Agency recruiters who move to in-house roles must master the language of HR if they want to prosper, according to Nokia’s head of recruitment for EMEA.

Greg Allen, a former agency recruiter at Modis International, told Recruiter that coming to terms with ’HR speak’ was a real challenge for ex-agency recruiters.

“When you’re agency side you have great discussions with line managers, but in-house you are seen as part of HR,” he said. “As an agency recruiter you know the business and can talk technically, but when you come into HR you have to talk about competencies, behaviours and employment law.

“You have to have that language and really understand performance, quality of hire, capability mapping and internal promotion.”

Allen added that having agency experience was an important advantage for in-house recruiters as it gave them a different perspective on their job. “You can see it looking out, whereas HR is looking in.”