Topic 4:

Entering Training without Experience

Question: I am writing to you to seek your advice and perhaps help. I am very interested in getting into a corporate training or similar position. I do not have training experience of the standard nature, but I did work as a CNN Tour Guide for over 2 years and I essentially trained tour guests on CNN's news process from initial information gathering to final on-air delivery product. I also spent some time in Toastmasters International where I won several public speaking awards including best speaker, best table topics (unprepared speaking) and best evaluator. I won several other presentations/speech contests on humor. I found that I really enjoyed public speaking and received a lot of positive feedback about my skills in that arena. I also am very customer focused and oriented and pride myself on going the extra mile for them. It is my belief that my communication skills along with my strong interpersonal and relationship building skills would make me a good trainer and make it a profession that I would find rewarding.

The problem is that most of the trainer or speaker positions I see advertised require at least one year of training experience which kind of puts me in "No experience, no job, no job, no experience" catch 22 that many of us experience right out college. It is for this reason that I am writing to you to seek your advice and/or assistance. It strikes me that maybe I'm not looking in the right places (most of the ads I see are in my local newspaper or on some of the major headhunter's Websites.)

--Eric G. Singer, Smyma, GA

Answer: At this point in your transition/job search process you need to establish your credentials for qualifying as a trainer. Having great communication, interpersonal and relationship building skills is not sufficient in today's competitive market. Given the present economic times, you are up against training/HRD candidates with direct and strong experience and education.

As regards obtaining speaking engagements, again you need to establish your reputation and creditability as a speaker. Being a member of Toastmasters is a good start in this direction. Some suggestions to enable you to move towards your desired goal to become a trainer/public speaker include:
· Give serious consideration to obtaining a masters degree or certificate in training/HRD. At minimum, obtain some preparation in the fundamentals, e.g. adult learning, instructional design, delivery techniques through seminars/courses sponsored by private vendors or ASTD.
· Think about what training subject matters/concerns should be your specialty. Given your background and interests, soft skills training, e.g. business communications, team building, supervisor/staff relationships would be a good focus.
· If not already a member, join your local ASTD chapter and volunteer to give a workshop as part of the chapter's professional development activities. This would give you both experience and visibility as a public speaker and some exposure as a trainer.
· Join a local Speakers Bureau
· Have a professional resume reviewer look at your resume. As a marketing document, it should have as a heading statement a strong summary of your qualifications followed by a section highlighting your training and related skills. Somehow you need to overcome your main disadvantage, that your training experience is under the job title of tour guide.
· There are recruitment web sites that specialize or list Training/HRD positions. A sampling of web sites that you can review can be seen in this month's column under the topic: Listing of Training/HRD Job Recruiters.

--AR