
5 recruiter training issues you must fix
There is an elementary truth in Agency recruitment that so many fail to grasp.
In time, every recruitment company of substance will have access to the same technology.
So, the only real differentiator between recruiters and recruitment companies, is the calibre, skills, competencies and attitude of our recruiters.
It is also a fact that 60% – 70% of every dollar Recruitment companies spend is on staff salaries.
The leverage point in your business is improving your recruiter competency.
Yet, it’s true that ‘recruiter training‘ in our industry is often either non-existent – or haphazard and poorly delivered and managed.
I’ve been training recruiters for 40 years, so you might be surprised to hear me say that most recruiter training is a waste of time. (including mine sometimes)
It is a waste of time because no matter how good it is, or how well it is delivered, the lack of follow-up means that retention does not exist.
Training in isolation is better than nothing, but it’s often ineffective.
Real skill change needs follow-up, measurement, and accountability.
I have never seen a time when recruiter training was as crucial as now. So many recruiters are floundering because they lack the right skills.
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Yet many owners and decision-makers are cutting back on training because it’s seen as a discretionary spend. If you have that attitude, I presume you also consider making a profit “discretionary.”
The impact of AI and automation on our industry will exacerbate this problem. Many of your recruiters are spending their time on process and transactional activities – all of that will be automated. (Ads, screening, matching, shortlisting, initial interviewing, searching the database and much more).
That means you need to equip your recruiters with different skills so that they can influence the outcomes of the “moments of truth” in Recruitment.
There are parts of the recruitment process that a skilled recruiter does better than a machine. Do you know what those parts are? And are your people trained to excel at them?
Five of the most significant ‘recruiter training’ issues that recruiter leaders and managers need to address.
Training is good. Coaching is better.
Training sessions for an individual or a team over a dedicated hour in the meeting room or on a VC is far better than nothing. However, my experience is that more often than not, those meetings get cancelled, shortened, or degenerate into war stories and whinges about clients, candidates and the market. Even if there has been learning, most of it is quickly forgotten, and almost nothing is actually acted on, because there is no follow-up or accountability for change.
‘Look at me’ training.
Most recruitment leaders started their businesses because they were successful recruiters. But that in no way automatically qualifies you to be a good mentor, coach or teacher. Many senior people in Recruitment think that teaching people is showing them how they do it. And there is a place for that – but you don’t learn how to kick a rugby ball by watching another person kick a rugby ball. Watching and listening to a skilled recruiter is an excellent platform, and it gives you a vague outline of what’s required, but doing it and getting constant feedback are the secrets.
Learning retention
The research shows that salespeople, including recruiters, typically forget about 50% of newly learned information within one hour. That’s not because they are intellectually challenged. It’s the natural human way of things. We have a lot on our minds. We can only absorb so much, and after all, it was a two-hour learning session, and it’s hard to concentrate, right? After 24 hours, that rises to 70%. When a week has passed, 90% of the information delivered in a training session is likely to be forgotten – unless it’s revised, role-played or applied in the real world—my observations back up the research.
From ‘good to great’
The majority of time, energy and resources in recruitment training with most agencies is devoted to getting rookies up to speed and helping under-performers get to at least an acceptable level. And those are things we need to do. On the other hand, many leaders leave high performers alone. They don’t want to rock the boat. That is a huge mistake. The real leverage and value is in assisting a good recruiter to become great. You and I have never met a recruiter who couldn’t get better, and most people considered ‘good’ in a recruitment company can improve exponentially. Haven’t so many people been found out in the last 18 months as the market shifted? They just do not have the skills to cope in a changing environment. They were superstars 24 months ago and were considered ‘untouchable’. Now, they are on the list for redundancy. That is a coaching and training issue.
Evolving learning styles
And now, perhaps the biggest one of all. Classroom-style learning has always been flawed. (See above). But as the world evolves, technology advances and short-form social media dominates (TikTok et al.), the human attention span has shortened. It’s challenging to get people to sit down and watch a 90-minute video, no matter how good the content is. And I’m not going to play the generational card because, frankly, I think all of us expect information quickly and in digestible bite-size chunks. We learn that way and wish to consume information that way – so how we teach recruiters has to change. There is still a place for real-life LMS-style video training and one-hour coaching sessions. However, it needs to be complimented by a different mentoring and teaching style. And I have that solution for you.
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Offer Closes 5 pm Saturday, February 8th AEDT
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So, what are the solutions?
Develop a serious plan and commit the resources.
Too many people in Recruitment pay lip service to training. They claim they do it, talk about it, have a training file, and have some videos. They sometimes ‘get a trainer‘ in. Someone may even be called the ‘Training Manager’, but actual coaching and development is haphazard and sloppy. We need to make consultant development a strategic priority. It needs to be a boardroom discussion, resources and plans must be applied, and accountability needs to be given to senior people.
Measure and flex and measure again.
Unless you can see the impact of the training or coaching, then to me, it didn’t happen, and you wasted your time (60% of companies globally who train their salespeople admit to having no structure or follow-up). Suppose you train a group of recruiters on how to sell ‘exclusivity on job orders’, for example. In that case, each person needs accountability to improve the ratios of their exclusive jobs. A follow-up’ role play’ session for all involved will tell you what ‘sank in’. There needs to be feedback on their efforts to sell exclusivity, debriefing on obstacles they’ve encountered, and solutions shared. You need to measure where people are at the time of training and where they are a week later, a month later, and six months later. We are looking for incremental gains, and you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Just throwing training at a group of people and then heading off for the pub for a few drinks, satisfied that we’ve ‘done our training’, is achingly inept.
Learning ‘in the moment’
As I mentioned, the best type of training is coaching in the moment. For decades, I’ve told people recruiters learn in moments of ‘ecstasy’ or ‘despair’. When somebody has just had success selling a good temp to a client who was initially reluctant to hire, that should be celebrated. The successful recruiter should tell the story to the team and share lessons learned. The way she did it should be dissected and implementable by others. If you’ve just had a success, let’s analyse it and replicate it.
Equally, in the moment of despair, people are open to learning. A particular placement, all tied up, suddenly goes out the door because of a counteroffer. It’s incredibly disappointing, but that’s the time to sit with the recruiter and analyse the discussions and the steps taken – or not taken. It’s not designed to humiliate or embarrass—quite the reverse. The message is that this is unfortunate, but what can we learn to ensure it doesn’t happen again? Learning in the moment is the most powerful development of all, and that is why I have used AI to ultimately enhance and change the offerings of the Savage Recruitment Academy.
The Academy still has 200 hours of training that you can view traditionally, and there is a place for that. But now, with the AI-enhanced voice assistant, your recruiters can ask questions whenever they face an obstacle or a challenge. They can use their voices to ask, “I’m about to offer someone a job. What should I remember”? Or “My client is about to call me to negotiate my fees. How should I handle this.?” Or “My candidate has just got a counteroffer. What shall I do next?”. The Academy will search the 200 hours of quality content and give advice, tips, and strategies to the recruiter when she needs them. So, the training is, in fact, a mentor on their shoulder, advising in the moment, and it’s with that style of delivery that people will learn new skills for good.
Check out the demo below of the Savage Recruitment Academy’s new capability.
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- Posted by Greg Savage
- On February 3, 2025
- 0 Comment