Is your company looking for an inspiring learning and development manager? If so, there's great news for you: Burning Glass, a labor-insights company, reports that there were only 11,845 job postings for learning and development managers in the last 12 months, so the competition for this important role isn't as high as others in the human resources arena. However, these roles take 39 days on average to be filled — so it's best to get started on your search today.
These are the ways in which you can hire a top learning and development manager:
Ready to learn how to apply these tips in your own recruitment? Let's dig in.
When you need a role filled quickly and cost-effectively, a drawn out hiring process won't cut it. With more and more employees focused on growing their careers, learning and development has become a major focus for job seekers. Simply put, not having someone dedicated to this initiative can be detrimental to employee retention — and happiness.
This hiring diagram provides ways to streamline your recruiting timeline so you can get the right candidate in the door as soon as possible.
While it's not the only selling point, a competitive salary is very important to most candidates. Learning and development managers bring a lot of value to an organization by helping current employees level up, so their offer needs to reflect that. Figure out what is considered standard in the HR industry — and this role specifically — so you can give your first choice a persuasive offer.
Start out by taking a look at Randstad's salary guide for more information. There you'll find national averages for dozens of positions in the HR realm — but remember that salary can vary greatly from market to market, so make good use of our salary calculator to access the most accurate estimates.
Now that you have an idea of what a competitive offer for a candidate would be, it's time to look at the skills that person should possess. Decide on a list of qualifications and discuss them with relevant colleagues, like the HR manager and compensation and benefits manager.
Then, categorize your list into required ("must-have") skills — this could be communications and project management — and bonus ("nice-to-have") skills — things like talent management and experience with a learning-management system. By bucketing the skills into these two categories, you'll be able to quickly sort out the candidates that hit all or most of your requirements.
To get you started, here are the skills most sought-after in learning and development managers:
training programs
training materials
project management
scheduling
budgeting
sales
onboarding
The job description is the key to attracting potential candidates — especially when hiring within the HR industry. It needs to show the job seeker why the role and company would be a great fit for them — but remember, HR pros can read between the lines. Keep these three things in mind when you write your next job posting so potential candidates don't click to the next open role immediately.
don't write like a robot
Leave the jargon for your next corporate memo and craft the job description as if you were explaining the role to someone in person. Give the reader a good idea of the role's value and the company's mission — right from the first few sentences of the posting.
For example, a learning and development manager job description could start with something like:
You're motivated to motivate other people, and you're serious about always learning — specifically about available opportunities for continuous education and training, and how they'll help drive success for every person in our company.
show how this job is meaningful
People want their jobs to have an impact — especially learning and development managers, whose primary mission is to keep employees motivated and on an upward career path. In the most meaningful way possible, they need to leverage continued education and training to develop and promote employees from within.
Also, be sure to include what effect this role will have by answering questions like: How does the role fit into the company's vision? What opportunities are there for advancement? What does the team structure look like?
make it easy to skim
Job searching can be tiring, and reading long paragraphs of text gets overwhelming quickly. Make it easy on a candidate by making your job posting skimmable so they can pull out key words and phrases that indicate whether the role is a good fit. Try using bullet points and shorter paragraphs instead of the traditional long write-up.
To learn other best practices for this writing process, be sure to check out our guide to writing highly effective job descriptions.
The human resources industry is anticipating huge growth in the coming years. In order to be prepared for your potential hiring needs and find the top candidates to fill the roles, it’s important to stay on top of trends in the industry.
Below are some trends to keep in mind during your hiring process:
Open roles for learning and development managers are expected to grow by seven percent by 2029.
Learning and development managers are now considered critical to a company's growth, since continuing education and ongoing training are now requirements for advancement in many roles.
A candidate with experience developing training programs across multiple platforms will become more competitive as the industry continues to lean into new technology.
Locate qualified candidates where they are, don't make them find you. Start by seeking internal referrals — after all, they were strong enough to bring on board, so there's a good chance they know others who will also be a good fit. If you find that your company's recruiting efforts are still stalled, consider partnering with a staffing firm that has vetted pools of qualified candidates for your specific need.
Reach out to the human resources experts at Randstad to not only stay up-to-date on industry trends, but to hire your best-fit learning and development manager. Or, take a peek at a pool of high-quality, vetted candidates in our Find Employees portal today.