Recruiting and Selection Courses: Talent Acquisition and Employer Branding
Recruiting and selection training to develop talent acquisition skills, behavioral interview techniques, employer branding and digital sourcing. Learn modern strategies to attract talent, reduce time-to-hire and improve quality of hire.
What you'll learn in Recruiting and Selection courses
Effective recruiting is critical competitive advantage: hiring the right people accelerates business performance, reduces costly turnover and builds winning culture. LinkedIn Talent Solutions shows that companies with structured recruiting are 3.5x more likely to outperform competitors. Our programs cover talent acquisition strategy, employer branding, multi-channel sourcing, behavioral interview techniques (STAR), assessment centers, ATS and recruiting analytics.
You'll learn to build attractive employer value proposition (EVP): communicate company culture, unique benefits, growth opportunities to attract better candidates, develop multi-channel sourcing strategies: LinkedIn Recruiter, job boards, referral programs, social recruiting, headhunting for critical profiles, use structured behavioral interviews: STAR questions (Situation-Task-Action-Result), objective competency scoring, reduce selection bias, implement assessment and testing: technical skills tests, personality assessments, case studies, situational exercises to validate role fit, manage candidate experience: fast communication, process transparency, constructive feedback to protect company reputation, optimize recruiting metrics: time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, quality of hire, offer acceptance rate, 1st year retention for data-driven decisions.
Who this training is for
- HR Managers and Talent Acquisition Specialists: recruiting leaders who want to modernize processes and improve quality of hire
- Recruiters and HR Generalists: professionals conducting selections who want to master behavioral interview techniques
- Hiring Managers and Team Leaders: managers involved in selections who need candidate assessment skills
- Entrepreneurs and Founders: building teams in startups/SMEs who want to attract talent with limited resources
- HR in digital transformation: professionals who want to adopt ATS, digital sourcing, social employer branding
Benefits of Recruiting and Selection training
Reduced time-to-hire and costs
Effective sourcing strategies and structured processes reduce selection time by 40% and cost-per-hire while maintaining high quality of hire.
Improved quality of hire
Behavioral interview techniques and structured assessments increase selection accuracy, reducing first 12-month turnover by 30%.
Strong employer branding
Clear EVP and positive candidate experience attract better candidates, reduce dependence on expensive headhunters and protect reputation.
How to choose the right format for your team
Each format is designed to adapt to different recruiting skill development needs and business contexts.
In-person course → ideal for:
- Intensive behavioral interview workshops with role-plays and real candidate assessment simulations
- Recruiting teams: calibration of evaluation criteria, bias reduction, agreement on competency scoring
- Hiring managers: develop selection skills with industry-specific cases and personalized feedback
- Assessment center design: design situational tests and group exercises for critical roles
Online course → ideal for:
- Talent acquisition fundamentals: employer branding, multi-channel sourcing, candidate experience flexibly accessible
- Geographically dispersed recruiters needing scalable training on LinkedIn Recruiter and ATS
- Microlearning specific techniques: STAR questions, competency scoring, selection bias, social employer branding
- Recruiting certifications (e.g. LinkedIn Certified Professional Recruiter) with self-assessment exercises
Blended course → ideal for:
- Talent acquisition and employer branding theory online + in-person workshop with interview simulations and group feedback
- E-learning sourcing techniques and ATS + live sessions analyzing recruiting pipeline and metrics optimization
- Tools platform (job description templates, evaluation grids) + 1-to-1 coaching on difficult selections
- Certification path: on-demand behavioral interview content + practical assessment with mock candidates
Frequently asked questions about Recruiting and Selection
What is behavioral interviewing and how does the STAR method work?
Behavioral interviewing assesses candidates by asking for concrete examples of past behaviors ("tell me about a time when...") instead of hypotheticals ("what would you do if..."). It's based on the principle that past behaviors predict future behaviors. The STAR method structures answers in four elements: Situation (the context: "In my role X at company Y..."), Task (the specific task: "I had to reduce delivery time by 30% within 3 months"), Action (concrete actions: "I mapped the process, eliminated bottlenecks, automated manual steps"), Result (measurable results: "Reduced time by 35%, saved €50k/year"). The interviewer prepares STAR questions for critical role competencies and scores responses to compare candidates objectively, reducing biases like halo effect and first impression.
How do you build effective employer branding?
Employer branding is your company reputation as an employer and influences the ability to attract and retain talent. To build it: define your EVP (Employer Value Proposition) - what you offer uniquely vs competitors (culture, growth, flexibility, mission); do a current perception audit analyzing Glassdoor reviews, exit interviews and employee surveys to identify gaps between promise and reality; create authentic storytelling sharing real employee stories, projects and lived values instead of just marketing claims; maintain strong digital presence with LinkedIn Career Pages, testimonial videos, Life@Company blog and behind-the-scenes social content; ensure excellent candidate experience with fast process, transparent communication and constructive feedback even to rejected candidates. The common mistake is promising a culture that doesn't exist, which backfires.
Which sourcing strategies work best to attract passive talent?
Passive talent (70-80% of the market) aren't actively looking but are open to the right opportunities. Effective strategies include: LinkedIn Recruiter with advanced searches and personalized InMails (not generic templates); referral programs incentivizing employees to refer candidates (quality of hire 40% better than other sources); talent communities to maintain relationships with ex-candidates and interesting profiles via newsletters and events; social recruiting sharing employer branding content on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter to stay top-of-mind; event networking at meetups, conferences and hackathons to meet professionals informally; targeted headhunting for critical senior roles with direct approach and clear value proposition. The key is building relationships before urgent needs and being authentic about the opportunity.
How to reduce cognitive bias in selection process?
Cognitive biases distort candidate assessment favoring unconscious discrimination. Main biases and mitigations: affinity bias (preferring people similar to us) - use diverse panels and objective criteria instead of "gut feeling"; halo effect (one positive trait colors everything) - do separate scoring per competency instead of holistic assessment; confirmation bias (seeking confirmation of first impression) - adopt structured interviews with standard questions and blind CV review; beauty bias (influence of physical appearance) - focus on competencies and work sample tests; contrast effect (comparison with previous candidate) - evaluate against role requirements, not other candidates. Structural strategies include anonymous CVs, pre-defined evaluation grids, diverse panels, work sample tests and recruiting team calibration. Structured interviews have double the predictive accuracy of unstructured ones.
Which recruiting metrics are most important to monitor?
Critical recruiting metrics to optimize the process are: time-to-hire (days from position opening to offer acceptance - benchmark 30-45 days; over 60 you lose best candidates); cost-per-hire (total recruiting costs divided by number of hires); quality of hire (first year performance, 12-24 month retention, promotion rate - hardest to measure but most important); source of hire effectiveness (percentage of hires per channel and quality by source to allocate budget); offer acceptance rate (percentage of offers accepted - if low indicates problems with compensation, employer branding or candidate experience); candidate experience score (post-process survey even for rejected); pipeline metrics (conversion rate at each stage to identify bottlenecks). The essential is focusing on quality of hire instead of just speed and cost.
How to manage recruiting in talent shortage contexts?
In talent shortage contexts (tech, healthcare, skilled trades) creative strategies are needed: expand the talent pool considering juniors with potential instead of only experts ("hire for aptitude, train for skills"), geographically dispersed remote workers, career changers from adjacent sectors, neurodivergent people; do internal upskilling promoting and training existing employees instead of external hiring (improves retention and morale); offer competitive comp & benefits with market benchmarking, equity, flexibility and learning budget beyond salary; build strong employer branding to differentiate with culture, mission and interesting projects when you can't pay top-market; ensure speed to offer with fast processes (max 2 weeks) because top talent has multiple offers; consider alternative workforce like contractors and fractional executives for temporary gaps; create talent partnerships with universities and bootcamps. The key is competing on total EVP, not just compensation.