Explore the increase in staff and recruitment focused on relations in L&D
Ann Cathers, Director of Recruitment at Sweetrush, has training in the apprenticeship and development and recruitment industries. After a short stay as a housewife, she decided to merge both and began to recruit in the L&D field. Ann has always been grateful to have a career that aligns with her care values of others with care and compassion, and where she can apply her love to help others through career advice or to facilitate an exciting and logical next step. Ann jokes saying that she is paid to speak all day and appreciates her incredible conversations with the best talents around the world. “It's a great career for people who want to help others, create win-win situations and are authentic in their approach,” says Ann. “I have always considered myself a recruiter based on relations compared to a transactional recruiter. It is a question of finding the right adjustment at the right time compared to a square ankle in a round hole just to make a placement.”
Ann has been with Sweetrush for eight years and currently manages a team of four incredible consultants in talent solutions. She finds the joy of managing this high -performance team and finding great opportunities for big candidates. Certain notable projects include the staffing of personnel of a commitment from managed services (more than 40 people) for an autonomous vehicle company and four separate learning teams (more than 50 people) for an Edtech client in a few weeks.
In this Q & R, Ann tells us about the importance of recruitment based on relations and the intermediary of AI not Take control of recruitment jobs.
Can you tell us a little more about recruitment based on relationships and why is so important, especially in the L&D field?
I realized a long time ago that the type of recruitment I practice was based on relationships rather than transactional. I find that when you care about the individual and you establish a long -term relationship with this person, you will be much more successful in the long term. On the one hand, it is innate in whom I am as a person; On the other hand, there is a strong positive profitability analysis for this type of recruitment, and it is also the philosophy of recruitment that aligns with the Sweetrush culture. I do not want to pile up a square ankle in a round hole just to make a placement because it does not help anyone – not the customer, the agency or the candidate. For me, it is a question of finding the right opportunity for the right candidate, and it depends on where they are in their professional career.
Regarding the recruitment of L&D, it is a small industry. Over the years, I have built a solid network of learning experience designers (LXD), learning consultants, training project managers, etc. Following this relationship -based recruitment, my team and I can fill the posts very quickly – sometimes in one day.
Another result of this recruitment philosophy is that professionals in our network frequently send us references. They trust us and send their colleagues to trust Sweetrush. They do it because of our values of benevolence and mutual respect, and the candidate experience they have had here.
AI is one of the hottest subjects at the moment. What role (if applicable) does he play in talent solutions? Do you think it takes control of recruitment jobs?
My team and I have adopted AI, and we are used to help repetitive processes or administrative tasks so that we can concentrate our energy on the human side of recruitment. We are not going to use the AI to carry out an AI boot screening. The human element is simply too important for Sweetrush and my team of recruitment consultants. The use of the AI to generate an initial draft of a post description or to create interview questions makes us save time and helps us to be more effective, but we are always examining and changing, it is therefore an IA-Human collaboration. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. I also use AI to analyze recruitment measures, for example. It's a huge time saving and helps me spot trends or quickly focus on the areas of improvement.
Many people are afraid of this new technology, but I consider it a tool in my toolbox compared to something that will replace me. My team feels the same thing. We have all helped each other to rise at speed on the different tools of AI, because, let's face it, it can be overwhelming. But once you start playing with and seeing its breathtaking impact on efficiency, you just can't ignore it. The possibilities of AI are endless. Ask him to help you create a recruitment strategy or write a difficult email. Attend a free AI webinar. Start small and see where it will take you.
On the basis of your experience, what is one of the most common false ideas or misunderstandings surrounding the increase in staff? How can it help organizations extend the available resources and take advantage of external expertise?
I think that a false current idea on the increase in staff is that it is expensive and takes too long for consultants to accelerate to be effective. Customers believe that it is more expensive than hiring a full -time person, and they tend to ignore all the “hidden” costs associated with the hiring of a full -time employee. Costs associated with the advantages of employees generally oscillate 30% of the person's salary.
Later, I will share a successful commitment which puts these hypotheses to the test. The return on investment of this customer was impressive and their learning performance experienced a significant boost. These types of stories of success in the increase in staff speak for themselves.
The main thing is that our specialty and our concentration consists in hiring high -level L&D professionals that can hit the ground. This is what Sweetrush does in life, and we do for others thanks to our offers to increase staff or managed services.
What is one of your most memorable managed service services?
My most memorable and successful commitment was when our client of autonomous vehicles considerably strengthened the capacity and capacity of their L&D team to innovate thanks to a partnership with us. Faced with a lack of expertise in internal educational design for its ambitious training strategy, the customer has increased his team by 23 educational designers (IDS) with 40 pieces of identity from Sweetrush, effectively triples their L&D team during the night. This increase in their team has enabled them to manage a larger workload and respond to growing businesses.
The key to this success was a judicious process of counterpart of talents which assured that we have filled gaps in their team in addition to placing candidates who aligned themselves with their culture. In addition, Sweetrush prioritizes knowledge transfer and mentoring, which has helped increase the customer's team. As observed by the former manager of the operational training, his IDs “started at a level of student naturally because they finally saw” what the good is like “from the point of view of the educational design”.
An approach focused on relationships, characterized by daily communication and close contact throughout the commitment, has favored a strong collaboration between candidates in Sweetrush and the L&D team. This collaboration resulted in an L&D event on site which united the two teams for brainstorming and sharing best practices, and resulted in a rapid prototyping and an execution of the team's ideas.
This partnership gave impressive results, including a king of 155% on a learning program due to innovative modules based on history and team “missions”. An integration program focused on coaching has also considerably reduced time to skill and class hours by more than 50% each. In addition, another program developed in collaboration by the customer-Sweetrush team increased the learner's performance by 140%.
This commitment shows how the combination of specialized skills, increased capacity and a collaborative environment through Increased staff can stimulate innovation and provide exceptional L & D results.
What are the qualities you are looking for during the recruitment of an L&D candidate? What positions are Sweetrush mainly?
We hire many independent learning and LXD learning experience designers. The industry is in the midst of a major change due to technology, it is therefore increasingly important that LXDs have a work experience with AI. Ideally, we like to see a kind of AI certification or examples of how they take advantage of AI: do they kiss this technology? What tools do they use? What did they find as a game changer? How did it make them more effective?
On another note, I always find that LXD candidates do not have an online portfolio to share. Sometimes customers ask a person who has solid LXD skills and who also knows the development tools for elearning and multimedia creation tools. In these cases, we are looking for candidates Who can create visually attractive learning assets and / or beautiful engaging videos, but their learning solutions must also be healthy in teaching.
Finally and above all, is there a project or an initiative that you would like our readers to know?
There are two things that I would like to share on Sweetrush. The first is that Sweetrush is a strategic supplier of full learning and performance, and we transform the way organizations and individuals succeed. We are not only a content provider; We are a strategic partner. We offer personalized learning solutions, including services managed with high -level talents and an increase in staff. We have intentionally built a highly qualified and advisory talent pool to deepen our customer relations and provide exceptional results. Whether you are a customer looking for an effective end -to -end learning strategy or a passionate performance consultant, we are your trusted partner to achieve your business goals and navigate the future of work.
Second, we have a bench of AI consultants to help our customers in AI governance, IA's analysis and ideas of data, engineering and development of AI and AI in learning design and development. We help our customers navigate the new opportunities that present and help them go to the sure and proactive adoption of AI.
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Thanks to Ann Cathers for asking our questions and offered her precious ideas. If you want to know more about Sweetrush staff increase services, you can consult their talent solutions To see their most popular investments and contact. We would also like to congratulate Sweetrush to be Supplier n ° 1 of the ELERNING industry for the best ELEARNING staff increase services In the upper list of this year.
