Whether you are considering your first or next career move or thinking about changing direction, you are in the right place to access the transformative potential of learning, enhanced job opportunities, confidence-boosting and well-being.
Undergoing training as an adult is often about self-improvement – not waiting for things to come to you but going out and finding them. Or perhaps it’s just a realisation that it’s never too late. That’s what John Wilsher, a 74-year-old recent MSc graduate of Swansea University is advocating. He failed the 11-plus which he says made him miss out on opportunities: “I’ve had my share of hurdles to overcome…but they need not be life-determining”, he concluded.
Adult training is on the one hand about career development and advancing your skills and talents, but it’s also about understanding your interests and stretching and challenging yourself. And if you are training for work reasons it can enhance your current role and prospects or make your chosen career a more successful one.
Benefits abound
Career development is a lifelong process of learning and decision making and some people might only be interested and successful in gaining education and skills after school.
Training and development provide people and the organisations they work for a host of benefits. For the former that can mean achievement, job satisfaction and security, happiness, a career path or progression, better pay and more responsibility.
For the latter it can mean greater expertise in the workforce, retention of talent and reduced staff turnover, improved employee performance, motivation and productivity and a better reputation and profile. For both it’s clearly a worthwhile investment in time and money.
Joseph Caswell is a 27-year-old trainee financial advisor in Liverpool, a career which has meant he signed up for two years’ more training having not long completed a degree in Sports Science. A former Premier League academy player, a job in or around a sports arena seemed to be nailed on until he decided that a grounding in finance and business might hold him in better stead in the future.
It seems clear to Joe that he believes training will give him an edge and make himself more competitive. He said: “Before landing my current role I paid for a three-month Investment Analysis Diploma Level 4, which included an internship with a financial services company who provided a mentor and real-life tasks.
That helped me establish a foothold in the industry, at which point I also studied for an Investment Foundations certificate, which in turn helped me land my current job 18 months ago. I know if I want to keep progressing there will be more training to come, but it will continue to help me arrive at where I want to be.”
Employable/sustainable
The bottom line is that investing in training makes a person more skilled and therefore more employable or more promotable, offering greater job mobility within an industry or helping to forge a new career elsewhere.
There are countless motivational quotes from everyone from inventors to industrialists, from politicians to billionaires, but none can be more apt than John’s and Joe’s. By considering further training, opportunity knocks for those with the motivation to succeed. For companies, new training for employees could make their organisation more resilient and sustainable.