17 Top Tips For Training For Recruiters

1. Plan Your Recruiters’ Induction Training.

Recruitment Training Induction Step One: Decide what you need your recruitment trainees to learn during their first week.

Do your homework. Do you know all the best recruitment techniques? Do you know the very best online candidate sourcing hacks? Do you know 20 ways to find candidates for free without the web? If you don’t have that content in your business, reach out and find it – or buy it. Otherwise, you are setting up your new recruiters for mediocrity.

Recruitment Training Induction Step Two: Decide how to inspire them.

Remember that the patterns of behaviour for a recruiter’s whole career are established in the first month. Be sure to include mindset training within their induction as well as candidate sourcing training and recruitment sales training.

Recruitment Training Induction Step Three: Decide the blend of learning; for example:

• • Live recruitment training

• • Learning from recruitment training videos

• • Role-play

• • Reading from your recruitment training manual

• • Learning about job terminology from Wikipedia or YouTube

• • Matching CVs or LinkedIn profiles to live jobs

• • Practical application of the new recruitment skills they have learned – for example, after they’ve been trained on a particular job title and how to create the best Boolean search, set them a task to find suitable candidates on LinkedIn.

• • Call recording analysis learning (of candidate calls you’ve previously recorded)

• • The practice of what’s been learned (live calls, etc.)

Recruitment Training Induction Step Four: Decide how to hold your trainee recruiters accountable for their learning.

Create assessments that put the onus on the trainee recruiter to prove to your satisfaction that they have learned what you taught them during their induction.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: multiple-choice questions will not necessarily prove that the trainee has learned what you need them to learn. Instead, use learning accountability tools like you’ll find in more advanced recruitment specific Learning Management Systems like the one at RecruitmentTraining.com which has an all-in-one, tailor-made recruitment training LMS with 700+ video courses, covering every step of the recruitment process, to maximise customers’ business’ potential.

2. Give The New Recruiter a Small Amount of Learning To Do Before Their Start Date

Attitude is everything in a new recruiter. You need to find out early whether the positive things they say to you in an interview are true or not.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: If your new hire claims to be a quick learner (which most people do) why not try something like this…?

“John, we are looking forward to you joining us next month after your notice period. Would you like access to our recruitment training Learning Management System before you begin so that you can get a flying start in our business? If so, I will set up two or three videos within our recruitment LMS that I think you’ll find very useful and I’ll send you the login details. Will you be able to watch those before you join us?  If so, on day one, I’ll review them with you first thing. I’m looking forward to working with you and helping to develop your career.”

3. Don’t Make Your Recruitment Training Too Easy

Far too many recruitment managers make the training for their recruiters too easy. The reason for this is that they are busy working vacancies themselves, being pulled into meetings by directors, firefighting problems etc. The tendency for this kind of manager is to tell the new recruiters to start at 10 am and then to let them leave at 4 pm. Or to only do so called, ‘on the job training’ (which isn’t training by the way. On the job training doesn’t explain recruitment training principles it just gives feedback. It’s valuable but it’s not proper training).

Remember, you are setting the tone for the future during the first week. Recruitment is a tough job. It’s not 9-to-5 and the best recruiters often call candidates out of office hours because sometimes that’s the only time to get hold of the best candidate. So, during the induction, get your recruiters used to hard work. Plan your recruiters’ induction, get them in early and ensure they work a very full day that stretches and challenges them.

The best people can be stretched. You are failing in your duty as a recruitment manager if you don’t work your trainee recruiters hard in the first week.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: After the trainee recruiter has finished a full day, set them a task of reading a chapter of your recruitment training manual and tell them that the first thing you’ll do in the morning is asking them to explain what they’ve learned from that chapter.

4. Make It Safe To Fail

Do you remember your first day in recruitment? Did your manager say something like this…?

Manager: “This might surprise you but I want you to fail. Why do you think I am saying that?”

Recruiter: “So that we can learn from our mistakes?”

Manager: “That’s part of the reason but it’s not the main reason. I want you to learn the best recruitment skills and to try them out. If you try something and it doesn’t work I’ll be happy. It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake. I want you to take calculated risks and use your own creativity. Every human being makes mistakes. The people who are timid and don’t try new techniques make fewer mistakes, but they are less successful. What I’m really saying is that if you make a mistake I will never get angry. Of course, I don’t want you to repeat the same error over and over again but genuinely if you make a mistake I will celebrate with you because you have tried your best.”

Recruitment Training Top Tip: Coach your managers to understand this very human aspect of management – making it safe to fail – and unlock creativity from your new starters.

5. Different Learning Styles

Ten years ago, the phrase ‘different learning styles’ was very much in vogue. Nowadays, there is counter research that indicates no difference in learning outcomes such as: https://www.techlearning.com/news/busting-the-myth-of-learning-styles

So what’s the best way to train your recruiters?

The answer is ‘Blended Learning’. If there is any truth in different learning styles then blended learning caters for that. More importantly, blended learning gives the recruiter variety and saves the recruitment manager a huge amount of time.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: Blended learning for recruiters should include; live training, role-play, recruitment videos, recruitment training manuals, free recruitment training videos from YouTube, coaching from the recruitment manager, practical application of their new recruitment techniques etc.

6. Train How to Sell on Day One

Recruitment is a sales job. Whether you are a recruitment consultant or an internal recruiter you should be professionally selling to what candidates need (provided you have been trained how to establish a need, how to take a great job specification from an employer and how extract the key selling benefits of job opportunities).

Sales training is misunderstood – 90% of sales people push. The best recruitment sales training is not about pushing. Train your recruiters how to ask the most effective questions so that after that training neither candidates nor clients perceive them to be a salesperson. They are consultants who ask great questions, care about candidates and help them to secure a better career move.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: By training recruiters how to sell professionally on day one you will sometimes root out a bad hire who didn’t realise the importance of thinking like a salesperson and hunting for the best candidates. On a more positive note, by training recruiters how to sell you will imbue them with the attitude of a hunter and they will be more successful and fill more vacancies, faster.

7. Make Your Recruitment Training Interactive

Interactive training is far more enjoyable for trainee recruiters and keeps their attention better.

When you’re running a live training session for recruiters, get their ideas first before you train them.

For example, let’s say you’re training on traits of the best recruiters.  Don’t give your ideas first. Get the trainee recruiters to use their brains and discuss amongst themselves.

Note all their ideas on a whiteboard and discuss the best ones. Then praise their good ideas and at the same time reveal better ways to do things.

This type of interactive training really gets people’s interest and – after they’ve exhausted their thinking and they see a better way of doing things – they buy into your recruitment training more readily.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: You can make any kind of training interactive, including video training for recruiters. A good way to use recruitment training videos is as a catalyst for a live training session. This reduces the stress of a manager having to create a training session but instead they just play a video, say, from their recruitment LMS for 10 to 15 minutes, turn it off and then brainstorm which recruitment techniques from the video can be implemented within your business.

8. Role Play for Recruiters

Most people hate role-play even though it’s extremely valuable.

Get your recruiters to buy into the concept of role-play by making it safe. Tell them upfront that role plays can be embarrassing, not the same as real calls to candidates etc. Explain that the first few role-plays will be gentle. Once again, make it safe to fail.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: Train your recruiters that the key benefit of role-play isn’t just practice – it’s feedback. After any role play, the passive person in the role play should give feedback on the things that worked well and the things that were missed or could have been improved.

9. Train on The Best Recruitment Technology

It’s a myth that younger people always know technology better than older managers or directors. You’ll be shocked how little younger people know about technology other than using social media. Of course, you should be assessing this in their interview but there is very little chance that new starters will know the best recruitment technology like you do.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: Train your recruiters in the best recruitment technology.

10. Lead by Example

After you’ve trained recruiters, it’s important to get them using the new techniques quickly.

It might be that you observe them making calls to candidates, which is good. However, it’s also important that you make calls to candidates in front of your trainee recruiters. Demonstrate your expertise and they will learn from you.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: Make calls to candidates in front of your trainees or let them listen to call recordings of you in action. Don’t be concerned about errors that you might make in the call. Let the trainees know that it’s human and that no call is ever perfect. This will give them confidence.

11. Practical Application of the Training

Let’s say you’ve trained your new recruiters how to write personalised InMails https://recruitmenttraining.com/9-powerful-ways-to-increase-your-linkedin-inmail-response-rates/ Don’t just let them loose…

Recruitment Training Top Tip: If you set an exercise for your trainee recruiter to craft a personalised InMail, get them to send that ‘test’ InMail directly to you via LinkedIn first. Of course, if you reply to their InMail it will not be wasted. This exercise will focus your trainees to write their most powerful, personalised InMail and will enable you as a recruitment manager to give feedback and improve the InMail.

12. Telephone Technique Training for Recruiters

Most VoIP telephony suppliers now have inbuilt call recording. Of course, you have to operate within the law, but listening to call recordings with your trainee recruiter is another powerful way to improve telephone technique.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: After training your recruiters how to sell professionally and after role-playing to practice their new skills, sit next to them whilst they make calls or replay recorded calls. After 10 telephone calls, debrief with them and provide feedback. Incidentally, when you sit desk side next to your trainee recruiter, you’re not just analysing their calls you’re looking at their planning, the pace at which they work, how well they update your ATS or recruitment CRM.

13. Provide a Training Mentor or ‘Buddy’

As part of your induction planning, think of one of your more experienced recruiters who can mentor or at least be a ‘buddy’ for the new recruiter. Someone who they can ask questions to in your absence.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: Whilst the ‘buddy’ is not actually managing the new recruiter, it will give you an insight into the management potential of the ‘buddy’.

14. You’ve Never ‘Been Trained’

So many recruiters are deficient in even the most basic skills but because they’ve ‘been trained’ they perceive that they don’t need to revisit and improve the things they should have learned in-depth during induction.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: On day one, debunk the myth about training. Let the trainees know that it’s not about training, it’s about a journey towards mastery. Teach them that their development is ongoing otherwise they will not be as successful as they want to be and the company will fall behind its competitors

15. Inspire Your Trainee Recruiters to Work Harder and Learn More

It’s so important to assess the extent to which new recruiters have learned what you wanted them to during week one and week two.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: If you have a recruitment Learning Management System, you may wish to say something like; “Your learning plan has been set out within our LMS. At the end of this week, I need to see detailed notes that demonstrate your in-depth understanding of everything that you’ve been trained on within your induction. Please note that this is crucial to you being able to pass your induction. If you have any problems or challenges or you don’t understand things, please feel free to come to me during the week and I will help. Otherwise, I expect your detailed notes to be on my desk (or in my inbox) by first thing Monday morning.”

If you follow this advice, I promise you that your recruiters will work harder, learn more and make placements faster.

16. Use AI When Training Recruiters & Manager

AI can instantly break down the complexity of a client’s job description, create interview questions for that complex job description with best practice answers, and write target Boolean search strings in seconds. It can even create exams specific to your training content or live training (with example answers that a top performer would give).

Not only do the majority of recruiters and managers need to learn how to master AI, but it can also be used to strengthen and simplify your L&D.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: AI can create detailed training plans from your bullet point ideas, draft extremely well-written training instructions and even help you to create your own bespoke videos.

17. Fire Early if You’ve Made a Hiring Mistake

If, after setting the tone correctly on day one of the induction, your trainee recruiter is showing signs of negativity, not completing tasks on time or simply gossiping and wasting time then you may have made a hiring mistake.

Recruitment Training Top Tip: Use an LMS with inbuilt Learning Accountability tools, like the one from RecruitmentTraining.com which comes with comprehensive certificated training modules and 700+ industry videos covering every step of the recruitment process, to maximise customers’ business’ potential. These tools make it so easy for recruitment managers to identify trainee recruiters who do not work hard enough to learn what you need them to learn.

10 Effective Recruitment Training Benefits

Here are some key benefits of implementing effective recruitment training for recruiters:

1. 1. Attract better quality staff

1. 1. Reduce your cost of hiring recruiters

1. 1. Reduce the time taken to place candidates

1. 1. Instil the best recruitment habits

1. 1. Improve productivity

1. 1. Create a culture of continuous improvement

1. 1. Improve consistency

1. 1. Create tomorrow’s recruitment managers

1. 1. Increase retention

1. 1. Win more business!

www.RecruitmentTraining.com is a leading provider of recruitment training, offering over 700 industry videos that aim to enhance the skills of every recruiter in your business and acquire the best recruitment-specific management techniques. Through a recruitment-specific Learning Management System, you can efficiently manage all learning within your organization while benefiting from unique learning accountability tools that promote the effective implementation of knowledge. To explore further, simply click the ‘Show Me How‘ button below.