SITE Staffing Recruiter Profile Series
Brenna Ratajczyk is a dedicated recruiter who helps the SITE Staffing candidates find the perfect jobs for them. Get to know Brenna in our recruiter profile series!
What’s a typical “day in the life” for you as a recruiter?
Brenna: Busy, busy, busy! We’re posting jobs, interviewing candidates, working with our clients directly to find out what their needs are, and trying our hardest to match up the applicants that walk in our door with the clients’ needs. There’s always a lot of follow up, as it’s a balancing act between keeping both our clients and our applicants happy. We’re not able to help everyone who walks in the door, I wish we could, but we want to make sure that we’re finding the best jobs for our applicants, and that in return our clients are getting good, hard workers as well.
We have a Light-Industrial Department that does a lot of project work or ongoing assignments, so it usually includes positions that don’t require a specific skill set, but applicants can train right on the job their first day.
We also have the Skilled Department, where I work, that focuses on higher-qualified candidates with resumes and specific skill sets companies are looking for. Half of our companies in the skilled department then require applicants to go there for a second interview, a slightly more rigorous process, but we’ve been fortunate enough to build enough rapport and trust with the other half of companies that they trust us with the whole hiring process, so we’re essentially an extension of their human resources department. It’s great when we can get to that level with our clients.
In the Skilled Department, we usually work with resume submittals and by appointment. But we will get skilled candidates that qualify for our positions through walk-ins as well, you never know who’s going to walk through the door. Our Light-Industrial Department is really good at identifying those skilled candidates and passing them back to this department so we can find out what we have that might be a better fit for them. And sometimes it goes the other way as well, we may interview someone and it turns out they don’t have quite the skill set we’re looking for, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – we can still pass them along to Light-Industrial to find the right fit. It’s kind of a nice tag-team effort.
How did you get into this field/what appeals to you about it?
Brenna: I received my Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources and was fortunate enough to get a full-time job right out of college working HR at a non-profit, very close to where SITE Staffing is located. It’s called Inter-Faith Older Adult Programs, and they also happen to be one of our clients now, though I worked there before that was the case. After being there for about three years I wanted to branch out and try something different, so I came to SITE and interviewed for a recruiter position.
Jeff Wein (SITE Staffing’s owner) is an amazing salesman and sold me on the great things about staffing, which are all true: you get to see how things are made, to network and meet all kinds of different people, and best of all you’re changing people’s lives by helping them find jobs. I never knew what a staffing company was before starting to work here, so it was a trial by fire, learning not only about staffing but all the different industries we work with. After about 6 months I could tell that I really enjoyed the opportunity that I had here.
I did leave after three years – working with so many companies you get a good idea of what kind of industry you want to work in, and given my education I thought I wanted to try Human Resources again – but after 6 months at another company I realized I missed recruiting, that when I was working at SITE I enjoyed coming to work every day; I would even stay late or come in on the weekend if I needed. So now I’m back!
What do you love about working for SITE in particular?
Brenna: I kind of touched on this in the last question, but I’ll go ahead and add that it’s a great place to work where management helps guide and train the recruiters to grow and develop their skills and professional relationships. I feel like my opinion is heard and that I can help improve policies and processes. Plus we have some great holiday parties!
Do you have any tips for those job hunting, such as for resumes or interviews?
Brenna: One of the biggest search engines that we use is milwaukeejobs.com and when we ask applicants to submit a resume we have screening questions as well – transportation, preferred shifts, etc. We, unfortunately, get a lot of applicants who either don’t answer them or take them seriously, and that is a serious red flag for us, since not only are those answers important for us to place you in the right job but if you don’t take the application process seriously how can we know you’ll take the job seriously? Also, simply having a working telephone number is essential, since we need to be able to get a hold of you, and on that note, make sure your voicemail, email address, and conversation etiquette are professional – first impressions are everything, even before we meet you.
What do you like to do in your free time? Hobbies? Family?
Brenna: I used to go out a lot on weekends, then my husband and I had a child, so not anymore. We try to take him out places but he’s only 18 months, so some days he cooperates and some days he doesn’t. He’s getting to the stage where he’s about to start talking though and I can’t wait; it’ll be nice when we can actually communicate instead of just grunting at one another, but of course, everyone says that as soon as they learn to talk they never stop. None of our friends have kids yet, but they put up with us and love him, so it feels like an extended family.
Interested in meeting with a SITE Staffing recruiter? You can tell us a bit about yourself here!