Contractors are facing more challenges than ever before, meaning candidate care is even more vital to recruitment agency growth in 2025 and beyond. The best candidate relationships are built on the personal connection established by their recruiter. However, strong professional relationships require a vast array of hard and soft skills, like communication, organisation and technical abilities, to provide the best services at all times.
Staffing agency owners know that great recruiters aren’t born, they’re made. With increasingly pressurised budgets, fewer resources and dwindling time available for L&D, junior and under-performing recruitment consultants are often left to fend for themselves, with poor results. Recruiters can be upskilled quickly and cost-effectively – with a little creativity and willingness to try new approaches.
How to Upskill Underperforming Recruitment Consultants Fast & Forever
- Start With the Why – Tackle the Root of the Problem
The legendary business leader and inspirational speaker Simon Sinek advises, ‘Great leaders and great organisations are good at seeing what most of us can’t see. They are good at giving us things we would never think of asking for.’ Recruitment founders and owners must draw out the purpose, wants and needs of every individual employee to maximise their effectiveness in their role.
In his ‘Start With the Why’ leadership strategy, Sinek trains and transforms individuals with the belief that ‘why’ is the most important message that an organisation can communicate. Tapping into a consultant’s purpose – the reason they exist, the values they hold close to their hearts, and the things they most want to achieve – is what will best inspire them into action.
This perspective is just as effective at addressing underperformance. Don’t just assume that your consultants aren’t hitting their placement targets and billing KPIs because of incompetence – find out why. There could be many reasons, including:
- Poor management/absence of training, coaching and support from their line manager
- Misunderstanding of expectations and the best way to deliver on them
- Bad habits that were instilled by previous employers (fairly likely given the staffing industry’s poor reputation as a whole) and which the consultant wrongly believes is an acceptable standard for the job
- Personal reasons, such as exhaustion brought on by becoming a new parent or anxiety surrounding an impending divorce or house move.
The fastest way to find the root of underperformance is also the most uncomfortable, which is why managers leave failing employees to flounder for too long. Ask them – but with searching, open-ended questions that prompt true reflection and insightful answers, such as:
- What do you enjoy the most and the least about your job? Why?
- Tell me about the last placement you made – what went well? What did you do specifically that made it successful?
- What one thing could your manager/the company give you that would make your job easier?
- What one thing could you start or stop doing that would help you make more placements?
Focus on achieving success in the near future and building on it, rather than chastising for poor results, to best engage the employee. When you’ve got the answers, write up a very brief action plan, simply stating:
- Three things the employee needs to improve on, with one being a larger medium-term goal that will significantly improve performance in the next few months, and two smaller behaviour-based items that will make an immediate difference
- What activities they need to do to improve (eg undergo training from colleagues, start planning their time every day, commit to following an established process)
- How this is going to be measured – what good looks like so the employee and their manager can track performance, and identify further needs if the consultant doesn’t improve to meet deadlines/quality standards.
- Take Advantage of the Existing Skills in Your Agency
Building an excellent talent development programme doesn’t have to mean spending multiple thousands or drafting in external coaches. Every sales-focused business already has a wealth of talent at its fingertips – leaders just need to tap into it.
Top billers are naturally top of mind when looking for those with skills and knowledge to pass onto less experienced consultants, but other recruiters will also have much to impart in the areas where they excel in their roles more specifically. MDs can mock up a persona of the type of recruiter who will deliver the best results for clients, candidates and the agency as a whole, to cover:
- Personality – Natural traits, such as temperament, introversion/extroversion ratio, aptitude, attitude
- Motivation – What this person cares about most, personally and professionally, that you can harness to incentivise them to succeed
- Expertise – Knowledge around people, industry, technique and process, and how they implement it well in practice
- Hard Skills – From properly utilising the CRM for all (or most!) admin, to using physical equipment when representing the firm at tradeshows, to leveraging social media for personal and company branding
- Soft Skills – From a vast range of useful abilities, which are most vital to candidate care? Choose your top three, such as empathy, active listening and having sensitive conversations.
Upon identifying the existing consultants who embody these skills and behaviours, draft a brief schedule where each consultant shares their secrets with your underperformers and junior team members. Keep sessions short, at around 30 minutes, with minimum preparation required (no PowerPoints unless absolutely necessary) and maximum direct face-to-face communication, to keep all parties engaged. Incentivise senior staff for the short time they spend away from the phone – ensure you more than make up for half an hour of potential sales time with a little extra in the pay packet or paid team drinks as a thank you and motivator for training.
- Leverage the Best Partnerships
One of the best ways to instantly upskill your team is by working directly with those who have taught these skills themselves and have a full 360-degree view of these skills across the sector marketplace. Speak to recognised industry bodies such as the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) and the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) about their current offerings and what skills they believe your team needs to best support candidates in the year ahead.
Official industry bodies offer a wide range of training, from intensive diplomas and certifications to short single-day courses in all areas of skill development including:
- Legal – Compliance, IR35 off-payroll legislation, tax, commercial risk
- Recruitment Best Practice – Resourcing, candidate qualification, interview assessment, headhunting, executive search, onboarding, business development, client development and account management
- Soft Skills – Salary and rate negotiation, candidate relationship-building, presenting and pitching, safeguarding, supportive diverse candidates with inclusive and accessible practices
- Leadership – Team management, performance improvement, succession planning, talent development.
Suppliers such as umbrella companies are also an invaluable source, not only for training and upskilling, but for the insider knowledge into the market and candidates’ most urgent problems. Set dedicated frequent meetings with your suppliers to ask them about:
- What their contractors’ main pain points are
- Specifically what solutions their contractors most commonly seek, and how their company delivers these solutions most effectively
- Feedback from candidates on their experience with your agency and others around candidate care, and how it could be improved.
Prioritise coaching and training your consultants in these areas for maximum impact to contractor experience as well as recruiter upskilling.
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