By Cyril Wood
Over many years I have taught the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment in its various forms and for at least five different RTOs. During that time hundreds of students have come and gone, successfully completing the course and heading off into the world to become a VET trainer/teacher. To help them get their first teaching job I have offered this advice.
Tips for finding that gig with your TAE.
Getting your first training opportunity with your TAE can be a challenge. Being a newbie, full of enthusiasm is great, but you need to know how to catch the interest of an RTO which is looking for trainers. One of the key things that made my job easier when trainers sent me their resume was a mapping document. Never heard of one? Well read on.
You won’t necessarily have dealt with this during your TAE course, but I tell my students to prepare a document which matches up their skills and qualifications to the courses they wish to teach.
- Identify your current vocational skills and experience and map them to the qualification or units of competency you see in the job advertisement.
- If you are approaching an organisation on the chance of some work, research what is on their scope. Map your current vocational skills and experience to the courses or units of competency you feel confident in training.
If you do this and submit this document along with the normal resume you will catch the attention of the recruiter. It saves them time working out where your skills fit, makes their job easier and could definitely be the difference between an interview or being left on the “thank you” but “no thank you” pile.
Good luck with the search. There will be something out there for you.
We would love to hear from you. Please feel free to share your experience with us along with any tips you would like to share with others.
Like Cyril, I have been teaching this subject for many years and I know it is a life changing course and I’d like to share what my students have told me. John, a bodybuilder with a good brain and no qualifications from one of Katherine’s most notorious ‘hard’ families was working as a security guard at a mine site. We got talking one day and he broached the subject of whether I thought he had the brains to do the course. I said YES of course, because I had seen him train other people in the gym. He started the course and found he loved teaching, and his research and computer skills improved out of sight. He contacted me two years later and he was a mine site supervisor at the uranium mine in Jabiru – and said that it was the qualification that him the job.
And then there is Emily ( I have changed her name). Unemployed mother of three, divorced, been to prison for drug offences. We met at a coven meeting but I won’t go there. She also did the course with me and within 6 months of finishing was working as an LLN teacher here in Katherine at the university. A year later she was in Melbourne running a Community Education Centre. Now she has her own business and travels the country motivating people to buy her products that enable the recycling of plastic waste.
So yes – it changes lives