David Rolls is a 360 recruiter by trade, now recruiting consultant and influencer on TikTok and LinkedIn.

David and I met when I brought him on as one of our influencers at my previous company. Little did I know how much richness he would have to share all around the changes in the recruiting industry, the differences between working as an internal vs agency recruiter, and his holistic approach for how to show up as your best self at work.

In this episode, we cover:

* Internal vs agency recruiters and what that means for you when you are one

* Contingent vs retained recruitment models

* Why the recruitment industry gets a bad rap and what he’s doing to improve it

* Why there aren’t many great freelance recruiters

* And some fun topics around:

* Why the US calls it “soccer” instead of “football”

* Why traveling around Southeast Asia didn’t satisfy David’s need for purpose

Quote of the day:

* “I wasn't sure if I wanted to go backpacking again, or if I wanted to, you know, start my career, because to be honest with you, when I was backpacking, as much as I enjoyed it, I definitely felt like I lost purpose. I realized during my trip that I love traveling, it's all I do, it's what I live for, but I definitely need some sort of purpose, and I definitely need something else.”

Amanda’s post-recording reflections:

* At the time, I felt like I was battling conflicting voices in my head when I had my bad first experience in consulting- should I stay and ride it out a bit, or should I go and write off the experience completely? For anyone working in the recruiting industry like David, he shared his take on the wide range of different cultures that exist at recruiting firms, and what some of the more modern firms are like. I would implore anyone considering a switch into (or within) the world of recruiting to take a listen- he didn’t take his first experience as a blanket statement for how all recruiting jobs would be, and was able to find much better environments as he started advancing in his career. There is hope!

A quick poll to get a sense for how you’ve felt if you’ve ever worked with a recruiter

If you learned something new about how recruiting works while listening to this episode, I would love to know what it was in the comments below!

Cheers,

Amanda

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