Recruitment Courses

Recruitment is the process of attracting, interviewing, and hiring employees to fill job openings in an organization. As a core aspect of human resources (HR), recruitment is important because it provides an organization with its most valuable resource: quality personnel. The term “talent management” is increasingly used to refer to employee recruitment as well as retention, in recognition of the vital importance of having the right people to a company’s success.

To find the right candidates to fill the needs of an organization’s HR strategy, recruiters increasingly combine a hard data “people analytics” approach with traditional interpersonal soft skills. The advent of digital hiring platforms like LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter have made it possible to filter through huge numbers of resumes and quickly surface qualified candidates. Then, recruiters must still use interviews, references, and other screening techniques to ensure that an applicant that looks good “on paper” will be a good fit for the organizational culture of a company.‎

The most relevant job for skilled recruiters is a human resource specialist, also known as recruitment specialists, personnel recruiters, or “head hunters.” These professionals are directly responsible for recruiting, screening, interviewing, and placing employees into jobs within an organization. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they make a median salary of $61,920 per year and typically have a bachelor’s degree, although professional certifications can enhance their value to employers.

An understanding of the recruitment process is also essential for roles in HR management - and, in fact, many HR managers begin their careers as recruiters. However, HR managers have responsibilities that go beyond recruiting, including the onboarding and training process for new hires, ongoing employee relations and regulatory compliance, and the administration of employee payroll and benefits. They are also responsible for supervising specialists and other support staff, which requires strong managerial skills.‎

Absolutely! Coursera has a wide variety of online courses on topics in recruitment and interviewing, as well as more advanced courses and Specializations on human resource management and people analytics. This broad range of coursework can give you the chance to meld your interpersonal skills with data-driven analysis.

With courses offered from top-ranked institutions like the University of Minnesota and the University of Pennsylvania, you get the opportunity to take advantage of the low cost of online learning without sacrificing the quality of your education. And, with virtual office hours and collaborative group projects, you can put your interviewing and communication skills to the test, all while pursuing your recruitment education remotely and on a flexible schedule.‎

The skills or experience you may already need to have before learning about recruitment include interviewing others in person or over the phone, negotiating with others for win-win outcomes, and persuasiveness to help others see beneficial situations. Any experience in human resources or management can also be beneficial for learning about recruitment. If you have any experience in settings where you needed to communicate with employees and management, understand or assess people’s behaviors, or help identify people’s strengths and weaknesses, you may have some of the necessary skills needed to study recruitment.‎

The kind of person who is best suited to learn recruitment is someone who is naturally curious and inquisitive about a person’s background. Someone who loves to help people figure out their talents and how to apply them can also do well learning about recruitment. A person with tough skin who can handle rejection but loves the thrill of competing with others to win in a situation may have the right drive to learn recruitment. Someone who likes to research and keeps up on industry and job trends, learning how various companies operate can also make a good recruitment student. If someone is in the position of leading and motivating teams or finding, hiring, and onboarding the right people or diverse groups for a project or job, they may be the right type of person to learn recruitment, as well.‎

Learning recruitment may be right for you if you want to build ongoing relationships with people from all walks of life, open doors for others, and help them change their lives by finding their dream jobs. You may have what it takes to study recruitment if you are resilient and persistent. If you can bounce back from disappointments even after spending a lot of time working to bring together a client and candidate for a job, then recruitment may be a good fit for you to study. Even after disappointment, if you are persistent and motivated in your professional endeavors, learning recruitment may be right for you. Studying recruitment may be good for you if you want to have the chance to meet people from all different industries and many high-level executives from various companies. If you are in the position of needing to find, hire, and onboard the right people for projects or jobs within your company, then learning recruitment might be beneficial for you.‎