“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” – Winston Churchill

Scrolling my way through LinkedIn recently, an image caught my eye. The image was intriguing – if the letters A-Z are of equal value to the numbers 1-26, then the values of each individual letter of ‘KNOWLEDGE’ equals 96%. ‘HARDWORK’ equals 98% and ‘ATTITUDE’ 100%. The image testifies to the fact that whilst knowledge and hard work are important in the workplace, the most important attribute is your attitude.

My first experience of attitude in the workplace came from my teenage and student years working in the local pub restaurant. Although the money was poor, and the long, anti-social hours would blister my feet, I maintained a positive attitude towards my colleagues and customers, and embraced new ideas and challenges. The pub would always telephone me at university when the holidays were about to begin, as the pub were keen on having me back. When sprinting around taking orders, a colleague of mine had the complete opposite idea - she hated the concept of work full stop. This woman had a multitude of sudden illnesses and mishaps - some of which would develop in the space of five minutes. Needless to say, she didn’t last long.

Post university, I started working as an unpaid PR intern. Whilst expensive and frustrating, I was aware that the positive attitude would enable me to keep learning new skills, it would be of benefit to others in the workplace, and would help snag that possible future opening in the office. I was right. A fellow intern, a glamorous, intelligent graduate with the aspiration of a career in PR, would complain about the lack of money, and became teary-eyed after an 8 hour day “because I am just, so, you know, exhausted”. She didn’t last long either.

Today, as a recruiter, I am faced with the similar frustrations I had before. The hours can be long, my pitching can fall on deaf ears, and hours spent sourcing candidates can be completely fruitless. And sometimes, no matter how much work I’m doing, the figures don’t seem to change.

Despite this, I have learnt that the main attribute to maintain is the attitude. A positive attitude can be measured through these three factors – Enthusiasm, Efficiency and Excellence.

Enthusiasm
Arrive to work at a decent time – always being five minutes late shows your colleagues and manager that subconsciously, you don’t really want to be there.

Greet new roles and clients with a positive response – you have the opportunity to help someone find a great new job, solve your client’s pain point and in the process make a lot of money. Don’t groan.

Efficiency
How long does it take you to submit CVs after that initial client call? The quicker you crack on with it, the quicker you seal the deal.

Excellence
Work to the best of your ability - Not adhering to the client’s requests, or acknowledging the candidate’s preferences will backfire spectacularly.

Some days will see you flying through targets and securing placements, other days will see you struggle enormously. However, it’s your attitude to your work, especially during the struggle, which determines whether you eventually succeeed.

If you are interested in developing your career as a recruitment consultant, find out about what it would be like to work at VMA GROUP here, or contact  us on+44 (0)20 7436 4243.