If any of you recruiters out there, like me, obsessively watch have ever seen an episode of Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker, you may have noted the similarity between recruiting and matchmaking. Both jobs entail trying to deliver the best candidates possible to a customer in hopes to make the perfect match (and end up happily ever after).

The other similarity? “It’s a very crazy industry,” says Daniel Banfield, a former partnership director at a national staffing firm. Crazy, however, isn’t necessarily a bad thing: where some people burn out from the fast pace and high demands of the job, others thrive on these elements.

Whether you’re thinking of starting a career in recruiting and staffing industry, or you want to move up from your current position, Banfield and Erik Kelley, both account executives in CareerBuilder’s Staffing and Recruiting Group, offered up the following advice based of their own experiences.

Five Steps to Success in the Recruiting and Staffing Industry

1. Don’t expect success to come to you. The skills that it takes at one level of your career might not necessarily what gets you to the next point in your career. “Know what it takes to be successful, and be completely mindful of what it’s going to take to move up,” Banfield says. To do this, he suggests getting a mentor, who can help you set realistic expectations about your career path and what it takes to move up, including the challenges that come with the various roles. Make every effort to connect with others in the industry (which you can do through LinkedIn or joining a professional organization, such as SHRM or the ASA), who can guide you along in your career path.
2. Make yourself indispensable.  “You need to be looked to as leader, someone who’s putting people to work,” says Kelley, once an account executive at a national staffing firm, of how recruiters can set themselves apart and move up to senior recruiter and sales positions. How do you accomplish leadership cred? Again, it’s all about being proactive: join an organization that’s suited to your interests; attend recruiting conferences and events; sign up for free webinars online; follow industry experts on social media sites (such as Facebook.com/CareerBuilderforStaffing); and read up on industry reports to stay current on staffing and recruiting trends (such as checking out the recent Opportunities in Staffing guide), to name a few options. Become an expert in your field, and clients and colleagues will begin to see you as an indispensable resource.
3. Recognize that change is inevitable: Due to the dynamic, fast-paced nature of the recruiting and staffing industry, it requires a certain amount of agility and willingness to adapt to an ever-changing environment. “If you can’t deal with the element of change very well, then recruiting and staffing is not the career for you, because you will be on an emotional roller coaster with good days and bad,” says Kelley.  While Kelley loved “the satisfaction of putting people to work who deserved it,” there were definite downsides to the role as well, such as the disappointment of seeing a candidate ultimately not work out for reasons beyond his control – and the toll it would then take on his (compensation-based) paycheck.
4. Beware of burnout. “There’s a huge burnout factor,” says Banfield of the nature of the job. Yet there are ways to combat this, such as finding multiple projects to work on, joining a professional organization specific to your niche. Keeping up on the industry and continuously educating yourself are critical to staying ahead. Most importantly, find an organization to work for that encourages growth. “A lot of success is organization-driven. You have to foster that environment [as an organization].”
5. Do it because you love it. To paraphrase what Amber Naslund says about social media, If you don’t love it, you’ll suck at it. The same might be said about recruiting. (Okay, you might not suck at it, but passion to succeed definitely works for you in this industry.) “I think people go into recruiting by accident because they need a job, and they find out later that they either hate it or love it,” says Kelley. And it is those who love it, Banfield believes, who will find the most success in this industry: “If someone’s just out for the number, it’s not going to work out.”

What are some of the lessons you’ve learned by working in the recruiting and staffing industry? Do you think the pros of the job outweigh the cons?