A new skill may not be quick and easy

I'm all for encouraging people to progess their careers, to move forward from jobs that they find boring and repetitive into something that's less of a drudge and more fun to them. Indeed, at Well House Consultants we're in the business of equipping people with new skills, and long may it continue.

But I'm finding something vaguely disturbing about the current TV advert from LearnDirect featuring "Julie" who has been flippin Burgers for a job who seems to sail into a desk / computer job ("In IT" are the terms they use) in a plush office within a few seconds and all because she contacted Learndirect. Why do I find the advert disturbing?

Because I think it's building up false hopes in people. Some people, good for them, do find learning new skills easy and may walk, like Julie, out of a mobile burger van one month and into a skilled job the next. For others, there's a lot of hard graft and study involved. There's also a proportion of people who, even though they might aspire to an IT job, will find themselves as trying to turn from round to square pegs to fit into the high tech world when in reallity they are much better suited to other fields of work.

Yes, I know that an advert's limited in the message it can get across in 30 seconds and may present a biased view; I've just go a nagging feeling that the advert I'm describing here is more concerned to recruit more people to the learndirect scheme that to do what's best for each of those individuals.

(written 2005-02-02, updated 2006-06-05)

Associated topics are indexed under

G907 - Well House Consultants - Recruitment and Career Development
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  [3440] Research is exciting. But should routine be automated? - (2011-09-14)
  [2294] Can you learn to program in 4 days? - (2009-07-16)
  [2255] Past PHP delegates / others - coding help needed for next 3 months - (2009-06-23)
  [2109] Why most training fails ... - (2009-03-30)
  [1967] LinkedIn - Thrice Asked, and joined. - (2008-12-30)
  [1963] Best source to learn Java (or Perl or PHP or Python) - (2008-12-28)
  [849] Staff Meeting - (2006-08-30)
  [759] Watch your Google profile - (2006-06-13)
  [751] Want to be a technical trainer in the UK? - (2006-06-08)
  [729] Career development advice - (2006-05-23)
  [722] I'm answering a job applicant - (2006-05-16)
  [587] Job vacancy - double agent wanted - (2006-02-02)
  [585] Looking for Python staff - (2006-02-01)
  [503] 10 years C# knowledge please - (2005-11-23)
  [408] Can an older person learn a programming language - (2005-08-10)
  [389] Tough Love - (2005-07-25)
  [285] What career opportunities for web designers - (2005-04-20)
  [253] Finding the right holes - (2005-03-21)
  [116] The next generation of programmer - (2004-11-13)

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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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