It covers how your consultants find, approach and win the right clients, and how they grow the accounts they already have. Typical topics include choosing target clients, building a message that stands out, first approaches, meetings and pitches, qualifying vacancies, selling retained assignments and building long-term relationships. Every programme is written around your market and the experience of your team.
Business development is the strategy: which clients to target, what to say to them and where to spend your time. Sales training is the conversations themselves: calls, meetings, qualifying, handling objections and agreeing terms. Consultants need both, so most programmes combine them, weighted towards whatever your team needs most.
Yes. New Consultant Training is a three-day modular programme covering the recruitment process and the core skills. Good to Great: Ultimate Consultant is for experienced people who want to move into the top tier. Mixed groups work well too, as long as the content is pitched for the room. That’s part of the tailoring.
Yes. Programmes run from Introduction to Recruitment Management for newly promoted managers, through The Player Manager for those still billing, to Advanced Management Training and one-to-one coaching. Leadership work often combines workshops with individual coaching, so the new habits are supported back in the business.
Yes. Headhunting Training has a dedicated in-house version for talent acquisition teams who need to reach people who aren’t on job boards or databases. It can include a live calling element, so the skills are used for real on the day. Pitching and presentation skills and client relationship training also adapt well for in-house teams.
Both. In-person training is usually run at your offices. Online training is rewritten for the format and delivered live in two or three modules of around two to three hours, usually a day or two apart. That keeps energy high and lets the office run normally between sessions.
It depends on the course and what you want to change. Most workshops are a full day in person, or two to three short modules online. New Consultant Training runs over three days. Longer programmes combine several workshops with on-the-desk follow-up and coaching over a few months. We agree the shape once we know your goals.
Interactive workshops work best with groups of around 8 to 12, so everyone gets practice and feedback. If your team is bigger, we can run the same workshop for more than one group. Keynotes and conference sessions can be any size.
Yes. I regularly train at clients’ offices across the UK, and I’ve worked with teams outside the UK both in person and online. Travel costs are agreed upfront, so there are no surprises.
By treating the workshop as the start, not the finish. Programmes are built around your team’s real clients and calls, skills are practised in the room, and we follow up on the desk afterwards. Managers are involved so they can coach the same standards day to day. Where it helps, we agree a few measures before we start and check them afterwards.
That depends on where you are starting from, so we agree the measures before training begins: things like client meetings booked, conversion from meeting to vacancy, retained assignments won or average fee. Clients have told us they’re winning more profitable business more often, and seeing a real impact on profitability and time management.
Clients include Investigo, Redfox Executive Search, SystemsAccountants, Rutherford Briant, Mackenzie Jones, 6 Group, Cogence Search, Linsco, Henderson Drake, Sainty Hird and Oscar, along with in-house teams at businesses such as KBC and SoftwareOne.
Always. Before any programme I speak to you, and usually to some of the team, about your market, your desks and where people are getting stuck. The content, examples and role-plays are then written around that. There is no off-the-shelf version.
It depends on the number of days, the delivery format and how much follow-up you want. You’ll always get a clear, fixed quote before anything is agreed.
No, it’s optional. If you already know what your team needs, we go straight to it. If you’d like a clearer picture first, the Diagnostic looks at how your team wins business today: activity, target clients, pitch, pipeline and conversion. You get written findings and a recommended plan, which are useful on their own whether or not we work together afterwards.
Usually within a few weeks of our first conversation, depending on diaries and how much tailoring is needed.
James Nathan is a UK recruitment trainer, author and speaker with over 25 years in recruitment. He works with recruitment agencies and in-house teams on business development, sales, consultant skills and leadership, and mentors recruitment business owners. He wrote the book Recruiting to Win®, now in its second edition.
Recruiting to Win® is James Nathan’s recruitment training business, and the title of his book. It provides tailored business development, sales, consultant and leadership training for recruitment agencies and in-house teams, delivered in person or online, plus one-to-one mentoring and coaching for agency leaders. The company behind it is James Nathan Limited.
Yes. James speaks at recruitment conferences, kick-off meetings and company events, usually on service excellence and how to stand out to clients. Every keynote is tailored to the audience and can be paired with a workshop for a deeper session.
