Becoming a recruiter or search consultant—or becoming a better recruiter or search consultant—involves an unsurprising element: training. With the proper training and education, a recruiter can continually sharpen their skill set and become more adept at the intricacies of recruitment and selection.
However, like most things, training costs money. Or does it? Not if you’re able to take advantage of free recruitment training courses!
Online training vs. offline training
Regardless of whether you pay money or not, recruitment training courses are divided into two categories: online and not online. The former is rather self-explanatory. You take the courses with the help of the Internet or World Wide Web, whichever you prefer. The latter, on the other hand, can include a variety of delivery methods:
- Books
- Compact discs (CDs)
- Digital versatile discs (DVDs)
- In-person training, whether at your agency’s physical location or at a conference or trade show
The last method listed above, in-person training, includes a broad spectrum. That’s because some recruiters enlist the services of personal coaches to help them enjoy more success. These coaches conduct on-on-one training with the recruiter. While this training can and does sometime occur over the telephone (think “virtual coach”), it often takes place at the physical location of the recruiter receiving the training. It’s not unusual for an agency owner to engage the services of a coach and then bring said coach on the premises to train their entire staff of recruiters. Sure, it’s costly, but it can pay off in a big way down the road, when all of the agency owner’s recruiters are blowing past their billing goals and bringing a ton of cash through the door.
For the purposes of this blog post, though, we’re going to focus on online recruitment training courses. There’s obviously nothing wrong with pursuing offline training. However, that’s another topic for another time with another blog post.
Next is the question of whether the online recruitment training courses are free or if they will incur a cost. Now, everybody likes free, but free is difficult to find.
Case in point: if you’re looking for free online recruiter certification courses, you may be out of luck. (That’s because actual certification usually costs actual money.) There are two main organizations that offer certified training courses. They are the National Association of Personnel Services (NAPS) and the American Staffing Association (ASA).
Below are the certifications that NAPS offers:
- Certified Personnel Consultant (CPC)
- Certified Temporary Staffing-Specialist (CTS)
- Certified Employee Retention Specialist (CERS)
Below are the certifications that the ASA offers:
- Certified Staffing Professional (CSP)
- Certified Health Care Staffing Professional (CHP)
- Technical Services Certified (TSC)
- Certified Search Consultant (CSC)
Visit the websites associated with these certifications for more information regarding the cost associated with these courses.
Online recruiter certification courses
So there are essentially two types of online recruitment training courses:
- Those that involve certification
- Those that do not involve certification
We point out at this point that you do NOT need a certification to become an independent, third-party agency recruiter. This recruiting profession is not like other professions. You can’t earn a degree in recruiting specifically from a university or college, and you do not need to undergo formal training in order to start your career as a recruiter. However, earning a certification does not hurt. It’s more a matter of preference than anything else. Some recruiters prefer to earn one certification or multiple certifications, while others do not. The current parameters of the profession afford recruiters the luxury to choose.
Now, if you decide to spend the money and earn any (or all) of the certifications mentioned above, they can bring you more credibility and respectability within the profession. However, earning them does not necessarily mean that you will more than a recruiter or search consultant who does not have them. After all, there are many recruiters in TE Network™ who do not possess these certifications, but they still bill hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
So let us turn our attention to those online recruitment training courses that do not involve certification. Like all forms of recruitment training, there are online courses that cost money and there are those that do not cost money. There are some people who might say, “You get what you pay for!” These people are inferring that if the training does not cost any money, then it must not offer any real value. That is NOT necessarily the case.
Sure, training that cost money is usually of a higher quality, but that is not always the case. There are free online recruitment training courses that offer a tremendous amount of value (especially considering the fact they’re free). All they require is a commitment of time and energy. The return that you receive on that investment can be substantial.
Individual recruiter training vs. agency owner training
Now that we’ve narrowed down our discussion to free online recruitment training courses, we can narrow them down even further:
- Those that deal with specific issues that an individual recruiter might encounter on their desk
- Those that deal with specific issues that a recruiting agency owner might encounter
There is some crossover between these types. For instance, an agency owner can engage in free online recruitment training courses that deal with both categories. That’s because there are both an individual recruiter and an agency owner. It’s basically the difference between “working in your business” and “working on your business.”
If an agency owner engages in training courses that deal with specific issues that an individual recruiter might encounter on their desk, then they’re “working in their business.” On the other hand, if they engage in training that deals with specific issues that an agency owner might encounter, then they’re “working on their business.” Both types of training serve a purpose and they’re both valuable.
In fact, an agency owner could engage in both types of training and then make sure that their recruiters also engage in the training that best suits them on their desks. This way, the owner can maximize the training courses and benefit in multiple ways. (And when we say “benefit,” we mean bill more and generate more revenue.)
As I mentioned in a previous blog post about recruitment agency training courses, these courses provide plenty of value. In fact, it includes the following three forms of value:
- They keep you up to date with current trends and practices.
- They help you to focus on the basics and fundamentals of the profession.
- They help you to streamline and maximize your recruiting desk.
With that in mind, the fourth form of value for online recruitment training courses would be “They help recruiting agency owners to maximize the agency’s billings, revenue, and profit.”
As we’ve mentioned before, online recruitment training courses have an advantage over training courses that are not online. That advantage is that you’re able to reach the maximum amount of people in the shortest amount of time. In other words, you can scale them. Sure, you can fit a few hundred people into a ballroom at the local Hyatt for a conference training session.
However, with an online training webinar or program, there is almost no limit to the number of people who can attend. The only limit is the number of attendees that the online software that you’re using allows. (For a standard subscription, most software packages limit you to 1,000 attendees. Of course, the more you pay, the more attendees you can have.)
There is yet another advantage of online recruitment training programs, such as live webinars. You can record the live webinars and turn them into videos for future use. Yes, somebody in the ballroom at the Hyatt could also record the training session, but chances are good that the quality of the recording will not be as good as the recorded version of a webinar session.
At the very least, it will be more difficult to see whatever slides the presenter is using. Not so with the recorded version of a live webinar. The quality of the recording is nearly the same as the quality of the live session. So not only are online recruitment training courses scalable, but they’re also easily repeatable. You—and the other recruiters in your agency—can watch the videos as many times as you want and as often as you want. That’s the ultimate in flexibility and convenience.
Here’s the good news: Top Echelon offers online recruitment training courses. In fact, we offer a TON of them by some of the most popular trainers and speakers in the recruiting and staffing profession. They include:
- Greg Doersching
- Barb Bruno
- Jon Bartos
- Shally Steckerl
- Bob Marshall
- Doug Beabout
- Scott Love
- Jordan Rayboy
- Gary Stauble
- Scott Wintrip
These are just 10 of the many trainers who have contributed to our library of online recruitment agency training courses. There are others, as well.
Free recruitment training courses at your fingertips
Here’s the even better news: these online recruitment courses are literally at your fingertips. That’s because with a few keystrokes, you could start watching them and benefitting from the value they provide right now!
And not only that, but you can also sign up to receive emails for our Recruiter Coaching Series of live webinars. After the webinars are over, we post the recorded version of the webinars on our website. These webinars touch upon a variety of recruiter-related topics dealing with both candidates and clients. So you can visit our online library and:
- Browse our catalog of online recruitment agency training courses.
- Sign up to receive emails about future recruiter training webinars.
Click the link below to visit our online library of recruiter training courses:
Visit our library!
In addition to training and webinars, Top Echelon offers other recruitment solutions. These solutions include the following:
- Big Biller recruitment agency software
- Top Echelon split network
- Top Echelon contract staffing back office
For more information about Top Echelon and the products and services that it offers, visit the Top Echelon website by clicking here.