Recruitment, Selection and Retention Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends HR Managers, Recruitment Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-TPM-047

Before you join: Participants should have practical exposure to recruitment, line management, HR operations or employee performance processes.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Hiring failures, slow recruitment cycles and preventable employee turnover create direct cost, operational risk and pressure on managers. Organisations need more than vacancy filling: they need clear workforce demand assumptions, credible job requirements, fair selection decisions and practical retention action. This course addresses the full employee entry and early-career cycle, from workforce planning and attraction through assessment, onboarding, performance management and retention diagnosis.

Participants learn to translate business needs into prioritised hiring plans, write evidence-based job descriptions, choose sourcing channels and manage candidate pipelines. They build structured selection processes using weighted criteria, interview scorecards, behavioural questioning and work-sample evidence. The course also covers offer decisions, onboarding, performance conversations, stay interviews, turnover analysis, career pathways, reward considerations and manager accountability for retention.

Teaching combines focused instructor briefings with recruitment cases, selection simulations, data analysis, peer review and application planning. Cases reflect roles commonly recruited by banks, public agencies, NGOs, multinational companies and large employers, including scarce technical roles, frontline positions and leadership appointments. Participants leave with a practical recruitment and retention toolkit containing templates, decision tools and a 90-day action plan that can be adapted to their own hiring priorities.

The course is suited to HR practitioners and managers who already participate in recruitment or employee management and need a more disciplined approach to securing capable people and reducing avoidable departures.

What you will be able to do

  • Develop workforce demand plans using role segmentation, capacity assumptions and hiring scenarios
  • Design evidence-based job descriptions, candidate personas and employee value propositions
  • Build sourcing strategies using channel portfolios, talent pools and recruitment service levels
  • Apply structured selection criteria, weighted scorecards and adverse impact checks
  • Conduct structured interviews using STAR questioning, behavioural indicators and rating anchors
  • Create onboarding and probation plans that reduce early attrition risks
  • Diagnose turnover drivers using stay interviews, exit data and retention segmentation
  • Produce recruitment and retention dashboards with measures, owners and review dates

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Make defensible hiring recommendations supported by documented evidence
  • Run structured interviews with clearer questions, probes and scoring
  • Identify early warning signs of regrettable employee turnover
  • Lead more useful stay interviews and performance check-ins
  • Present recruitment and retention data confidently to senior managers

For your organisation

  • Improves consistency and fairness in recruitment and selection decisions
  • Reduces delays caused by unclear requisitions and poorly managed handoffs
  • Strengthens quality-of-hire through job-relevant assessment methods
  • Reduces early attrition through better onboarding and probation management
  • Targets retention investment at critical roles and identifiable turnover causes

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can convert workforce demand into prioritised hiring requirements, accountabilities and service expectations.

  • Workforce planning translates business demand into role, capacity and timing assumptions
  • Demand-supply gap analysis distinguishes build, buy, borrow and automate responses
  • Critical-role segmentation ranks vacancies by scarcity, value creation and business risk
  • Headcount scenarios test baseline, growth, freeze and restructuring assumptions
  • RACI matrices assign accountability for requisition approval and hiring decisions
  • Recruitment SLAs define service levels, handoffs, deadlines and escalation routes

Participants can define credible employment offers and job requirements that attract suitable candidates.

  • Employee value proposition evidence connects workforce preferences with employment offers
  • Candidate personas specify motivations, constraints, channels and decision criteria
  • Job analysis separates essential outcomes, tasks, competencies and working conditions
  • Competency-based job descriptions state observable requirements rather than generic traits
  • Realistic job previews reduce expectation gaps before candidates accept offers
  • Inclusive language checks remove gendered wording and unnecessary qualification barriers

Participants can build sourcing plans and manage candidate pipelines against agreed recruitment priorities.

  • Source-of-hire analysis compares quality, speed, cost and retention outcomes
  • Channel portfolios combine internal mobility, referrals, agencies, campuses and direct search
  • Talent pools use consent, segmentation, contact cadence and expiry rules
  • Boolean search strings target skills, location, qualifications and exclusion criteria
  • Applicant tracking workflows prevent duplicate records, delays and candidate drop-off
  • Recruiter outreach messages communicate role evidence, credibility and response requests

Participants can design selection processes with clear criteria, accessible assessment and documented decisions.

  • Selection criteria convert job analysis into weighted, observable evidence requirements
  • Must-have and trainable criteria prevent inflated person specifications
  • Structured scorecards define rating anchors before candidate assessment begins
  • Adverse impact checks test selection stages for disproportionate group outcomes
  • Reasonable adjustment processes support accessible assessments and documented decisions
  • Data minimisation limits collection to information relevant for selection
  • ISO 30405 principles guide transparent, consistent and ethical recruitment

Participants can assess candidates consistently using structured interviews and job-relevant evidence.

  • Structured interviews use identical questions, probes and rating anchors
  • STAR questioning elicits situation, task, action and result evidence
  • Behavioural indicators distinguish demonstrated competence from confident self-presentation
  • Work-sample tests replicate essential tasks under standardised conditions
  • Assessment-centre methods combine simulations, observer calibration and evidence logs
  • Reference-check protocols verify claims, obtain consent and record factual evidence

Participants can make documented hiring decisions and plan effective employee entry and probation support.

  • Panel calibration resolves rating differences using recorded behavioural evidence
  • Decision rules document pass thresholds, exceptions, conflicts and approvals
  • Offer positioning aligns salary ranges, benefits, internal equity and candidate expectations
  • Preboarding plans maintain contact, complete checks and prepare equipment access
  • Thirty-sixty-ninety-day plans set role outcomes, relationships, learning and review points
  • Probation reviews address performance, support needs and early resignation risks

Participants can establish performance expectations and conduct evidence-based review conversations.

  • Performance management architecture links organisational goals, team priorities and individual outcomes
  • SMART objectives define measurable deliverables, deadlines, standards and accountabilities
  • OKRs distinguish ambitious outcomes from measurable key results
  • Regular check-ins use evidence, feedback, barriers and agreed next actions
  • Behavioural feedback applies SBI: situation, behaviour, impact and agreed improvement
  • Performance documentation records expectations, support, evidence and review decisions
  • Rating calibration tests consistency, bias patterns and distribution assumptions

Participants can identify turnover patterns and determine the likely causes of regrettable employee loss.

  • Retention segmentation identifies regrettable loss, critical populations and turnover patterns
  • Survival analysis tracks tenure points where resignation risk increases
  • Stay interviews uncover manager, career, workload and reward drivers
  • Exit interview protocols separate stated reasons from recurring systemic causes
  • Turnover cost models quantify vacancy, replacement, learning and productivity losses
  • Engagement survey items distinguish commitment, discretionary effort and intent to stay

Participants can select retention interventions that address career, reward, workload and management factors.

  • Career frameworks show progression criteria, skill breadth and promotion evidence
  • Internal mobility policies balance talent release, succession and manager accountability
  • Total reward reviews compare pay positioning, benefits, recognition and fairness
  • Manager capability plans target coaching, workload allocation and meaningful feedback
  • Job crafting discussions align strengths, development goals and role requirements
  • Flexible-work principles define eligibility, team coordination and equitable access

Participants can report recruitment and retention performance and prioritise improvement actions.

  • Recruitment dashboards track funnel conversion, time-to-fill, quality and candidate experience
  • Quality-of-hire measures combine performance, retention, manager assessment and ramp-up
  • Retention dashboards segment turnover by role, manager, location and tenure
  • Root-cause analysis uses five whys and fishbone diagrams for persistent issues
  • People-data governance covers access, retention periods, consent and audit trails
  • Ninety-day action plans prioritise interventions, owners, measures and review dates
  • Stakeholder communication packs report decisions, risks, findings and requested support

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Workforce demand and hiring-priority template
  2. Competency-based job description and candidate persona model
  3. Structured interview guide and weighted selection scorecard
  4. Preboarding, onboarding and probation review checklist
  5. Stay interview, exit interview and turnover analysis pack
  6. Ninety-day recruitment and retention action plan

Who should attend

  • HR Managers — responsible for recruitment quality, workforce stability and HR service delivery
  • Recruitment Managers — accountable for sourcing strategy, candidate pipelines and hiring outcomes
  • Talent Acquisition Specialists — seeking consistent methods for assessment and candidate management
  • HR Business Partners — advising managers on workforce needs, performance and retention risks
  • Learning and Development Managers — supporting onboarding, manager capability and career development
  • Line Managers — making hiring decisions and managing performance and employee retention

Skills and tools covered

Workforce planningStructured selectionInterview assessmentOnboarding designRetention diagnosticsPeople analytics

Tools and standards

ISO 30405, Structured interview, STAR technique, 9-box grid

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish methods, followed by case work, group exercises, selection simulations and facilitated review. Participants analyse job requirements, compare sourcing choices, construct scorecards, assess interview evidence and interpret turnover patterns. Recruitment and retention cases provide realistic decisions involving budget limits, scarce skills, internal candidates, performance concerns and employee departures. Each participant develops an application plan for a current recruitment or retention priority, supported by peer feedback and instructor guidance.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical exposure to recruitment, line management, HR operations or employee performance processes. They should understand common HR terminology such as job description, probation, performance review, employee turnover and salary range. Experience of interviewing candidates or supporting a hiring manager is helpful but not essential. No prior qualification in HR, psychology, employment law, statistics or people analytics is required. Participants do not need to bring organisational data, although current recruitment forms or retention concerns can inform their application planning.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have some exposure to HR, recruitment, line management or employee performance processes. Formal HR qualifications and prior experience of people analytics are not required.

Bring a current or recent recruitment, onboarding or retention issue that you would like to improve. You may also bring blank versions of your organisation's job description, interview or probation forms if permitted.

The course is designed for HR managers, recruitment specialists, HR business partners, learning managers and line managers with hiring responsibilities. It is particularly useful where hiring quality, early attrition or inconsistent manager decisions are concerns.

Interviewing is one part of the course, supported by structured questions, scoring and evidence evaluation. The course also addresses workforce planning, attraction, sourcing, hiring decisions, onboarding, performance and retention.

Participants leave with reusable templates and a 90-day action plan linked to a current workplace priority. Typical applications include redesigning interview scorecards, improving probation reviews or analysing turnover in critical roles.

The five days provide approximately 32.5 contact hours, delivered from 08:30 to 16:30 each day. Time is divided between instructor input, case analysis, group work, selection simulations, feedback and application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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