Training – the key to recruitment success

​The Industry

Recruitment is an exciting and fast-paced industry and one of the fastest growing sectors in the UK. Industry revenues have surpassed their pre-crisis peak and are now in excess of £29bn per annum.

Competition is fierce in the recruitment industry – the market is undoubtedly crowded, yet it can be surprisingly easy to stand out and differentiate yourself, given the right support and development.

As with any service industry, the focus is on relationships – in our case with organisations (clients) and their prospective employees (candidates). The recruiters job at its most rudimentary is to source the best candidates in the market for the client and to ensure that they are the first port of call for the hiring manager when needs arise. Get those two things right and the revenue looks after itself.

The role of the recruiter is wide ranging and needs a broad skillset:

• Ability to work with targets and under pressure

• Determination

• Confidence

• Positive attitude

• Good organisational and administrative skills

• Ability to cultivate and build relationships

• Listening and good communication skills

• Excellent telephone manner

• Good sales and negotiation skills

Training

It appears that, more than 70% of companies engage recruitment agency services to help fill job vacancies and 81% of them approach several agencies. Asked what they value in a recruiter, most companies mentioned industry and sector knowledge, honesty and the ability to provide feedback and an assessment of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.

So, it’s important to invest in your recruitment consultants and make them stand out of the crowd!

But, a study conducted by Bullhorn showed that 38% of recruiters get only one week of training before they start their jobs and most recruitment agencies don’t have a proper training programme in place. That’s why too many recruitment consultants don’t appear to be knowledgeable enough about the job sector(s) they are working in or about the specific positions they are selling, are overconfident or apply too much pressure over certain jobs.

Training and educating recruiters is essential to any recruitment business and to its overall success. Recruiters are the face of your company so make them feel they are in the perfect environment to learn and develop all or some of the above mentioned skills and grow their career. This will reduce turnover, increase productivity, satisfaction, morale and motivation. It will also boost sales and your employer brand!

Recruitment consultants need support and thorough training especially in the first few months. Subjects like interviewing skills, employment law, negotiation, sales techniques and headhunting should be all discussed and taught even before the recruitment consultant starts working. Support and mentoring from managers and directors, team skill and knowledge sharing and/or external courses according to the individual’s career needs and goals are also vital if you want to get sales and recruitment results.

“We have always aimed to deliver superior service levels to our clients and candidates, as a result of deeper market knowledge and wider networks. The investment in our people is paramount to ensuring to our continued success”- Anthony Ratcliff, Executive Director.

At Investigo, all our recruitment consultants are specialists in their markets and we focus on offering them regular and various training courses which cover subjects like business development, ways to run an effective temp desk or headhunting.

Call us today on 020 7194 7863 if you’re a company looking to recruit or if you’d like to be not only recognised and rewarded for your achievements but also to be a part of one of the UK’s leading specialist recruitment businesses.