By: Shari Dalton
Instincts-a natural or intuitive way of acting or thinking; a knack; a gift.
We often find ourselves talking with recruitment Directors or managers at agencies who are frustrated because their owners have either never worked as a recruiter or haven’t done the job for over 15 years. They don’t think they need training for their recruiters-they feel that they hire the right recruiters and those hires were “naturals” at the position-“they either have it or they don’t” is the phrase we hear.
In the meantime, these same recruitment directors and managers grow frustrated because they are typically expected to run a desk themselves, while managing a handful of recruiters, and they are also tasked with training a few new recruiters as well. They’ve usually managed to piece together some type of “training manual” that compiles some company history, their list of best practices, guidelines, and screenshots of how to’s in their CRM.
Fortunately for those recruitment directors and managers, those agency owners are starting to come around. What they are starting to realize is that yes, you can hire the “naturals” for your recruitment team, but they still need proper training to get off on the right foot. And they are also realizing that hiring those “naturals” is getting harder and harder with today’s competitive market.
What they are finding is that they can hire really good people, and then train behaviors to elicit the types of instinctual behaviors you desire them to repeat. Basically, hire for attitude, train for skill. And with the right training program, this method is every bit as effective. You can replace instincts with instinctual responses. What may have taken months or years for some recruiters to learn with on the job training, new recruiters are now learning within the first few weeks on the job. And with proper mentoring, and engagement, those new recruiters are creating instinctual behaviors to help them advance in their careers.
We sent out a newsletter to our clients recently about what to look for when hiring candidates and interview questions to help uncover great candidates. Your ideal candidates have moxie. No, not us, but the “it” factor-the grit, determination, and courage. That’s the attitude you’re looking for, and we can help train the rest!
