New to Soft Skills Training: How Can I Kickstart My Career in This Field?

Hello friends, I have recently completed my MBA in Human Resources and am totally interested in pursuing a career as a soft skills trainer. However, since I am new to this field, I don't know how to start as a fresher. At this point, it seems to be a matter of great concern to have your valuable suggestions regarding my career. I must tell you I have never imagined myself in those boring routine desk jobs which I'll be forced to do once I grab a job of that kind. Thus, I don't want to put my entire career in jeopardy due to this.

Discovering My Passion

On the contrary, there is something that I found interesting after months of extensive research in the field of Corporate and Soft Skills training. I realized that this is what I'm passionate about and am actually made for. Moreover, I have been trying hard to consult a lot of people to help me out in this regard, which didn't turn out so well so far. This has finally brought me here so that I could get some valuable advice that could help me shape my career in the direction I want to.

Seeking Guidance

But as I'm new to the field, I don't know where to start and how to start. Therefore, it would be a great help if you could provide me with the answers to my queries stated above.

Seeking to hear from you as soon as possible.

With Kind Regards,

Mayank Kumar

Career Start as a Trainer

Still, a question arises in my mind: where should I apply to start my career as a trainer? Are there any institutes that welcome freshers as trainers? Any valuable suggestions would be helpful.

With Kind Regards,
Mayank Kumar

Dear Mayank,

It is good that you want to pursue your career as a soft skills trainer. You need to be very good in English. The topics, i.e., modules for soft skills, should be dependent on the type of organization you will conduct training in.

Thanks,
S. Ghosh.

Some more specific replies would be much better. In a more generalized way, I know what it takes to be a trainer because I've completed an extensive two-year program conducted by 'Hero Mind Mine' in Personality Enhancement while pursuing my MBA degree. However, since I am considering starting a career in training, I am unsure where to apply to progress further. The question still remains: are there any institutes that hire freshers as trainers? I have come across links on this website regarding the same, but those threads are outdated and broken. Could anybody please offer some meaningful advice to help me navigate through this confusion?

With Kind Regards,
Mayank Kumar

Exploring Opportunities in Soft Skills Training

Further to the query posted by Mayank and the replies provided, presumably by several individuals involved in training, I also have a similar query. The difference lies in the fact that Mayank appears to be a fresher (MBA graduate) seeking training opportunities post his graduation. In my case, I have a total experience of approximately 12+ years across various fields such as customer service, operations, recruitment consultancy, and more recently, I have transitioned to a growing company specializing in Organizational Development (OD) and consultancy services about two years ago. Although I lack experience in a formal training role, I am now interested in exploring suitable opportunities in soft skills training. Additionally, I have also worked in locations outside Mumbai, including a short stint abroad.

I am currently a student of ISTD (Indian Society of Training and Development) and am pursuing a six-month internship course. I am eager to learn about suitable training and development opportunities in Mumbai, preferably freelancing positions initially due to certain time constraints. I am keen to discover organizations where I could potentially take on a trainer role or any other suitable opportunities in the T&D domain.

Regards,

I think a better idea would be for you to get 4-5 years of job experience—be it in sales, marketing, HR, or anything else. That would give you exposure to real-life corporate situations and a chance to actually face and tackle them.

First-hand experience in handling corporate situations will give you the depth and confidence to face your future trainees and actually provide useful insights instead of bookish theories. All soft skill training is supposed to make one more effective in corporate situations; unless you have personally experienced at least some of it, you can't be an effective trainer.

The best strategy probably would be to take up a non-trainer job for 4-5 years and then build your trainer profile. Most working people wouldn't be able to respect a trainer who has never faced what troubles them and has only provided training from day one.