Recruitment consultants have long been tarred with a negative image, but now an entrepreneurial recruitment company is set to change perceptions once and for all with a ground-breaking new training regime.
iQad, which stands for InterQuest Accelerated Development, designed by IT Recruitment Group, InterQuest plc , is a revolutionary training programme designed to provide graduates entering the recruitment sector with the hands-on skills and knowledge they need for a successful career.
The iQad concept represents a radical departure away from the conventional quick fire induction course. Instead, the intensive and specialised training scheme focuses on guiding potential sales consultants through a comprehensive three-month series of interactive training modules, raising the entire concept of recruitment training to a whole new level.
iQad takes trainee consultants through an innovative selection process then once on board a series of 13 IT technical knowledge exams follow, then a five day residential course and over seventy daily training modules, alongside appraisals and peer coaching ranging from legal and statutory compliance to diversity training and customer service monitoring and measuring. In other words not just sales techniques!
Martyn Barrow, Marketing Director comments: “We have been tarred with the same brush as snake oil salespeople for years and this should not the case. It’s our moral and professional duty to invest in the industry and the people working in it and after 22 years in the recruitment sector I realised that training consultants for a day or two in a classroom and then get them out there selling simply isn’t good enough anymore. Our customers deserve better.”
“Through iQad we are creating a highly qualified and capable workforce and building stronger client relationships. By delivering the intensive and comprehensive training that people looking to build a career in recruitment need from day one we are skilling them up properly before we let them loose in the market, and then developing them further on an ongoing basis throughout their careers.”
Primarily launched to recruit and train new starters in recruitment, iQad has expanded its scope into other competency areas with follow on training courses including iQad Plus, to further develop and equip sales consultants who have worked in the industry for a year or more with additional knowledge and a broader skills base, and iQad Manager for employees moving up to assume more senior positions within the Group through InterQuest’s Recruiter Development Program.
Alan Found Development Director of InterQuest says: We have used the recession to plan and build what for us will be the Holy Grail of recruitment. We are confident in our ability through iQad, to generate highly qualified and professional fee earners very quickly with less than a 20 % fall out rate. Feedback so far seems to suggest that our selection and training process is industry leading - and it's certainly got elements that are contrary to perceived wisdom on how to select and train. We now know that iQad will fuel a major part of our growth in years to come.”