Talent Acquisition and Onboarding Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Talent Acquisition Managers, Recruiters and Talent Partners 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-061

Before you join: Participants should have basic experience of recruitment, HR administration, people management or new-hire onboarding.

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

Talent acquisition failures are costly when workforce demand is unclear, job criteria are poorly defined, candidate pipelines lack focus, or selection decisions cannot be defended. A weak onboarding process compounds the problem: new hires may receive inconsistent information, unclear expectations, delayed access to systems, and insufficient manager support during their first months. HR teams need an operating model that connects workforce planning, recruitment, selection, offer management and early performance.

This course develops the practical methods used to run a disciplined talent acquisition and onboarding function. Participants learn to convert workforce needs into approved requisitions, write evidence-based job and person specifications, build sourcing strategies, and assess candidates through structured interviews, work samples and selection matrices. They also address fair selection, privacy controls, candidate experience, offer processes, preboarding, 30-60-90 day plans, probation management and talent acquisition metrics. The course links recruitment outcomes with onboarding quality, early retention and time to productivity.

Teaching combines focused instructor briefings with sector-based cases, facilitated group work, recruitment simulations and practical review of sample documents. Participants apply methods to realistic roles such as a bank relationship manager, public-sector programme officer, technical specialist or NGO field coordinator. They leave with a reusable talent acquisition and onboarding toolkit, including templates, scorecards, checklists and an implementation plan for their own hiring process.

The course is suited to HR professionals, recruiters, HR business partners and hiring managers who already support recruitment or onboarding and need a more consistent, measurable and defensible approach.

What you will be able to do

  • Translate workforce demand into approved hiring plans, requisitions and role priorities
  • Develop job descriptions, person specifications and competency-based selection criteria
  • Design sourcing strategies using candidate personas, talent pools and recruitment funnel measures
  • Conduct structured interviews and work-sample assessments using anchored scoring guides
  • Apply fair selection controls, reasonable adjustment processes and privacy safeguards
  • Create candidate experience, offer management and preboarding service standards
  • Build 30-60-90 day onboarding plans linked to performance expectations and probation reviews
  • Measure hiring and onboarding performance through dashboards, scorecards and improvement plans

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce clearer requisitions and role specifications that reduce unsuitable applications
  • Run structured interviews with defensible scoring and documented evidence
  • Improve credibility with hiring managers through defined service levels and decision routes
  • Create practical onboarding plans that support faster new-hire contribution
  • Use recruitment and onboarding metrics to identify bottlenecks and justify improvements

For your organisation

  • Improved quality of hire through consistent role criteria and evidence-based assessment
  • Reduced recruitment delays through clearer requisition, approval and handoff processes
  • Lower early attrition through structured preboarding, manager involvement and milestone reviews
  • Stronger fair-selection controls through standardised scoring, adjustments and audit trails
  • Better hiring decisions through reliable funnel, cost, quality and onboarding data

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can translate workforce demand into prioritised, approved and actionable hiring requisitions.

  • Business strategy translated into role demand, capability gaps and hiring priorities
  • Headcount plans reconciled with budgets, vacancies, attrition and internal mobility
  • Demand forecasting using trend analysis, ratio analysis and manager judgement
  • Build requisitions with outcomes, essential criteria, grade and approval routes
  • RACI matrices assign accountability for hiring managers, recruiters and interviewers
  • Service-level agreements define response times, handoffs and escalation points

Participants can define roles and selection criteria using evidence from job analysis.

  • Job analysis combines task inventories, critical incidents and stakeholder interviews
  • Translate evidence into job purpose, accountabilities, outputs and decision rights
  • Person specifications separate essential criteria from trainable and desirable attributes
  • Competency frameworks distinguish technical, behavioural and leadership requirements
  • Use behavioural indicators to make selection criteria observable and assessable
  • Remove gendered language and unnecessary credential screens from advertisements
  • Pay transparency statements aligned with grading, ranges and local requirements

Participants can build targeted sourcing plans that improve pipeline quality and conversion.

  • Candidate personas identify motivations, channels, messages and likely objections
  • Source-of-hire analysis compares quality, cost, speed and retention outcomes
  • Talent pools segmented by scarce skills, readiness and relationship status
  • Boolean search strings combine synonyms, exclusions, location and proficiency terms
  • Employee value proposition messages tested against authentic employee evidence
  • Referral programmes designed with eligibility, rewards, controls and candidate experience
  • Recruitment marketing funnels track reach, conversion and application completion

Participants can select candidates using structured, reliable and documented assessment methods.

  • Structured interviews use identical questions, probes and anchored scoring guides
  • STAR questioning elicits specific actions, context, results and individual contribution
  • Work-sample tests replicate critical tasks using predetermined scoring criteria
  • Assessment centres combine simulations, multiple assessors and evidence integration
  • Selection matrices weight criteria and document panel decisions consistently
  • Reference checks verify employment facts, performance evidence and safeguarding concerns
  • Candidate consent and data handling follow applicable privacy requirements

Participants can apply controls that support fair, inclusive and auditable selection decisions.

  • Bias interrupters standardise screening, interviewing, scoring and panel challenge
  • Four-fifths rule flags potential disparate impact in selection outcomes
  • Reasonable adjustment processes remove assessment barriers without changing role standards
  • Accommodation requests handled confidentially with documented decisions and alternatives
  • Applicant tracking system permissions support purpose limitation and retention schedules
  • Audit trails record selection evidence, approvals, communications and exceptions
  • Automated screening governance tests validity, bias, explainability and human oversight

Participants can manage candidate communications, offers and preboarding through defined service standards.

  • Candidate journey maps identify friction from attraction through preboarding
  • Service design standards set communications, ownership, response times and escalation
  • Recruiter and manager touchpoints coordinate interviews, feedback and decisions
  • Offer approvals confirm compensation, equity, contingencies and start-date commitments
  • Offer conversations address total reward, role expectations and competing priorities
  • Rejection communications protect employer reputation while providing appropriate closure
  • Preboarding checklists trigger equipment, access, welcome messages and stakeholder introductions

Participants can design onboarding journeys that establish role clarity, relationships and productive contribution.

  • Onboarding architecture separates preboarding, orientation, role assimilation and transition milestones
  • 30-60-90 day plans connect deliverables, relationships, learning and feedback
  • Role charters clarify outcomes, decision rights, interfaces and success measures
  • Stakeholder maps identify sponsors, peers, customers and critical knowledge holders
  • Buddy programmes define selection, boundaries, check-ins and escalation routes
  • New-hire learning paths sequence compliance, systems, process and technical learning
  • First-week schedules balance administration, connection, context and productive work

Participants can equip managers to set expectations and manage early performance consistently.

  • Manager onboarding responsibilities include expectation setting, coaching and workload calibration
  • Psychological contract discussions surface mutual commitments, assumptions and working preferences
  • Goal-setting uses SMART objectives, measures, milestones and review cadences
  • Early performance conversations distinguish capability gaps, resource barriers and role ambiguity
  • Feedback models SBI and DESC structure timely, observable development conversations
  • Probation reviews document evidence, support actions, decisions and legal checks
  • Internal mobility conversations connect career aspirations, capability and workforce needs

Participants can define and use measures that improve hiring quality, speed and early retention.

  • Recruitment funnel metrics calculate conversion, time-to-fill and time-in-stage
  • Quality-of-hire scorecards combine performance, retention, manager satisfaction and ramp-up
  • Cost-per-hire separates internal labour, agency fees, advertising and technology
  • Onboarding dashboards monitor completion, belonging, productivity and early attrition
  • Data dictionaries define metric formulas, owners, sources and reporting frequency
  • Applicant tracking system workflows control requisitions, approvals and candidate communications
  • Data privacy impact assessments identify risks in recruitment technology implementations

Participants can prioritise and plan practical improvements to their talent acquisition and onboarding process.

  • Diagnose current-state hiring and onboarding processes using swimlane mapping
  • Prioritise improvements through impact-effort matrices, risk assessment and stakeholder input
  • Design implementation roadmaps with milestones, owners, dependencies and governance meetings
  • Change communication plans prepare recruiters, managers and service partners
  • Pilot measures establish baselines, success thresholds and review intervals
  • Operating reviews use dashboard evidence to correct bottlenecks and adoption gaps
  • Personal application plans specify first actions, sponsors and measurable outcomes

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

What you take back to work

  1. Workforce requisition and approval template
  2. Competency-based job and person specification template
  3. Structured interview guide and selection matrix
  4. Candidate journey and preboarding checklist
  5. 30-60-90 day onboarding plan
  6. Talent acquisition and onboarding dashboard model

Who should attend

  • Talent Acquisition Managers — need consistent hiring standards, metrics and team operating processes
  • Recruiters and Talent Partners — need stronger sourcing, assessment and candidate management methods
  • HR Business Partners — need to connect hiring demand with workforce plans and manager accountability
  • HR Managers — need defensible recruitment and onboarding controls across the employee lifecycle
  • Learning and Development Managers — need to structure new-hire learning paths and early integration
  • Hiring Managers — need practical tools for interviewing, selection decisions and first-month support

Skills and tools covered

Workforce planningStructured selectionCandidate sourcingOnboarding designRecruitment analyticsSelection governance

Tools and standards

RACI matrix, STAR interview technique, SMART objectives, Four-fifths rule

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce methods, followed by case analysis, group exercises, recruitment simulations and structured peer review. Participants work with job briefs, candidate evidence, interview scorecards, offer scenarios and onboarding data drawn from realistic organisational settings. Facilitated discussions examine trade-offs between speed, quality, fairness, cost and candidate experience. Each participant builds an application plan that identifies priority process changes, accountable stakeholders, measures and first actions for their own workplace.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic experience of recruitment, HR administration, people management or new-hire onboarding. They should understand common recruitment terms such as vacancy, job description, interview, offer and probation, and be prepared to discuss their current hiring process. Experience of applicant tracking systems, recruitment analytics or employment law is useful but not required. No prior qualification in HR, psychometrics, workforce planning or data analysis is required. The course does not assume responsibility for setting corporate employment policy.

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

You should have basic exposure to recruitment, HR operations, line management or new-hire onboarding. The course explains the methods step by step, but it is designed for professionals who can relate them to an existing workplace process.

Bring examples of your current job descriptions, interview forms, onboarding materials or recruitment reports if organisational policy permits. These materials help you identify specific improvements during the application-planning work.

It is intended for talent acquisition managers, recruiters, HR business partners, HR managers, learning professionals and hiring managers. It is particularly useful for people responsible for improving consistency between hiring and early employee integration.

The course concentrates on the full operating chain from workforce demand through sourcing, selection, offers, preboarding, onboarding and early performance. General HR courses usually cover a broader range of employment topics, while recruitment-only courses may not address onboarding design or early retention.

You can use the requisition template, structured interview guide, candidate journey checklist and 30-60-90 day plan with current vacancies or upcoming starters. The final module helps you select priority changes, assign owners and define measures.

The course contains ten modules delivered across five instructor-led days, each running from 08:30 to 16:30 with about 6.5 contact hours. Time is divided between instructor input, case work, group exercises, simulations, document review 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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