some recruiters get into recruitment as a pathway to becoming an HR Office in a regional haulage company. I know right? I’ve been a recruiter for twenty years, and placed over a hundred HR professionals, but firmly believe I know less about being an HR generalist that the average HR administrator on week two. The pay is bad, the stress is high, but yes, it is an option after a career in recruitment.
This all sounds slightly depressing I’m sure. What can I do? I write a recruitment blog in 2025. I do believe however, that if you are a recruitment consultant today, you have a very high chance of being one next year (should you want to be). I’m never going to claim (again) that we are about to experience any kind of boom, but I firmly believe that the worst is behind us. We may continue to bumble along the bottom, but from what I’m seeing, that frog in the pan is slowly warming up in such small increments that he can’t even feel it. And with time, stability will return to the globals, new firms will launch and be sold, and CEOs will start asking what happened to that internal recruitment team.
Here’s hoping.
^SW
