Helpful Tips on Building a Training Program for Recruiters

All month we’ve been talking about recruiting optimization. We’ve talked about preventing burnout, we’ve talked about the relationship between the hiring manager and recruiter, and today we’re talking about how to train your actual recruiting team. Recruiting optimization goes deeper than the processes that are implemented and metrics tracked. It’s the entire lifecycle of recruiting including the basics of training your recruiters.  

An effective recruiter training program consists of several different parts. The better your collective recruiting skills, the quicker and more efficiently you’re able to hire. A world-class recruiting team is almost more important than finding world-class talent. Recruiters will sometimes believe that just because they have a bigger candidate pool means they’re going to hire better, but that’s not necessarily the case. Implementing a strong training program for all new recruiters will forgo creating mistakes that can cause your company to miss out on potential stellar candidates. 

Post and pray methods are outdated and with unemployment at an all-time low it’s important to arm your recruiters with the best knowledge and know-how available to recruit the hardest type of candidates through an effective recruiter training plan. Here are some things to implement in your training for recruiters that’ll help sharpen new employees and elevate their skill levels.

Provide standardized interviewer/interviewee training

While each recruiter you hire will likely have some interviewing skills and most will probably think they’re exceptional it’s important to provide standardized interview training that keeps each of your recruiters on the same page. This will help recruiters take over and fill in when necessary.  

Teach recruiters to be great sellers 

Recruiting is another form of selling. You’re selling your company, you’re selling the job, and more importantly, you’re selling the culture. If you’re able to give your recruiters the tools to sell the company, culture, and the actual job, they’ll be successful. 

Always provide feedback 

Feedback is essential for all recruiters whether seasoned or not. A recruiter’s manager can sit in on phone calls, perform exit surveys (and yes, exit surveys exist for candidates who don’t accept an offer), and always be looking for ways to improve the experience with candidates.  

Provide ample rewards and recognitions 

Sourcing can be a tough job in the current economy. Make sure to have a great reward and recognition program for your recruiters to help incentivize them to keep going when hiring excellent candidates becomes hard.  

Use data to train your recruiters 

If your company is tracking data from source to hire it’s important to teach that data to your recruiters.This will help prevent countless hours being wasted on using sourcing techniques that haven’t worked for your company. Each company is different and data will help create success within each and every recruiter you hire and train.  

Hire recruiters who are open to learning 

A great training program only works when you’re hiring those willing to learn. Hiring for ability is one thing, but hiring those who are willing to adapt and learn to your techniques is essential for any training program.  

Build context into your training program 

Giving your recruiters context on what you’re teaching them will help improve their overall adaptability to new skills that you teach them. For instance, if you’re asking recruiters to start sourcing a specific way is it to lower cost? Increase conversation rates? Improve cost per hire? Giving them this context will give them insight into why you’re asking them to change their habits that they’ve learned and practiced for awhile.  

Building a training program for recruiters at any company can be difficult. You’re going to find recruiters who have all different skill sets and you’re going to find recruiters who have mastered bad habits or habits that you don’t want to be used at your company. The main principle behind building a recruiter training program for your company is taking the data that you’ve found and train your recruiters to be actionable on that data.  Optimizing your process and providing this type of training will create success within the recruiters who source day in and day out.  

Need help optimizing your recruiting strategy or building out a training program for your recruiters? Contact us today.