Archive for March, 2009
Interview training
As the credit crunch starts to bite increasing number of people are looking for coaching in interview technique. I was running a course in Wales recently where all the delegates had been made redundant from a job they had been doing for many years. Some of them hadn’t had an interview in fifteen years! There was a sense, which they clearly articulated of feeling bereaved and there was a great deal of anger and a sense that a few hours of training wasn’t going to get them another job. I had to spend quite a bit of time dealing with this anger before we could do anything about practicing interview skills. As more and more people find themselves in the situation of hunting for a job it seems that dealing with issues of self-esteem and confidence is as important as working on interview technique.
International Training
I had an experience last week of running a training course in Greece and I was reminded once more on the varied expectations and behaviours of different nationalities. There was a variety of nationalities in attendance – predominantly Greek but also Bulgarian and Romanian.
The big difference in this kind of audience was the constant conversation going on during the training. You don’t normally get this in the UK and it took me a little while to get used to it. However I soon realised they were actually translating and explaining things to each other, rather than discussing the previous night’s football! Different people work and understand at different rates but this was even more pronounced in an international group where English is not the first language. It becomes really important in such groups to pace them rather than trying to lead.
They were MBA students and so keen to learn but also very tired after an exam and early morning travel. I gave them plenty of breaks but also concentrated the material in a shorter time span than I had planned as I realised what a long day they had already had.
Welcome to Fast Train
The idea for Fast Train came out of a frustration with generalised, non-specific training being offered and also an appreciation that everyone is short of time, and taking one or two days out of a working week is becoming more difficult.
We realised also that in a group, different people have different requirements and that it is much better if you can be specific when offering training. So we thought as a first stage we would like to offer a blog where you can tell us about your work issues and we can then talk about them and see what solutions arise. We will also be issuing our own thoughts and experiences and then categorising them as time goes on so that if you are a new user you can get quick and easy access to the collective wisdom of past blog subjects.
We’re particularly interested in so-called soft skills training – although we’d dispute that there is anything ’soft’ about being a great communicator, leader or negotiator…
So as a kick-off, let’s hear some horror stories… What is the worst training course you’ve ever been on and why?
I recently attended a conference where the first three trainers delivered extremely dull and irrelevant Powerpoint presentations with no interaction. I had driven for two hundred miles and felt it was a complete waste of my time. If there wasn’t going to be any discussion, it would have been much easier to send the presentations by email and let us all get on with our busy work schedules.