Resilience, Recruitment and the Art of Not Spiralling

Ask any recruiter what the most important attribute should be when working in their line of work, and they all give the same answer: resilience. Not exactly surprising when recruitment culture is based on fast-paced, tight deadlines and managing candidate and client futures, hopes and dreams; as well as the hope of a tasty fee at the end of it. However, recruitment is a people-led industry and (as we know) people are fickle, unreliable and unpredictable, so a good monthly pipeline can sometimes crumble to dust before you know it.

Candidate didn’t show up for their interview, oh my god. Client filled the role internally, ah no. “Candidate showed up to interview visibly drunk”, what the hell! Recruitment shows the full spectrum of human nature, so it is no surprise at all that Resilience is often praised in this line of work.

So, what is resilience? Is it smiling on a Teams call while internally buffering? Is it calling it a “learning curve” when it was clearly a catastrophic disaster? Well, maybe, probably not. 

The APA (American Psychological Association) describes resilience as “adapting to life-changing situations or stressful situations”, while psychologists call it “adapting well in the face of adversity” https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/building-your-resilience. Sounds pretty simple when you phrase it like that. But, of course, it cannot be that easy. 

The mental health charity Mind acknowledges that resilience means different things to different people because of our different life experiences and reactions to stress. Resilience is activated in response to stress. Stress can push us into automatic responses: avoiding the issue, panicking, overworking, shutting down, or going into full fight-or-flight mode. Mind also suggests that we cannot control how we respond to stress due to ingrained upbringing conditioning, which means it is a very personal topic, really. Mind also reminds us that resilience is not just about attitude. Our ability to cope with stress is shaped by wider factors such as health, discrimination, loneliness, money worries, caring responsibilities, housing and access to support, https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/stress/managing-stress-and-building-resilience/ .

And with points made such as this, it is hard to have an old-fashioned get on with it attitude.

As not only are we battling our ingrained upbringing response to stress but also our surrounding external factors. Can we really win? Can we really build resilience as not only recruiters but individuals? 

The answer is yes, obviously; otherwise this article would be pretty useless, wouldn’t it? 

SO going to war with resilience. How to? To begin with, it is helpful to identify the stress triggers. In recruitment, this might look like candidate dropouts, rejected offers, client ghosting, unrealistic hiring managers who need 5 candidates for this very-specific-niche-role this very second, now please! It’s important to look at what these nail-biting, hair-losing, forehead-creasing stressors are. Once you have, then you can focus on what you can control. You cannot force a candidate to attend an interview or stop a client from changing their mind, but you can control your follow-up process, communication, preparation, and how quickly you respond when things start to do a three-sixty when you least expect it. 

When things do flip on their head, the reaction is sometimes panic and have a lack of understanding of what is happening and viewing the situation as a giant chaotic ball of sorrow. It can feel all-consuming. It is recommended to break down the chaos into smaller, manageable actions. Resilience can look like writing bullet points of three things you need to do: call the client, re-brief the candidate, update the pipeline. And do not panic. Finding actionable steps gives you something to do and turns panic into action!

Not only in actions can we respond to stress, but we must be mentally strong as well. This means building psychological flexibility. This means pausing and noticing what you are thinking and feeling. And instead of acting on impulse, which might be fear or panic, take a beat and think about how you are responding. Essentially, being mindful. And there are plenty of ways to be more mindful. Find a helpful little NHS link here. https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/tips-and-support/mindfulness/ . 

In conjunction with mindfulness, recruiters and everyone must must must practice self-compassion. As recruitment is quite an agapic vocation, you often take a setback personally. Each hurdle feels personal when it isn’t. As said previously, there are some things which you can’t control, such as no-show candidates, and the mentality needs to be Que sera, sera. Easier said than done though. Instead of focusing on the negative, acknowledge what that has taught you and positive achievements, even when it is difficult. 

A few other quick things to help your personal resilience. Is looking after basics such as sleep, food, exercise and taking breaks away from the desk! These aren’t breaking the wheel, but they do affect how you cope. For example, when you don’t get enough sleep, your body produces excess stress hormones like cortisol, keeping you in "high alert" mode. As well as exercise has been proven to increase your resilience to stress https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4013452/. This doesn't only refer to a proper workout routine, but something as futile as a walk can imrpove your stress levels and therefore resilience at work https://www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters/mental-wellbeing-tips/be-active-for-your-mental-health/. Chemically hard to ignore!

Use support instead of suffering in silence.  Do lean on people, do ask for support, and do talk to your network. Whether that is a manager, colleague, mentor, friend, or someone who simply understands the chaos, let them in. It can feel like you are bothering people, but most of the time, you are not. You are just being human.

A resilient recruiter is not necessarily the one who never struggles. More often, it is the one who recognises when things are starting to feel too heavy and reaches out before it becomes unmanageable. Sometimes someone will offer a solution. Sometimes they will simply listen. Both matter.

So, again, can resilience be built? Yes, but not by forcing ourselves to “get over it” or pretending every setback is fine when it is very clearly not fine. Resilience is built through small, repeated acts of care: learning your triggers, pausing before you spiral, focusing on what you can control, letting go of what you cannot, and reminding yourself that one difficult moment does not mean you are bad at your job.

Because recruitment will always be recruitment. Candidates will no-show. Clients will change their minds. Offers will fall apart. Pipelines will crumble at the worst possible time. And yes, someone somewhere will still probably turn up to an interview in a way that makes you question everything.

But those moments do not have to define the whole day, the whole month, or your whole sense of self. You are allowed to be frustrated. You are allowed to have the dramatic five minutes. You are allowed to care. In fact, caring is probably what makes you good at this job in the first place.

The key is not to carry every setback as proof that you have failed. Take the lesson where there is one, take the break where you need one, make the cup of tea, speak to someone if it helps, and then come back when you are ready.