A very good friend of mine Sarah Bennett, whom I have worked with for a number of years, has after some trepidation finally started her own recruitment training company called Xpanse Recruitment Training.

The reason I say with some trepidation, is that she has always been very dedicated to the companies she has worked for, in fact I worked with Sarah at Opera Holdings and she only left after close to 15 years of dedicated service, so starting out on her own was a big step.

So when Sarah asked if I would post her “Top Tips for Developing Your Recruiters” I couldn’t refuse.

1.You don’t know what you don’t know
Like everything, when it comes to training, we don’t know what we don’t know.  Evaluate your teams training needs and create a personal development plan for each member.  Find out where their strong points are and which skill gaps need filling.

2.Use what you’ve got
If you have got an excellent ‘closer’, why pay an external trainer to come in and teach the rest of the team?  Develop all your staff into mentors and trainers and get them to share the knowledge.

3.Tailor the training
Each person learns and works differently.  Make sure the training and development your team receives suits them best.  For some people this might involve traditional ‘stand-up training’ but people might respond better to one-to-one coaching, peer learning or interactive role-play style workshops.  Find out what is best for your team before investing in something that might just go in one ear and out the other.

4.Reinforce the Message
There is not much point sending your staff on an expensive training session for them to come away excited and enthused, only to forget half of it the next day.  Make sure you know what will be covered in the training, take time to find out what each staff member has got individually from it and then spend time with them over the coming days and weeks to make sure they are utilising their new skills.  One-to-one coaching can be great for this – as can post-training refresher sessions and evaluation.

5.Crystal Clear Commitment
Make sure that your staff know you are committed to developing them and what rewards are on offer for them in addition to personal development.  Do you have a clear and attainable commission structure, a retention strategy, and clear routes for potential promotion?  Make sure these are communicated.

6.If it ain’t broke…
Don’t try and introduce new methods of working, reward schemes or change initiatives where they are not needed.  Concentrate on the things your company does well and build on these.  It might sound a little flimflam but every member of staff wants to be part of a successful team, not one constantly changing to fit in with new industry fads.

So to summarize, to get the best out of your training budget;
What’s out? Off-the-shelf, stand-up training with no follow-up
What’s in? Investment in bespoke, personal training plans and on-going development.

In uncertain times it is even more important to make sure your recruiters are the most skilled, best trained and are highly motivated.  Your people, and the way they perform, are the only thing that sets you apart from your competition.