Train the (Wannabe) Trainer
March 23, 2010 9:14 PM   Subscribe

I want to eventually become a world-class training manager (the business kind, not the lifting weights, drinking powershakes kind). Trainers of the askme world -- what was the path you took to get where you are today?

I am at what I think is a career crossroads, and want to make a career change. I like training (meaning that I enjoy helping people understand how to approach an issue and problem solve, I like explaining stuff, and in general, just plain old like helping people) so I want to start doing the right things now that will get me to Super Training Guru status in the next 5 years or so. I currently do a fair bit of training in my current position, and have done a little ad-hoc training in previous positions.

Here are some things that I fear may be holding me back, and would love to hear from you about ways you have worked around any of these issues:

A lot of the training world seems to be focused on certifications and whatnot. What are the main certifications (if any) that I should pursue? (I've seen a few relating to Steven Covey-type certificates, and others around creating computer-based tutorials).

I don't have any official HR experience, and from the job postings out there a lot of training positions seem to reside under the larger HR umbrella. Like most people, I've interviewed and hired my share of people, but that's about the extent. In your experience, do a lot of companies out there require some sort of stint in HR first, or is it a "nice to have"?

Any other industry tips or advice is very much appreciated (even if you are currently a trainer and absolutely hate it -- would love to know what you hate about it, too...).

Thanks!
posted by Ham_On_Rye to Work & Money (4 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm a software trainer in higher education. I've been in the field since 2000. I got into it via an M.Ed. in Educational Technology. My undergraduate degree is in English. I don't have any certifications, though I've considered the ACE (Adobe Certified Expert) and the MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer). In higher education, it's generally degrees that count. Certifications are nice to have, but degrees are essential.

Training departments in higher education tend to live either in IT or in HR. I don't think a lack of HR experience would be an issue, unless you're expected to be some sort of Subject Matter Expert (SME) on HR-related topics. In my current position, I train on--and am expected to have expertise in the use of--Microsoft Office apps (especially Excel, Access, and SharePoint), our ERP application (which I'd never heard of before I came here), our reporting software, and whatever else comes down the pike.

Strong writing and communication skills are key. Previous teaching/training experience is very important. You'll want to get your feet wet in some of the theory, best practices, and vocabulary of the field, as well as a good grasp of general IT and web communication trends. On the technical side, experience with screencasting (Adobe Captivate, TechSmith Camtasia, etc.) and document design (Word, InDesign, FrameMaker) as well as, of course, PowerPoint, will be tools of your new trade. And, if you also happen to be an SME on some topic(s), that can be a big selling point.

Email/PM/IM is in my profile, if you have any questions.
posted by wheat at 11:47 PM on March 23, 2010


I think there is a key distinction here: do you want to be an awesome trainer of someone else's system/service/product etc, or do you want to actually create from the ground up your own philosophy of x?

You use the term "guru" - if that's what you want to be, then typically you start with the BIG IDEA and essentiually find a way of showing that something complex and poorly understood/executed can be achieved more simply by following your guidance. This can be better understood by the maxim: "Create your niche and mine it." That niche ideally should be communicable in a sentence no longer than the title of a book.

In my line of work I do a fair bit of internal training and as the company I work for is quite forward thinking and reasonably innovative, I'm often struck by how my (and some of my colleagues') approaches on some subjects are more effective and clearer than much of the thinking out there. If I wanted to move into an external training environment my niche would be in the areas where I felt there was an existing training gap and where my ideas where sufficiently different and superior to what's currently available.

If it's a question of becoming the elite arm of a training function within a company then the skills requirement is a little more orderly - proveable knowledge of topic/professional accreditation, experience of both giving training and creating training materials, clarity of communication. And above that, demonstrably good feedback - I've yet to participate in a training session where a key component of the session wasn't a check to see how useful it was.
posted by MuffinMan at 5:16 AM on March 24, 2010


Response by poster: Wheat, thanks -- I think that although I'm a bit tech savvy, was interested in more general non-technical topics for training, unless it involves training newly hired employees how to get up to speed on a certain database or something like that. So even just typing it out, it seems I have more of an HR bent regarding training.

MuffinMan, good distinction -- I think I would prefer to be the trainer of someone else's system/service/product, but that is also because that is my comfort zone, and feel that I don't have the skills/experience/training to create my own training plans. This might be just an issue with my thinking, but I also don't think I have a unique solution to a BIG IDEA that would be different than what is out there. I think I am more of a "popularizer" or "educator" of other big ideas and enjoy helping people to understand them. I think the latter paragraph that you mention is what I'm after.

Thanks to you both for your help!
posted by Ham_On_Rye at 7:45 AM on March 24, 2010


Ham_on_Rye: "soft skills" training, procedure/workflow training, and new hire training (which can encompass both, as well as the more technically-oriented stuff) are perfectly legit areas of specialization. Those would, as you suspect (and especially in corporate environments) tend to be housed more often in HR departments. Besides internal training, there's also customer support training. Sometimes those are departmentally differentiated and sometimes they're lumped together.
posted by wheat at 1:16 PM on March 24, 2010


« Older Seattle Flashmob--How Do I Find One?   |   Help me find a good beater bike! Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.