SITE Staffing Recruiter Profile Series
Selina Owens is an experienced recruiter who helps the SITE Staffing candidates find the perfect jobs for them. Get to know Selina in our recruiter profile series!
What’s a typical “day in the life” for you as a recruiter?
Selina: There’s no such thing, there really isn’t. No matter how much you plan your day, it’s always guided by your clients and your employees. They set the agenda. But in terms of the kind of work I do, a big part of it is sourcing, which is trying to figure out the best places to find the quality of candidate you’re looking for. You can really look anywhere, depending on the type of position. We often source through our own internal system, as well as different job boards and networking websites, but the biggest one of all is who you know/referrals/word of mouth.
Selina: Another important aspect of the job is interviewing. Here in the skilled department we shoot for 12 interviews a week, since the jobs we’re placing for require more experience. Some weeks it can be as low as 4; it’s a tough market for staffing right now and it can be hard to always hit 12. Then on really good weeks – for instance when we have a job fair and put some extra advertising out there – we can have as many as 20.
How did you get into this field/what appeals to you about it?
Selina: I started out as a government secretary and was promoted to analyst for the city of Madison’s Equal Opportunity Group. This promotional opportunity included targeted recruitment for city employees. When I moved to Florida, I looked for recruitment opportunities and stumbled upon staffing, thinking my experience in the public sector would translate to private businesses. Turns out it was the complete opposite, haha.
Government recruiting is very slow, all about the requirements and bureaucracy, and you might work on one placement for over a month. In the staffing industry, it sometimes happens as quickly as a day. Much more of an instant type of thing. There are pros and cons to both: I prefer the pace of staffing, as I get bored real quick, but unfortunately that also translates into a less stable workforce, and that can be frustrating.
What do you love about working for SITE in particular?
An interesting thing I’ve noticed about SITE is that there’s a lot more clients than most staffing companies. In Florida there was one on every block, so it was much more competitive – you found 1 or 2 businesses and stuck to them. We had a 70 person rule, meaning every recruiter had to just be in charge of 70 people, and if business went beyond that 70, they would hire someone new. Every recruiter had a lot more to do with account management though, which is a very different model compared to SITE, where we have many more clients and a specialized staff to take up those account management responsibilities so recruiters can constantly find new candidates.
Do you have any tips for those job hunting, such as for resumes or interviews?
I like open candidates, both in honesty and flexibility. The more you express what it is you really want and need, what you will do and won’t do, the better I can do my job. A lot of people come to staffing agencies claiming they’ll work any job, but if you give me honest information about what you’re looking for, we’ll be able to find you the right fit, and maybe prevent anything that would lead to a no-call-no-show situation.
Other than that, have a resume prepared, come well-dressed, don’t take your phone out, just generally be professional. The problem is that not everyone treats staffing agencies like they do employers, as if we’ll do all the heavy lifting of finding you employment – take this just as seriously as you would any job interview, because that’s what it is. Just because you’re interviewing for multiple jobs at once through us doesn’t mean the standards change.
What do you do in your free time – Hobbies? Family?
I’m actually trying to figure that out now, to be honest. I was in Florida for nine years, but eventually moved back to Wisconsin to be close to family. When your kids are little you don’t really have hobbies, but they’ve all finally grown up now, so getting back to some beach vacation time would be nice to avoid the empty nest syndrome. The good thing is that my extended family in Milwaukee is huge, well over a hundred people, so it’s still great to be here with them. That’s where all those referrals come from, haha.
Interested in meeting with a SITE Staffing recruiter? You can tell us a bit about yourself here!