You are essentially a glorified telemarketer. As a recruiter, your job is to make a minimum of 40 phone calls per day. Over 90% of these calls are cold calls. You go on websites like Career Builder, Monster, Dice, etc. and search for resumes. You call these people and say something like "Hi John Doe, my name is Bill Smith, and I'm a recruiter with Apex Systems. I came across your resume on (insert website here) and thought you might be a good fit for a (insert job title here) position I currently have available in (insert city here)". A solid majority of these people don't answer your calls, so you end up leaving the same rehearsed voicemail for them. There is another significant portion of people who either forgot that their resume is still posted online, or have no desire to talk to you because they get unwanted calls from recruiters very frequently. If you talk to someone that you deem a good fit for a position that you have available, you fill out what is known as a "lockup sheet" consisting of the negotiated rate that they agree upon for the position, other positions they are interviewing for, their contact info, etc. It is then your job to hold their hand through the interview process, hope they do well in the interview, get an offer, and then accept an offer. You do this all day every day. "Smile and dial" is the term they give it. You make phone calls for a living here. If you enjoy that sort of thing and it will make you happy, then go for it. I personally did not enjoy it, and felt like my time there was a waste. Most of the people were nice, and there was a young culture, however that was not enough to make me feel personally satisfied with the work I was doing every day.
