The Importance Of Staff Training In Recruitment

Written by Tom Clegg on .

Value is not something that is usually associated with recruitment, which is target-oriented. Similar to sales, it’s more about ‘need’ and ‘cost’ – getting candidates in jobs as quickly as possible. However, if you want to sustain and grow your recruitment business, you need to start thinking about the value of your business. 

In 2017/18, the UK recruitment industry grew by 11% to £35.7 billion, so the value to the economy is apparent. In this blog, we discuss why recruitment businesses should be focusing on the value of their most important assets, their staff.

Lack Of Training

In 2018, The Independent reported that two out of three UK workers left their jobs due to a lack of training and development opportunities. With unemployment rates at historic lows, retaining staff is already a challenge, so it’s important to review whether you give employees sufficient training. As an employer, ask yourself – What value does the training that you provide give to your staff? Are you aware of how this training impacts your teams? 

The majority of recruitment team leaders are focused on either getting more out of their teams or recruiting more staff. However, they are not thinking about how to fix staff retention and staff output. 

So, how do you know when training is not working?

It’s not enough to just implement training, but also to constantly monitor the effectiveness of your training processes. If 6 months after training has taken place, things haven’t really changed, look out for the following signs:

  • Staff are not enthusiastic and motivated.
  • Fees are getting lower.
  • Recruiters are not placing candidates in roles.
  • Job Board budgets are still crazy.
  • Hours of time on LinkedIn is not resulting in the phone calls you want to see.

If you observe any of these issues, you need to re-evaluate whether your employees are still really engaged with your processes. People Management reported in 2018 that ‘nine in ten employees want their company to offer more learning opportunities.’

‘Nine in ten employees want their company to offer more learning opportunities.’

Ask yourself – what training do your staff need? How should it impact upon their day and ultimately, your business? Is what they are being trained to do, offer value to your other most important asset, your data? 

It’s a sensitive subject to talk about, that data and trained people may be equal… but it’s fair to admit that they rely on each other. When you add processes and systems together, you have a sustainable business model. So you need to consider the following:

  • Are your recruiters being trained to nurture your critical data asset?
  • Is the training that you provide driving the 3Cs – candidate, clients and colleagues – onto your recruitment CRMs? 
  • Do their job adverts and time on LinkedIn generate inbound sales and clean data?
  • Is my recruitment CRM ‘first’ for everything that you want to do?

Think about the training that you give your recruiters, by not giving valuable training and losing staff, you end up wasting money – by losing them, rehiring, paying them and retraining them.