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What kind of training are people expecting? You come to the table with certain skills. When you're new, it's expected that you will come in and seek out the info you need on your own by asking questions, taking notes, independent research, utilize available training, etc.
It's unrealistic that every company and every job will offer a 2 week classroom course on accounts payable, etc.
Sometimes you have to hit the ground running.
Corporate policies, proprietary systems, departmental policies, etc.
If you're doing it right, each new job you get should not be some job you've already done and mastered. If you're advancing through your career, there will be some level of a learning curve at each new job you get. Whether or not you receive formal training or informal training is up to the company. If you're getting nothing, you're working for the wrong company.
Last edited by Careerist; 01-25-2017 at 07:14 AM..
It's varied. My first job out of college was IT support for a defense contractor. We were in class for a week or two about common problems, then sat with an analyst. After about three weeks we were on the phones. Another job all new hires had to pass different proficiency modules in the software our company developed. This was a month long and also training clients took.
Everything else has either been informal over the shoulder type stuff or none at all.
There seems to be a very disappointing trend of training on the job or mentorship quickly disappearing. I've only had one position over the past 10 years provide mentorship and it was wonderful. Otherwise though, it seems most companies expect you to hit the ground running or figure it out on your own, which for me has led to lots of stress and feelings of inferiority when expectations are high yet wholly unrealistic. I've always had the belief that no matter how skilled you were, every new job was going to have a ramp up period where it's crucial to mentor and train the new hire. After all, every company as it's own processes, policies, procedures and you can't really expect someone to know them off the bat?
Have I just had bad luck with bad jobs, or is on the job training a thing of the past? Many of my friends in other careers say the same thing. Only jobs with decent training yet seem to be in blue collar fields, but everything else it seems you're expected to make it on your own and alone!
Thoughts?
I've worked in I.T. for 18.5 years. Only one position ever provided any kind of formal classroom-type training.
I've never had a mentor. Ever. You'd think companies would want to give out warm fuzzies about "women in tech" (me) but nope.
You should get training about the specific systems, processes, regulations, policies and products related to the specific business/industry but you should not really get training on how to do something generic like "accounting". You should bring this to the table already.
You should get training about the specific systems, processes, regulations, policies and products related to the specific business/industry but you should not really get training on how to do something generic like "accounting". You should bring this to the table already.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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When I was hired here, I had far more knowledge and experience in the work than the supervisor that hired me, in fact she had messed it up badly while the position was vacant. For regulations and policies I was handed a binder. The only training she had to do was the proprietary database management and billing system we use here. Unfortunately she really didn't understand it and just read from a manual. I ended up learning it myself by playing around in the test system. Eventually she was demoted and I became her supervisor. When promoted to manager about a year later, I received no training or mentoring at all.
38 years with one company but had 21 different jobs. Started as a bs chemical engineer with little training by the company, none needed my degree taught me how to do the analysis required and my job was to find bottle necks to refinery operation and implement projects to eliminate those boyylenecks. That is how refinery capacity has increased at around 3 % a yearear for decades. This is why we dontmrun out of refined prodcuys despite buikding no refineries in this country for 50 years.
But back the point of this thread, engineers learn hard skills needed to do their job so their starting pay is high reflecting this value. I can't speak to other companies or careers but each group where I worked had a highly experience engineer to go to if the written design standards were not clear.
I,worked in procurement, financial analysis, design, real estate, It and HR to name a few and none of these had training for staff.
I should mention there were formalized training for engineers in design standards and economics but other wise we were on our own. I prefer this frankly training is boring and too generic so fast learners and on the job experience could not be factored in to tailor it to needs. Engineers super from an overly robust sense of self confidence and I'm not an exception to that rule.
No training. I was just thrown in there and told to do it. Sink or swim method, I guess.
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