I Think I Want to Be a Trainer - I Need to Know More

First of all you need to know what a trainer does on a daily basis, then what skills you need to have and to develop and last but not least what training of your own you need to become a trainer. All these details should help you decide if the job of a Trainer or HR Specialist in training and employee development is really for you.

The main activities that a trainer does on a daily basis are mentioned below. However, the list is open and depends on the specifics of each company. In some companies, the trainer does only the last activity in the list and that's it. In others, he/she is involved in administrative tasks and budget approving as well.

A trainer:

- discusses with the managers of each department and identifies training needs. By training needs I mean the list of skills that the employees in the specific team need to develop. These can be technical skills or soft skills (communication, leadership, time management, decision making, etc.);

- discusses with the employees themselves face to face or applies questionnaires to identify and confirm training needs again;

- creates the training plan for a given period of time, including all the necessary trainings, number of employees that need to be trained, if the trainer is internal or external, potential costs, timelines;

- asks for approval for potential costs - sometimes this is the job of his manager, but not all the time, so be prepared for explaining as well. All costs need to be reflected in company productivity so be prepared with strong arguments before sending the costs for approval. Asking for managers' support can also be useful;

- creates the training agenda for trainings that he/she will be organizing himself/herself;

- gathers materials for his/her trainings;

- contacts external companies for trainings that need to be organized by an external provider (mostly technical, but not only), prepares the room, communicates training details to participants, gets feedback from participants at the end;

- develops and presents his/her own trainings in front of the participants, communicates details, gets feedback, improves training for next session based on feedback; selects the best training techniques in order to achieve the training goal;

What skills do you need?

First of all, communication and presentation skills. You must have the ability to explain what you know to the trainees so that at the end of the training they have acquired at least half of the presentation content. Depending on the training techniques used, the percentage can be even more. You must speak fluently and openly, keep eye contact with each of the participants, must not be afraid to speak in public. Allow them to give you their opinion as well. Don't make it look like you're a teacher in school.

Then, analytic skills which will allow you to select from the materials you have the best for your training and from the techniques you know the best for your purpose.

Being patient is also important. Not everybody understands information fast and a trainer must be able to make sure that at the end of the training all the participants have understood the message. Repeating over and over again can also be necessary from time to time, so be prepared.

Sensing the dynamics of the group is a must. You must know when to tell the information again, when to stop, when to listen, when to change the training technique because the trainees are bored and no longer follow you. Don't get annoyed by aggressive trainees, have patience with slower ones, encourage everybody to contribute with ideas.

Time management is also crucial. You need how to monitor the discussions in order not to transform a 2-hour training in an entire day of small talk. Encourage the participants to participate but also keep an eye on the clock to make sure you keep the agenda. Some of the participants' time may be limited and wasted. Keep the agenda as promised and if there are trainees who want to talk more to you, ask them to do it at the end of the training.

If you do also administrative tasks, you need to be organized and have some negotiation skills if you want the training budget approved. Training results are not concrete results you can feel, so management will need some strong arguments from your side.

Coming back to our third part of the topic, what trainings do you need to become a trainer?

The main training you need to start with is called "Train the Trainers (TTT)".  There are a lot of companies offering that, so be careful which one you choose. Ask around and go by recommendation if you really want to achieve your goal. Then continue with communication, time management and some psychology courses (to understand groups). Then, try to get as much experience as you get and good luck.

And as bonus: Training FAQs:

1. What do I do if they ask me something I don't know?

This can happen to absolutely every trainer no matter how experienced. Don't panic, don't start searching for ideas and details right away because it will look unprofessional. Just admit you don't know, get the contact details of the participant and promise you will come back to him/her with details. Mention also the timeline you intend to come back with details. Keep your promise. That's it. Move over.

2. If I am the trainer of groups, how many participants can I allow during one session?

Depends on the training type. If it's a training on the PC, as many as the number of PCs in the room. If not, try to limit the number to 8-10. If you have more than that, you will not be able to give enough of your attention to each of them.

3. Can I train just one person?

Yes, but it's much more fun and rewarding with more because experience is shared. You might even learn something from them. Also, they get to know each other and share experience and ideas.

4. How do I start the training?

With an ice breaker. The best one to give you time to breathe is asking them to introduce themselves and say a few words about them. This is also good for the group dynamics because they get to know each other and they will work better throughout the training session/s.

5. How long should a training session be?

If you mean during a day - 1 hour maximum with adults and then break. If you mean during a longer training - depending on how much information you have to communicate. Can be from 2 hours to 3 months daily.

Good luck in achieving your goals.
Regards,
Geo

What are HR people looking to identify from the candidate during an interview?

Question suggested by my friend Gianina Froicu

To start with, I should define the phrase "list of competencies" and type of competencies.
For each position there are two types of competencies - technical/business competencies and soft skills.

Technical/Business competencies are tested mostly by technical members of the team (senior consultants and analysts, technical managers, any person from the team able to decide if a candidate has the right knowledge to be a programmer, database expert, tester, HR specialist or even welder or cook). All knowledge making you a professional/expert in a certain area are technical competencies. Even for human resources - what they know and their experience in terms of recruitment, payroll, law and so on involve the technical or business side of the job.

The other side is made up of the soft skills.
Soft skills are the individual traits, connected somehow to the candidate's personality and social experience. Some can be developed and improved in time and some you are born with. Some examples are: presentation skills, decision making, strategic thinking, proactivity, time management, organizing and prioritizing skills, resilience to stress, leadership skills, social skills, team work and many more.

These are the skills that HR tries to identify during an interview through targetted questions. A candidate can be asked directly if he/she is organized and asked to give examples, can be given an exercise (for example to prioritize a list of tasks according to their importance and urgency) or can be asked tricky questions like "Where do you leave your keys when you are at home?". According to the answer you see if the candidate leaves his things all over the place and then complains about not finding them or if they have a special place for their keys that they use daily. Of course only one question is not enough to test a candidate. HR may ask more or may combine different testing techniques in individual or group interviews to select the best candidates.

Recruitment and Selection Strategy: What Skills Do I Need to Be a Good Recruiter?

This is an extract from my book - A Career in HR - The Good and the Bod;


These are the skills you need to have or to develop in order to be a good recruiter:

Intelligence level over the average.

Highly responsible person – will be taking the initial decision concerning a candidate being rejected or selected for next stage. Someone’s fate depends on his/her decision, experience, skills, mood sometimes or state of fatigue.

Great decision taking skills – will take decisions concerning candidates being selected or rejected, will change the strategy in a project if things don’t go well on the initial path, will take decisions concerning recruitment channels and will be responsible for the success of decisions taken, will take decisions concerning partnerships with recruiting agencies (if to use or not and when since costs are very high).

Very organized person – will manage hundreds of resumes (sometimes thousands!), hundreds of candidates, will give hundreds of feed backs – all on time and to the correct candidate; will prepare daily, weekly, monthly and yearly reports.

Good communication and presentation skills – will give information to candidates, will deliver presentations to general public, and will represent the company.

Pro activity – will have to come with solutions for problems that haven’t yet appeared; will always be searching for ways to improve and make work more efficient.

Mature person – closely connected to the amount of decisions to take; will be responsible for own actions.

Strong analytical skills – will have to analyze resumes, recruiting channels’ efficiency, market reports, recruiting agencies’ reports; will be carefully analyzing a candidate’s skills and if they fit to the job or in the new team;

Flexibility – will have to change recruitment strategy as often as necessary to meet targets and deadlines;

Great time management skills – must be aware that requested resources and reports must be delivered on time;

Highly sociable person – will be working daily with a lot of people; must be sociable and must like interacting with people since there will be days with 14 interviews (situation not recommended by theory books, but different and inevitable in reality).

Some project management skills – can be given a project to complete by himself/herself and will need to organize available resources. I.e. it’s not possible for a recruiter to recruit a large team of let’s say 30 people alone. Ability to organize and conduct own work and available resources without too much supervision.

Professional attitude – represents a first contact between candidates and the company, can influence negatively or positively the company’s image on the market;

Some telephone skills – will be conducting from time to time phone interviews;

Some technical skills – will need to setup some software alone; will need to prepare and conduct a presentation with a laptop and video equipment alone in a different location than the company headquarters where an IT representative is available; will need to use a laptop, smart phone sometimes, conference equipment, video equipment, USB sticks, headphones, some software. A recruiter must be ready to learn how to use all these and how to make work easier.

Great resilience to effort – will be reading sometimes resumes at 10 pm at home; will be carrying a large laptop around, will be carrying presentation materials around, flyers and others. Will be asked to work overtime from time to time, at work or at home; will be asked to give up vacation if a new project needs to start and reschedule own family time.

Great resilience to stress – will have tight deadlines and huge volume of work from time to time; will have stressed managers who will ask for fast results for projects.

HR Skills: If I work in HR, How Advanced Need My IT Skills to Be?

You need medium level IT - word processors, spreadsheets processors, presentations software, email software. Also, you may participate sometimes in conference calls and may need to set up your own equipment or you may do presentations and may need to set up your laptop and video equipment by yourself. Anything additional is useful. If you know some database software for example you can create your databases and reports easier. So IT advanced level is not required, but may prove useful.