Recruiters are often known as the “source of hiring”, but as a recruitment agency, your search for the perfect candidate can only go as far as how well-trained your recruiters are. Therefore, recruiting team development is just as crucial as finding exceptional candidates—it depends on having highly skilled and trained recruiters.

As a recruiting agency, it’s crucial to implement effective recruiter training to acquire the best talent within your organisation. As a hiring manager or human resource specialist, recruiter training can directly impact your organisation’s productivity and growth.

Talented recruiters can provide candidates with a positive experience and bring in excellent new hires during the recruitment process. However, if you don’t provide proper training for your recruiters, they’ll make some common recruiting mistakes, leading to a hard time finding those great candidates.

According to ClearCompany, training strategies have become so important that 68% of employees believe that training and development is the company’s most crucial policy.

In order to successfully implement recruiter training strategies for agencies, here are ten pointers you’ll need to consider to sharpen and elevate their skills.

10 things to keep in mind while training recruiters in your agency

1. Offer mentorship

Mentoring may seem like the obvious solution to training new hires, but it is not something that should be overlooked, as it is a crucial step towards developing an effective strategy that will affect a recruiter’s performance in the long run.

Assigning new recruiters with an experienced mentor allows them to observe the techniques used in recruitment agencies and helps new recruiters gain insight into the functioning of the agency and work ethics.

In addition, having someone to mentor recruitment team members is an excellent asset to any organisation, as it allows new hires to gain an in-depth understanding and helps establish positive relationships.

Mentoring also gives seasoned recruiters an excellent opportunity to share their expertise and support recruitment skills development among new recruiters, promoting a more empowered workplace.

Most importantly, make sure that your mentors are constantly updated about the latest trends and strategies in training and the recruitment industry to keep your training relevant to changing times. Recruiters would find it easier to do this if a training manual were implemented.

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2. Be resourceful!

Inevitably, new recruiters will have many questions and gaps in their knowledge. These gaps can be mitigated by having go-to resources and knowledge repositories for everything related to the agency’s guidelines, resources, sourcing lists, and questions that can be asked in interviews. One of the most substantial tasks for any recruiter is the task of sourcing and attracting ideal candidates.

Recruiters need to know where to find them before engaging in any cold-calling, emailing, or other interactions with potential candidates. To ease this task for new recruiters, you can create a list of sources, questions, or a database that your agency has previously utilised to locate the best talent.

To further structure this aspect of training, your agency can take a step ahead by creating a guide or handbook for new recruiters to steer them in the right direction.

3. Showcase your work culture

When it comes to training new hires, organisations often focus on the most apparent aspects, like what to expect from the employer, the tasks they are expected to work on, and the practical information.

However, a plan to integrate new recruiters within the agency’s work culture is often neglected. Your agency can put this into practice by demonstrating problem-solving and essential customer service skills and the most effective ways for communication as a recruiter. Showcasing your agency’s work culture and ethics is a great way to help imbibe new recruiters with the voice of the culture and help them engage faster.

4. Conduct intake meetings

Conducting informative intake meetings for new recruiters is fundamental to their success. Intake meetings are an excellent way for recruiters to get a clear picture of the agency’s expectations and pick up on new information around the existing candidate pool and recruitment marketplace. Ensure that there is two-way communication to establish relationships and fill any gaps.

5. Involve other departments

As a recruitment agency, successfully sourcing candidates and getting them placed can only occur with the proper integration and cross-functioning of recruiters with the rest of the agency.

Inter-departmental connections are also a great way to encourage the flow of ideas and exchange of information, which can significantly benefit the productivity and efficiency in the workflow. To attain a common goal, all the departments involved must function in synchronisation.

Fresh recruiters should be trained from the initial stages to gain a deeper understanding of the functioning of other departments so that there can be smooth cross-functional communication within the agency. Involving other departments within training recruiters helps emphasise values like cooperation and trust within the agency.

6. Instill confidence in new recruiters

Focusing on confidence during training gives recruiters a chance to learn how confidence can help them attract great candidates and persuade them to develop their careers within your agency. Providing fresh recruiters with knowledge, skill,s and the tools for successful recruiting can boost their confidence and evoke a sense of reliability in their positions for the agency.

A confident recruiter will ultimately lead to improved engagement with prospective clients and candidates.

7. First-hand operations learning

To give new recruiters a taste of the recruitment practices taking place in the agency, make them comfortable by taking them along to weekly operational meetings, including them in any projects, and asking for their valuable input.

Such first-hand experience encourages micro-learning, which helps fresh recruiters pick up on the techniques and strategies used by the agency, and it’s an excellent way to help recruiters ease into the agency’s practices.

8. Continuous training

Ideally, training for successful recruiters should be constant and never-ending. With the constant changes in the ever-growing, competitive recruitment industry, training never really ends for a recruiter.

Instead of completing the training period and leaving recruiters to their work, implementing continuous recruiter training strategies is an excellent way to retain talent. 

It helps them stay up to date with the latest advancements and industry standards while allowing them to review their skills and knowledge periodically.

Consequently, this leads to much more efficiency and functionality within your agency. Providing continuous recruitment skills development is bound to improve the standards of your recruiters, directly enhancing their ability to find and hire great candidates.

9. Conduct follow-ups & encourage feedback

While recruiter training, ensure that you incorporate follow-ups and take time out to review the work of new recruiters.

Checking in on fresh recruiters can help determine if there are still some gaps left to fill, questions that need answering, or any other information they still require. This also provides an opportunity for new recruiters to provide any feedback, allowing healthy two-way communication.

Following up on recruiters and opportunities for providing feedback can be implemented by arranging meetings or even small workshops.

Agencies can also provide feedback to recruiters to help them learn where they did well and where they can improve by providing post-interview feedback.

Post-interview feedback is vital as it can help them have a better experience, which helps build a good reputation for any recruiting agency.

Requesting feedback from your recruiters also ensures that their input is valued and allows them to work more effectively for your agency.

10. Provide ongoing learning

Recruitment agencies belong to a fast-paced and technologically driven industry. 

To stay current with the newest trends and technological advancements, on-demand training programs for recruiters are an excellent initiative to include in new recruiter training.

With the advent of the internet, numerous online courses are available that can be taken up anywhere, at your convenience. These on-demand courses are an excellent way to stay up to date with the ever-changing industry.

This ensures that recruiters are always ahead of their game, so agencies will have to spend less time and resources to train recruiters formally. Ultimately, this leads to much more productivity and higher-quality work by the recruiters.

Here are a few online courses that you can sign up for—

Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding employees – Coursera

Undoubtedly, training recruiters for success speeds up the onboarding process, fills any development gaps, and increases employee productivity and engagement—all essential for the long-term functioning of a successful recruiting agency.

Keep in mind that the best leaders understand the importance of training and make it a priority.

Effective recruiter training is the foundation for successful recruiting!