Black Country Skills Shop helps Quest for new recruits (From Stourbridge News)

Black Country Skills Shop helps Quest for new recruits

12:10pm Friday 23rd November 2012 in Business Daily

THE Black Country Skills Shop, based at the Merry Hill Centre, has helped new retailer, Quest, recruit 40 members of staff.

Quest is part of The Visitor Attraction Company, which recently opened a family adventure attraction for Merry Hill shoppers, including an outdoor ice rink, Sky Trail High Ropes course, Nerf blaster play area and crazy golf games.

The company held a trial at Merry Hill’s recent Rascal Fest and was introduced to Stourbridge College’s Skills Shop, part of the National Skills Academy for Retail.

Tina Dalzell, Black Country Skills Shop manager, said: “To assist with the recruitment process we assisted the head of operations with filtering through all their CVs and applications and along with Westfield advertised for some of their key roles so that local people could take advantage of the retail opportunities which were on offer.

“All interviews were held on our premises and we hope to keep working with them now that they are up and running and officially open.”

Mark Knox, manager of Quest, said: “The Black Country Skills Shop team assisted in the initial selection process. The new Quest team will now complete additional training such as first aid, basic food hygiene and customer service with Business Skills, Stourbridge College’s employer training arm.”

The Black Country Skills Shop offers people employed in retail, as well as those hoping to enter the sector, the opportunity to access nationally recognised training and qualifications, including pre-employment courses, apprenticeships and management programmes.