Collaboration of Chamber Platinum Members

01 Dec 2022

Published in: Member News

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Platinum Chamber members Juniper Training and MET Recruitment, winners of the Chamber’s Excellence in Professional Services Award, have recently joined forces to recruit and upskill apprentices within their teams in both Brierley Hill and Dudley

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Platinum Chamber members Juniper Training and MET Recruitment, winners of the Chamber’s Excellence in Professional Services Award, have recently joined forces to recruit and upskill apprentices within their teams in both Brierley Hill and Dudley.

Juniper Training, are an established independent training provider with training centres across the Black Country and West Midlands. MET Recruitment are highly experienced, specialist providers of temporary, contract and permanent recruitment solutions to companies and job seekers throughout the UK.

Paul Nightingale, Apprenticeship Recruitment Consultant with Juniper, initially made contact with Robin Tong, Managing Director at MET, to discuss the prevalent skills gaps within the recruitment sector. Robin was keen to invest in development to upskill his current staff as well as recruiting new staff.

Paul then had follow-up meetings with Nella Share, Commercial Manager and Matt Hunter, Industrial Director. Nella had a new trainee resourcer identified and felt that using the structured continuing professional development (CPD) approach that apprenticeships offer, would be a perfect solution for her team. Nella’s new Recruitment Resourcer commenced his role and Level 2 apprenticeship in November.

Paul also worked with Matt to carry out a spot analysis of the team as Matt had a desire to progress and develop the team through CPD. Together they mapped out the required CPD for existing staff, as well as identifying potential new roles to support the business’s growth plan.

Due to the current skills gap within recruitment consultants that has been identified by multiple recruitment agencies, it was felt that an academy approach to training, utilising the apprenticeship standards – Recruitment Resourcer Level 2 and Recruitment Consultant Level 3, would meet MET’s business needs to develop their workforce alongside their own in-house training programme.

Matt identified two members of his team to upskill as Recruitment Consultants. Both commenced their Level 3 apprenticeships in November.

MET are a non-levy paying company, so 95% of their apprenticeship training costs are funded by the government. This therefore supports the 18 months of CPD/apprenticeship training for their staff.

Paul Nightingale said “It was a pleasure to work with the management team at MET. What’s clear is that they share the same vision and passion for training and development for the future stars of recruitment and have clearly shown investment in their staff through the introduction of the apprenticeship standards to their staffing structure”.

Nella Share commented “Working with Paul and Juniper Training has been a pleasure so far. As is the case with most recruitment agencies in the current market, recruiting skilled recruiters has been tough and as a business, we have always championed apprenticeships. It seemed the perfect solution therefore to recruit, train and develop our own people rather than scouring the market for existing experience. Teaming up with Juniper to ensure our apprentices are provided with the right training and qualifications, as well as our own internal training scheme has provided the quintessential backdrop for their early careers in recruitment and with MET. We look forward to our continued relationship with Paul and the Juniper team”

Robin Tong, MET Managing Director said, "It's great to see that we now have a route in recruitment where a person can gain knowledge of our industry and also further educate themselves at the same time as working, this will massively improve our sector in the long run. The relationship that MET has with Paul is second to none and he really understands our market."

Juniper look forward to continuing this collaborative relationship with MET moving forward and wish the apprentices all the very best for their future careers in the recruitment industry.

If any other Chamber organisations are interested in utilising apprenticeships to upskill their current or future workforce, please get in touch with Juniper Training on 01902 864194 or email enquiries@junipertraining.co.uk