Has working from home limited the growth & development of Recruiters?

This may not be too popular with Recruiters in their first 2-3 years of recruitment as you can probably guess where I am going with this. I think the Working from Home revolution has had a detrimental effect on a large group of recruiters in Australia. 

Now before you make a call on this, just hear me out. I speak with somewhere in the vicinity of 60-80 recruiters a week in Australia. I would say that over 90% of these recruiters are in their first 2 years of their Recruitment careers so I think I have the knowledge behind me to have my opinion on this. 

What I always find interesting is the reasons for leaving a role. Just about every time one of the top three reasons they are looking to leave is that they feel they are not getting enough training, support or development. In terms of what they are looking for, the number one is always the ability to work from home 2-3 days a week at a minimum. 

Pre pandemic “working from home’ in our industry just wasn't a thing. Sure, there was the odd person here or there but they were usually seasoned, high performing recruiters. As a new recruiter you were in 5 days a week along with the rest of the team. The ability to seek out a manager or senior consultant was there on the spot. Regular face to face team training was happening regularly. But most importantly was the ability to sit next to and around a group of good recruiters and learn by listening and observing. 

Five days a week in the office for your first 12 months gives anyone an advantage. In 2022 there were 248 working days. Compare that to someone working 3 days in the office it brings it down to 148 days. 100 extra days a year to soak in all the necessary skills to be a good recruiter!

Now I know many advocates of the WFH model will say that since moving to remote working productivity has increased, billings have increased and promote it all over the socials. However, I think that has been massively over emphasised. I would almost guarantee that the increase in productivity and increased billings has been due to factors like a very good market in 2022 and that most of that increased productivity has come from the experienced recruiters with 2-3+ years experience. 

Speaking to a lot of agency owners they have seen similar trends. Many of these same agency owners are struggling to make a call on how to play it. Can you bring everyone back in 5 days….No chance. That’s an easy way to lose staff. Can you have the new recruiters in 5 days? Maybe but if everyone else isn't in, what's the point?

Do I have a solution, unfortunately not. Does something need to change to help the next generation of recruiters develop quicker, 100%. 

Let me know your ideas or tell me I'm wrong!