What Our Computer Training Company Looks For When Employing Staff

We're not looking for IT trainers at the moment, but when we next do look we'll probably get a hundred or more CVs. When faced with this much supply, you inevitably have to do some weeding. The process probably isn't efficient - and it's certainly not fair - but here is how to get your CV filed in the bin.

Sloppy Presentation
If you're applying for a job as a computer trainer, we expect you to know the basics of Word. We suspect that someone who presents their CV badly is likely to do the same with themselves on a course.

Poor Covering Emails

If you send a CV as an attachment with an email which is written in txtspeak, badly spelt or wildly ungrammatical, we probably won't bother opening the attachment.

Overly Techie People

If you like taking computers apart, you've passed every Microsoft MCSE and MCSA exam going and you've spent ten years programming in assembly language, the chances are you'll make a good computer programmer - but bad trainer. We've nothing against technical expertise - indeed, we seek it out - but we're looking for something else on your CV too to show that you're not just a geek.

Underly Techie People

The first thing we usually look is for your maths GCSE result - anything less than an A and you haven't got much chance of making the cut. The next thing we look at is A levels; if you didn't get As and Bs, your chances of getting an interview are reduced. Finally, if you didn't get a 2.1 or above in a reasonable subject from a reasonable university, we'll be suspicious.

Lack of Teaching or Entertaining Expertise

Computer trainers need to be reasonably interesting people (or at least, need to be able to pretend to be interesting). At the end of the day you're standing up in front of a group of adults trying to be interesting.

We'll look kindly on anyone who has:
- teaching experience
- good experience of amateur dramatics
- travelled the world
- done voluntary work overseas

Our Ideal IT Trainer

Are you the ideal computer trainer? Ideally, you would have been working for another computer training company for a short period, but will be disillusioned with the low standards they follow and be looking for a better employer; you will be both highly intelligent and have some interesting things on your CV; and you'll like both computers and people (a rare combination!). You will also be willing to travel.