What a decade at Core-Asset has taught me about recruitment

Kamilla Mathias - Senior Consultant, Front Office Asset Management

From client successes to personal victories, no two days are the same in the rewarding recruitment sector. I’ve been able to climb the business ladder and even gain a university degree during my time at Core-Asset Consulting. For those with a desire to improve themselves, people and businesses, a decade of recruitment has taught me about why it might be the sector for you.

My journey in recruitment is not necessarily one you would expect. In order to help support my family following my parents’ divorce, I decided to find myself a job straight after finishing school, instead of heading to university. I found work at a law firm as a personal assistant and got a taste for the corporate world but I knew I wanted to find a job that gave me a further sense of purpose, something that could enable me to positively change people’s lives. This materialised when my family left our home in Austria and came to Scotland, where I secured an associate position at Core-Asset Consulting.

While working as an Associate, the MD at the time (now CEO), Betsy Williamson, asked me if I ever wanted to study. After telling her of my interest in Business Management as a degree, I enrolled in the course offered by Napier University with the help and support from the whole Core-Asset team. While working full-time, I eventually graduated with a First-Class degree in 2018 and could not be more thankful to Betsy and my colleagues for helping me realise my full potential.

Climbing the recruitment ladder, I was given the opportunity to move into my current role of Senior Consultant, where I help businesses and clients identify and recruit the right people for vital vacancies, as well as guide candidates towards the right roles for them. I recruit investment professionals for a range of opportunities specialising in investment management, client management, analysis, and product specialism predominantly in the UK, but also globally. Working as part of the team, I am always on hand to assist in other areas of the firm as well.

Once a new vacancy comes in, it’s all hands on deck! It starts by venturing out into the recruitment market with your client’s requirements, where I utilise my extensive personal network as well as searching on the usual platforms. Then when I’ve found the right person and our client progresses them to the next stage, the interview preparation process begins.

The entire recruitment process can last for about a month involving several interview stages. By the end of the process, I become extremely familiar with the candidates; knowing anything from their family background to their favourite pastimes. Helping someone realise their career goals takes more than just looking at their CV, you have to get to know someone at a deeper level to understand their motivations, aspirations and how best you can support them throughout their job search. After building such strong relationships with my candidates, there is no better feeling than achieving a successful recruitment result at the end. Knowing that I’ve made both the client and the candidate happy is an exhilarating feeling and sustains me through any rejections that occur.

At Core-Asset Consulting we put people before profit. It is this core value that drives the business and gives us a unique flair that attracts clients and candidates. We are centred around people, as any recruitment job should be. Of course, there are plenty of financial benefits to working in recruitment such as commission on top of a base salary; however, you cannot thrive in the recruitment business without putting people first.

At Core-Asset Consulting we put people before profit. It is this core value that drives the business and gives us a unique flair that attracts clients and candidates. We are centred around people, as any recruitment job should be. Of course, there are plenty of financial benefits to working in recruitment such as commission on top of a base salary; however, you cannot thrive in the recruitment business without putting people first.

Year-on-year, I continue to recommend roles in recruitment when I meet someone with the right qualities and skill-set.

The ideal candidate has to care. Care about individuals, about clients and, crucially, about the team they work with. We take immense pride in our people-focused approach to services and this has to originate within the team. In the same vein, a love for interacting with others is key. A people person will thrive in a person-led role, and even if you consider yourself shy; a willingness and desire to come out of your shell will help you go very far in recruitment.

It goes without saying that the ideal recruitment consultant needs to be focused and proactive. At Core-Asset Consulting we are all afforded a lot of freedom and responsibility to manage our own time, which is ideal for anyone that is hardworking and has the confidence to manage their own time and multitask effectively.

Furthermore, anyone working in recruitment must be resilient. There will always be days where your candidate doesn’t get the role you prepared them for and initially this can be difficult to take. Very quickly, you learn to bounce back from disappointments – instead, taking them in your stride and using these setbacks as experience to learn from.

I am deeply proud to work for Core-Asset and I am very happy and settled in my role here. I’d always urge those interested in recruitment to reach out to us, in what is a truly fantastic job in a supportive and close-knit team. This is not a stop gap job; if you prove yourself and work hard you will progress quickly and are guaranteed to be rewarded.