The value of internal and external training sessions

For every consultant or resourcer, training is the start of their new job within the IT recruitment sector. One or two weeks full of information about the market, your new role, and the new organisation where you will be working. Moreover, if you are not yet familiar with the IT sector, there is even more to learn about developments, trends, technologies, coding languages, and different specialisations withint he field. It is therefore not surprising that for many, this is a challenging time in which you are immersed in a bath of new information and terms you've never heard of.

I can still clearly remember my own onboarding; without any direct recruitment experience or IT knowledge, I joined DIQQ. By immediately going through a two-week boot camp, I quickly got into the hang of it and thought: now I can do it. Of course, this was not entirely true. I found out that it is invaluable to continue to develop yourself and a lot of what you learn you actually learn 'on the job.' You can only get better every day by just doing it and building up experience, by listening to and observing your colleagues, and, most importantly, by always staying up-to-date on the latest trends and developments.

Keeping knowledge up to date with training sessions

At DIQQ, we do not stop training our people after the onboarding to ensure our knowledge is always up to date. The recruitment and IT sectors change very fast, and we believe that it is invaluable to stay up to date in your field of expertise. For that reason, we organise training sessions once or twice a week for colleagues at DIQQ on various subjects, such as cybersecurity, different programming languages, and technologies. Recently, my colleague Robin Ekholm and I gave a training session on Influencing and Neuromarketing. In this training, we first explained the basic principles and then linked them to recruitment. At DIQQ, we always try to stay on top of our game so we are able to provide better support to our clients and candidates, ask in-depth questions, and guarantee a quality match for both client and candidate.

I asked Dennis Prange, who has been working as a resourcer at DIQQ for 1.5 years, about his experiences with internal and external training:

'It is essential in this industry that you know what you are talking about. This way, you also show professionalism to your candidates and clients. Through these training sessions, you also stay motivated and aware of the latest developments. I find training by a senior very useful. As a resourcer, I believe that you can learn the most from your peers.'

Managing Consultant Koen van der Drift agrees:

'I think it is important to get juniors to a higher level quickly. By actively training them and talking to each other, I see them getting better every week. That is why I encourage them to come up with their own topics.'

Nevertheless, to ensure that even our seniors are constantly developing themselves, we also like to invite people IT specialists and professionals from within the sector to tell us about the latest trends and developments. One of the first guest speakers was Edgar Versteeg, a training course that remains memorable. He gave a training session in 2018 on Blockchain 3 years ago, an unknown area for many of us, but now, of course, super relevant. After that training, it became clear to us what Blockchain was, what we could use it for, and what is actually the difference between Crypto and Blockchain.

Another IT professional who regularly trains us is Matt Hamers, Lead Developer at Rebels. He too believes there is a necessity and added value of providing a good training session:

‍'I think that a successful partnership between recruiter and candidate starts with clarity and transparency.  This is difficult to achieve when you don't quite speak the same language. The gap between Business and IT is often too big, and communication between the two is ineffective. I try to narrow this gap with my training courses by giving recruiters the correct information, context, and tools to understand IT people better, inform them better, and manage their expectations better. In short, so that they start speaking the same language.'

Not only does this, as Matt explains, help us to better understand, connect, and assure the quality of our candidates. It also ensures that they are the right fit for our clients, which helps us to establish long-term relationships. Therefore, we are incredibly grateful to the IT professionals and experts in the IT sector who take the time to help train us. This way, we can uphold the quality of our services and continue our mission to help find the perfect match for both our clients and candidates. Besides, personally, I value the opportunity to continue to grow and develop myself in a fast changing sector.
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Would you like to organise a training at DIQQ? Feel free to contact us! Or do you want to be a part of a team that values personal growth and development? We still have several open vacancies and are always looking for new talent!

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