If you’re spending valuable time and money training up your recruiters, you need to feel confident you’re going to see results from it. The worst thing that can happen is that you take time out of everyone’s diary (including your own) to offer training that, in the end, no one gets anything out of.
So, lets take a look at some of the main reasons why a recruitment training session will flop, and what you can do as a leader to ensure every session you run is a success – for everyone involved.
Reason 1: Leadership isn’t involved
Many business owners think of training sessions as a one-off injection of best practices that employees should listen to once then go ahead and start implementing straight away.
But let’s face it, we’re all creatures of habit and if new practices aren’t actively encouraged weekly by managers, nothing will stick. Therefore, to run a training session without involving managers will only result in the team continuing their old routine and never actually using what they’ve learnt.
How to make your training a success:
If you really want your training to stick, get management involved throughout the entire process; from creating the programme, to helping your recruiters put the skills into practice at their desks. If you do this, leaders can oversee how the training is being implemented and ensure that you get results you want to see.
Reason 2: You make every recruiter attend
Training and self-development is cited as one of the most important benefits that employees look for in a job. But whilst it’s great to give everyone the opportunity to take part in training, forcing every single one of your recruiters to attend the same training course is not the way to do it.
Crowd everyone into one room and all that’ll happen is the people who actually want to learn will be held back by those who don’t want to be there and aren’t taking the training seriously. And in this case, none of your recruiters leave your training feeling satisfied.
How to make your training a success:
Invest training resources in the people who are actually going to put what they learn into practice. You could even think about making training a reward rather than a requirement.
For example, if one of your recruiters has hit a specific activity milestone or has been a great team player, invite them to attend. This way you’ll guarantee the people who turn up are 100% committed to learning and the rest of your recruiters will start thinking of training as a privilege not a burden.
This tactic will also incentivise your team to apply what they learn because they won’t want to waste their ‘reward’ of new strategies and techniques.
If you’re thinking to yourself, “But I need to bulk-train my recruiters because they’re not good enough at basics like calling and prospecting,” it sounds like you have hiring issue rather than a training issue!
Reason 3: Your goals aren’t measurable
Without a specific goal or desired outcome in mind, how can you measure the impact of training? Maybe you’ll tell yourself you’re investing in training because you want your recruiters to ‘work harder’ or ‘fill more jobs,’ but these goals aren’t tangible and you’ll struggle to measure the outcome of your investment.
With ‘goals’ like these, you’ll never know if your training has been effective. And if your recruiters don’t have a tangible goal to work towards, how will they know what they’re trying to achieve?
How to make your training a success:
There’s an easy solution to this one: set goals which are specific and measurable! Whether you want to improve your job fill ratio by 10% or increase the number of candidates you’re sourcing, make sure there is a measurable figure you’re working towards.
If your objectives are focused, you can craft a program around them so your training is targeted and ultimately more effective.
Reason 4: You’re training everyone to speak the same language
Great training should introduce a common language for talking about your service, but it shouldn't teach a ‘one size fits all’ style.
Recruitment is a job where personality and having the freedom to be yourself is really important. If you teach everyone to behave exactly the same, you’ll turn your recruiters into robots and lose traits that could be helping your recruiters place candidates. So in this situation, your good intentions could bring worse results!
How to make your training a success:
Training should provide your team with a set of tools and strategies that each recruiter can apply in their own style. That way, they'll bring their and unique perspectives and personality to each call, email or meeting – all while using the key skills they’ve learned during your training.
Training your recruitment team in new technology can be really tough. We've created an entire eBook to help you get this right so you see a return on your investment as soon as possible.
