What Skills and Training Do Recruiters Need for Effective Candidate Screening?

Hi all,

I am glad to be a part of CiteHR. The contributions made by the members are really outstanding. I am working for a management consulting firm and I request the members to contribute their ideas on the following situation/issue.

Situation/Issue: A staffing company provides the candidates on its rolls to different clients. What skills should the recruiters possess or in what areas do they require training?

The roles of the recruiters are:
1) Screening the candidates from different sources.
2) Shortlisting, conducting tests, group discussions, and interviews.
3) Transferring the list of final candidates to their superior who will arrange for final interviews with the clients.

For any further doubts about the situation, do not hesitate to revert back. I would appreciate your contributions.

Regards,
Sravani
Email: sravani.vnvision@gmail.com

Hi,

The trainings that could be given are:

1) Domain-specific training, i.e., training the recruiters on the specific areas they would be hiring so that they are comfortable talking to professionals about their roles and responsibilities, etc.

2) Training can be imparted on good communication and interpersonal skills, which depend on various social factors. Also, how to pitch the opening/position, start a conversation, extract more information in less time, and make a connection with the candidate so that more networking and references could be generated out of him.

Training can be given to recruiters so that they will not commit interview errors such as:

1. First impression error
2. Similarity error
3. Contrast error
4. Race, Sex, Age bias errors
5. Halo error
6. Nonverbal Factors
7. Faulty listening and memory

These are some of the errors committed by an interviewer and hence, they may not be able to choose the most suitable candidate for the organization. Training a recruiter on these errors may help them conduct the recruitment with minimal room for inefficiencies.

Hope this is also helpful!

Hi Hemant,

The trainings that could be given are:
1) Domain-specific training, i.e., training the recruiters on the specific areas they would be hiring so that they are comfortable talking to professionals about their roles and responsibilities, etc.
2) Training can be imparted on good communication and interpersonal skills, which depend on various social factors. Also, how to pitch the opening/position, start a conversation, extract more information in less time, and make a connection with the candidate so that more networking and references could be generated out of him.

I really appreciate your view of training the recruiters on the specific areas as I never thought of it from that angle. That's a great idea. Thank you so much.

Regards,
Sravani

Hi Ashra,

The errors in the interview process have been really brought out so well. It is not "some" but "great" help. I have a brief idea of a few errors among the ones you specified, but could you let me know what "similarity error" and "contrast error" are all about? I couldn't even guess what they focus on. Please brief me about it.

Thanks & Regards,
Sravani

On a broader note, you could train recruiters on the following:

1) Entire Recruitment Process
2) Domain/Industry in which they shall be involved
3) Referencing & Networking Skills
4) Headhunting
5) Communication - Telephonic & Face to Face
6) Industry knowledge
7) Trends in the Hiring Cycle, if any
8) And quite a lot more, but I can think of only this many off-hand.

Let me know if you need more.

Regards,
Prashant
09323542715

Hi Prashant,

Thanks for sharing your ideas. Among the points you mentioned, I found Points 2 and 6 to be new to me. Could you please clarify the difference between these two points? I feel that they both focus on the same aspect. Is that the case?

I would also appreciate it if you could provide a few more ideas on the same topic.

Regards,
Sravani
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