The Well Trained Recruiting Firm
Most recruiting firm owners and leaders know that the quality of the training they provide directly impacts their people’s results.
Despite knowing this, only a small percentage of firms (the top 3%) provide quality training to their recruiters.
There are multiple reasons that recruiter training is so difficult for most firms:
- It’s common to have unstructured processes; where there’s a lack of clarity about how some tasks should be performed. It’s difficult to train people to do tasks you can’t explain.
- Most recruiting firm owners are overwhelmed with their current workload. Even the thought of training recruiters induces a stress response.
- The design and implementation of an effective recruiter training program require knowledge and skills that most people lack.
Given these realities, it makes sense that most recruitment businesses struggle to provide quality training to their recruiters. This is one of the reasons that recruiting firm owners frequently choose to hire recruiters with prior industry experience. However, most experienced recruiter hires don’t work out as hoped. When this happens, it takes a toll on you financially and emotionally.
Most experienced recruiter hires don’t go well.
Just like their clients, recruitment firm owners and leaders prefer to hire people who can “hit the ground running.” In a perfect world, your new hires would require minimal effort to onboard, train, and manage. However, have you ever experienced a “perfect world”?
In the “real world,” there are several reasons experienced recruiter hires usually lead to disappointment. This includes:
- Top performers are doing well in their current jobs, reducing their incentive to leave. Also, non-compete agreements require them to walk away from the value they’ve created to start over again.
- The bottom performers have more incentive to leave their current jobs. They’re often concerned that they’ll get fired if they stay where they are and hope that things will go better elsewhere. Unfortunately, their shortcomings are likely to follow them into your company.
- Experienced recruiters already have “their own way of doing things” that may not fit how you want them to do things. Most people are resistant to change, which is a significant obstacle you’re likely to face with a large percentage of experienced hires.
Because of the above issues, hiring experienced recruiters frequently leads to “Recycled Recruiter Syndrom” (RRS). This refers to recruiters who have moved from job to job in the recruiting industry, always providing a “good reason” for leaving each position. Within a few months after bringing them onboard, you realize the problem was them.
That’s why, other than rare situations, the most successful firms choose to:
- Hire people with no recruiting industry experience
- Put new hires through a quality recruiter training program that sets them up for success.
The question is, how do you create and implement this recruiter training program in light of the inherent challenges listed above? The answer is that you have two options:
Option 1: Outsource your training to a typical recruiter training company & recruiter training program.
On the surface, this sounds like the ideal solution. It would be nice to hand off this burdensome task to an expert who quickly transforms new hires into well-trained recruiters with minimal effort on your end!
The problem is outside training rarely works as planned for the following two reasons:
- Training programs for recruiters are usually provided by industry veterans with many years of experience delivering the same training. Unfortunately, much of this "old-school" recruiter training used to work in a different era but doesn’t anymore. For example, reaching out via phone to call candidates who don’t know you is rarely effective in today’s world.
- If the training is strictly based on modern tools and techniques, it leaves out the best of the old-school tools and techniques that continue to work well and will significantly boost the quality of your results. The most effective recruiter training combines the best of the current recruiting industry training with the best of the old-school recruiting industry training. This provides your recruiting firm with the competitive edge you want and need.
- Recruiter training programs are rarely customized to fit each unique client's specific needs. What works well in one industry could fail miserably in another. It’s crucial that your training is customized to your specific needs based on:
- Your team size
- The industries you recruit in
- The various technologies you utilize
- The occupations and levels of the people you place
- The demographics of your candidate base
For example, the appropriate recruiter training for a firm that places administrative assistants would be vastly different than a firm that places executives. Training recruiters is like most things in life… ”one size does not fit all!”
Option 2: Customize your recruiter training to fit your specific needs.
This option requires a bit more time and effort on your end.
But, it’s the approach that the most successful firms utilize for the following reasons:
- For recruiter training to be relevant, it must be current. Market conditions and client/candidate preferences can change quickly. Your training program for recruiters must be both up to date and able to quickly adapt to change. Otherwise, you lose your competitive advantage.
- Relevant training must be tailored to your unique situation. Recruiting firms are not generic. You and your people are not generic. How will you stand out if you provide the same recruiter training plan as your competitors?
- You develop your own unique intellectual property. What if you could tell prospective new hires that they’ll l get to attend “Name of your firm Academy”? Now an important part of your brand is your exclusive training program! That’s what the top 3% of firms do.
Recruiting firms that want to choose Option 2 come to The Recruiter’s Coach. We help you create and deliver a highly effective training plan for new recruiters while minimizing your time and effort invested in the process.
