7 Steps to Building a Great Recruiting Team

For any staffing agency starting out or first-time recruiter, one of the keys to industry success is building a great recruiting team.

There are 7 steps that will help you to build an unstoppable recruiting team.

Step 1 – Determine the Recruiting Goals

What are your recruiting goals? 

Are you recruiting for a specific industry or are you recruiting for any industry and position? 

Will you focus on temporary placement or permanent placements? 

Each of these questions will help you to define not only your recruiting goals but also type of processes, systems, and people you need to have in place on your team.

When there is a clear defined recruiting goal, everyone understands what the end result needs to be.

Step 2 – Develop Good Systems

It is important to have good systems in place for your recruiting team.  A recruiting database that will store client and candidate information is a huge resource to any recruiter.

The ability to easily search for candidates, document historical notes, and upload resumes and other documents is something that will allow your team to recruit with ease.

Step 3 – Establish a Rewarding Compensation Plan

You can hire the best recruiters in the world, but if your compensation plan is not rewarding they will leave.  Research compensation plans in your industry.  What are other recruiting agencies doing and how can you do it better?

Think about ways you can offer higher compensation for recruiters based on individual performance as well as team performance.

Step 4  – Hire the Right Players

When you have the right goals, systems, and compensation plans in place you will have a better chance at hiring and retaining top recruiters.  However, if you hire the wrong players you will fail.

Hire for culture fit and attitude.  Team players are a must if you want to have a top recruiting team.

When you have recruiters who share knowledge and insight, you have a solid team.  Look for team players who are driven to succeed while keeping your company culture in mind.

Step 5 – Hold the Team Accountable

Always hold your team accountable as a whole and as individuals.  Make sure that you have a way to track the team and each recruiter’s numbers.

If you want to maintain accountability on your team everyone will need to know their individual numbers and team numbers in order to understand where they are excelling and where they can improve.

It’s a good idea to track calls, interviews, submissions, and placements.  Each of these numbers will show how your team is successful and where they can improve when unsuccessful.

Step 6 – Always Communicate

Communication is key to a great recruiting team.  Daily huddles with the team to discuss priorities and stucks are important for your team to be successful.

In addition, weekly huddles with individual team players is important in order to review and provide help where needed.

When you have constant and clear communication, your players know where they stand and what is expected.

Step 7 – Always Provide Training

Training never stops.  If you want to have the best recruiting team, you will provide continuous training whether it is internal or external training.  Make sure that your team is always learning something new and always working towards improvement.

Consider having subject matter experts on your team.  For example, if someone on your team really enjoys learning databases perhaps they would enjoy sharing with your team the techniques learned within your recruiting database.

Keep an open mind and always ask your team what they would like to learn about.