Having been a trainer in the recruitment industry for over 13 years I have worked with many agencies of different sizes and I wanted to share my top tips for choosing the right solution for your agency and growth plansInvesting in your new starters is critical to fast tracking their performance and engaging them in your business. Failure to have a consistent induction programme could result in the failure of your business.
But as a small business how do you choose the right induction programme for you?
Having been a trainer in the recruitment industry for over 13 years I have worked with many agencies of different sizes and I wanted to share my top tips for choosing the right solution for your agency and growth plans.
Let’s look at the options available:
- Open courses – great if you only have 1 or 2 people to induct and you want a quick solution to give your new consultants the basic skills and an overview of the industry. Feedback can be that these courses are quite generic so ask for a sample of the content before you decide. For example: placing secretarial temps or lorry drivers is very different from placing high level finance professionals.
- Video based learning – a quick and cost effective way of giving your consultants the content they need to do the job which is ideal when you again have small numbers. The downside with most online products is there is no tutor interaction to give them feedback or check they have learnt and are applying the content.
- Freelance trainers – will usually charge you by the day, however you need to make sure you have at least 4 people to induct to warrant paying a day rate of between £500-1000 upwards. You may lose the benefit of training follow up unless you engage in a long term relationship with your trainer which can become costly unless you have enough people to train on a long term basis.
- Deliver your own programme – a cost effective solution for smaller agencies who don’t have huge numbers to induct is to either develop one yourself or pay a freelancer trainer to develop one tailored to your market. You can then deliver it as and when people join which ensures everyone gets trained and in a consistent way. Downside being you or your managers will need to spend some time delivering but the upside is your people will be inspired by the role models in your business. The cost to design a programme could be anything in the region of £3-5,000 upwards depending on how much content.
- Recruit a Training Manager – the ideal solution if you have 40-50 people plus in your agency and you plan to consistently recruit and run induction programmes. Your Training Manager can also provide coaching for more experienced consultants ensuring people get trained at every level in your business. The downside being it can take a long time to find a permanent member of staff and your people are not developed in the meantime. Try to start recruiting at least 6 months before you need one or look at who in your business you could develop into that role. I have seen this fit well with the Internal Recruitment function.
So there are different options available to you. Try to be flexible with how you want your programme delivered, classroom training is not always just the answer. In my opinion, the younger generation of recruiters have a different learning style and video based learning can be just as effective as long as someone is guiding them through the course.
About the author:
Hannah Keep is Director of the IOR’s Training Academy and delivers the IOR’s innovative consultant induction training programmes ‘the complete resourcer’ and ‘the complete recruiter’. To organise a demo of our programmes or to get general advice from Hannah on what solution is best for you email us at accounts@theior.org.uk
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