Singapore - Even people who work in the HR consultancies need training, and with recruitment companies looking at a slowdown in business, many are maximising their return on employee investment by sending employees for training.
Mark Dalgarno, director sales and marketing for Rectrain Recruiter's Academy says due to the economic slowdown, recruitment companies aren't working at the full speed that they once were. Furthermore, many of them are not looking to add to their headcount as well. Hence, many are now looking into training their employees in order to obtain maximum value from their employees through training.
Rectrain Recruiter's Academy is a newly launched training provider aimed at training recruitment consultants. It is first implementing a three-day training programme that covers aspects such as interviewing techniques, crafting effective advertisements and managing expecations of both clients and candidates.
But how is it that consultants are working in their roles but don't have the skills to be effective in their job? Julie Bebb, associate director, says through talks with recruitment firms as well as her own recruitment consultant, the onus of training people and getting them up to the right skills lies with the managers or the organisation. While some firms have their own training programmes, many rely on on-the-job training, whereby a new hire sits shadows a more experienced consultant for a week, Bebb says. However, there is a drawback to OTJ as it is too time-consuming, Bebb adds. "From the colleague's point of view, there is the added responsibility of having to train somebody else as well as do their own job."
Rectrain first aims to target recruiters from headhunting and staffing firms initially and will soon develop programmes for corporate HR recruiters and resourcing practitioners. 
