Training Course news from Courses Plus http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/ 2010-03-19T15:30:59Z http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/objs/logo_courses-plus.gif http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/ The Directory of UK Training Courses. Our 3 day Professional Wedding Photography Course is running again start on the 29th March. We still have some places for this highly popular course and with the weather getting a little brighter, and warmer, we will not be so demanding on the models. As one delegate said about the February course, \'The course was great, and the models were really wonderful. Doing exactly what we wanted and never complained about the cold, although we were all in anoracs and scarfs, the girls wearing skimpy wedding dresses never complained.\' http://www.chris-hillman-photography.co.uk/index.htm http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/space-on-march-professional-photography-course-34.html 2010-03-12T03:03:11Z  The effects of the recession can be seen all across the world. Businesses large and small have gone bust unable to cope with the demands of the new economic environment. Difficult trading conditions open the door for talented managers to show their worth. Good managers have normally undertaken a variety of training in order to help them deal with complex situations including economics, accounting, human resources management and change management. A survey, conducted by the Scala Group and ACE network, revealed that 70% of the U.K. senior human resources professionals questioned regarded coaching line managers and under achieving management teams as a top priority. This survey suggests that many companies are turning their attention to nurturing in house talent rather than hiring consultants and new employees to deal with problems. Effective management can significantly increase profitability and there are many courses specifically designed to get new managers and those with experience up to date.   Only 17% of the companies questioned listed formal leadership training as a focus, but the training professionals would urge the other 83% to reconsider their position. Professionals advise that the first step of management training will strengthen the company internally; Creating a shared company vision and streamlining communication within the business. The second part of management training is designed to further strategy, creating direct interaction between processes and the management team and educating managers on how to get the best out of employees and their market position.   The professionals suggest that although training may appear to be an unnecessary expenditure in the current economic climate, it will put businesses at the front of growth during the anticipated economic recovery. They claim that being well placed to deal with future growth is the key to successful business in the future. http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/management-training-key-to-post-recession-success-32.html 2010-02-23T03:02:19Z Dramatic revelations about the importance of systematic business negotiations have recently been published in a report entitled \'Improving Corporate Negotiating Performance\' compiled by Huthwaite International, a sales consultancy, and the International Association for Contract and Commerical Management, a not-for-profit membership organisation. The report was put together after a year of intensive research. Ineffective negotiations are reported in this document to cost business millions of dollars every year. Yet the vast majority of companies were seen to \'ignore, neglect or inefficiently address\' the task of improving Negotiation Skills. The research revealed that 80% of companies have no structured negotiating formula. The emphasis was commonly placed on individual skill rather than clearly defined company wide prerogatives, belying the facts of good negotiation. Success is actually achieved by an open dialogue with the other party and an intimate knowledge of the companies capabilities. Individual negotiators who decide upon their own rules often spend more time negotiating with internal staff rather than the other party, this leaves too much room for misapprehension and mistrust; ultimately it has often been proved to be more time consuming and far less effective than open and clear structured negotiation. Inhospitable trading conditions over the last few years have left many companies suffering; the average net income loss for the 2000 most profitable businesses worldwide (as listed by Forbes) is said to have been 30.9% in 2009. When broken down this figure reveals some startling results. The companies that were regarded (by this report) to have reached negotiation maturity recorded, on average, net income increases of 42.5%, those that had no firm negotiating structure at all averaged a net loss of 63.3%. Naturally the variation between these figures cannot be solely attributed to negotiating ability, although it does stand as an indication of what constitutes good practice. The keys to successful negotiation, adequate planning, preparation and a knowledge of behavioural psychology, must be intimately understood by negotiators before any active participation in business deals takes place. Appreciation of these seemingly obvious business tools will inevitably lead to improved performance. Whilst this is primarily a report looking at the success of negotiators in business there is a clearly defined necessity for managers to actively implement good practice and create company wide policies that reflect the capabilities and needs of the business. Despite the fact that it is difficult to quantify a good deal, without knowledge of other similar deals that have taken place, the relative success of negotiations must be analysed. The definition of a good deal is not necessarily a 50/50 split but both sides leaving the negotiating table happy. Managers and negotiators are advised to undertake negotiation skill training and Management Trainingto be able to reap the benefits of improved negotiating strategy; evidently it can result in significantly increased profitability. http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/millions-lost-through-ineffective-negotiations-31.html 2010-02-11T05:02:09Z   Workshop has customer focus   A Solihull marketing company is running a half-day recession busting workshop aimed at helping small businesses attract new customers and retain the ones they already have.   The workshop being run by Solihull-based Optima Marketing is being organised to help companies cope with some of the difficulties encountered during the recession.   Tony Malin of Optima Marketing said “In an economic downturn supply often exceeds demand and it’s during this period says Tony Malin of Solihull based Optima Marketing that a company’s customers are under the greatest threat of being poached by the competition. This can be because when belt tightening a company often has fewer foot soldiers on the ground and it is not unusual for a competitor to take advantage of this vulnerability by pouncing on a customer who has been left with no one to look after them.” “Competitors, then finding that they are unopposed, simply walk in and take a company’s customers away before the unsuspecting company knows what’s happened. “When they finally realise, it’s too late to take any further action”.    “Mr Malin said a ‘golden rule’ is that existing customers are kept happy before a company goes in search of new ones. Getting new customers on board can be an expensive process and it costs far less to look after and retain existing ones”, he added.   Optima Marketing’s workshops will also offer tips on finding new customers. “Identifying new customers and markets is much easier and less expensive than it used to be thanks to the Internet, as there is a wealth of information for companies to tap in to”, said Mr Malin.   “For those company’s who simply don’t have the time to conduct their own market research, this can be carried out for them by an external marketing company for a relatively small amount of money.”   The workshop is at the Hub, Touchwood on March 2nd and costs £145. To find out more visit www.optima-marketing.co.uk, email info@optima-marketing.co.uk, or call 0121 744 8233.                       http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/workshop-has-customer-focus-30.html 2010-02-03T10:02:26Z   Most of us will know or have an understanding that when looking for a new job and new role, networking can be of huge value and importance. However, for many of us there maybe a difference in definition of what 'networking' really means. Here at Position Ignition, I received a few emails on this recently which has spurred me onto thinking -hey I should really write something on this and job hunting online generally if it will help people with their job searches and especially if they are putting hours and hours of time and effort each day doing what is highly ineffective. So - one email from - let us call him John (to save embarrassment) said: 'About networking - it depends how you define "really networking". I'm regularly sending out e-mails and adding people on LinkedIn. But this is often to very little avail, and I've never been on a course about "how to network effectively". My progress over the years has been in a kind of "trial-and-error way", which I've supplemented with the odd suggestions from friends, recruitment professionals, and university career advisers' Unfortunately this does not seem to be hugely uncommon. He carries on after a few exchanges to say - 'I was expecting you to say that I needed to be bolder in my communications with others, more persistent, less honest, and a lot more pushy (just like how a lot of head-hunters are with me, and the sales-people I've met when I've worked in investment-banks in the past) - but it turns out I'm completely wrong!'. Right - so I can't divulge everything in 1 blog but I can try to make a start - so here goes with some of the biggest online job hunting mistakes that I have been hearing about recently: 1. Sending out blanket emails to people you do not know When people receive emails from those they do not know - it is 'spam'. They do not know you and so why should they care - well they do not usually care about you or what you are after. If you are sending out masses of emails into the cyber abyss - people reading and receiving these can tell. It's generic, impersonal and usually highly annoying to the reader. Why on earth should they help you - they do not know you - and you have not taken the time to get to know them! Imagine you are a top manager somewhere going about your day job... - then - you get hundreds and hundreds of emails from people asking for a job. So - unsurprisingly this approach is a big waste of time. Targeted emails/letters - which have been thought through and worked through - is a different story and probably best left for a separate blog. 2. Adding anyone you can find to your linkedin I receive several invitations from people who I do not know, to connect and 'join their professional network' on linkedin. Do I accept these invitations - nope! I usually send a message back asking how I can help. There is also a polite 'Have we met!?' note as well to hint at the fact that adding randoms is not a good idea! Getting a reply at all is very lucky. What will usually happen is: They will hit the 'I don't know this user' button, which means you will never be able to contact that person again. If it is done several times - linkedin will stop you from being able to openly contact people - until you start being 'good' and sensible again. 3. Sending your CV to anyone you can get your hands on I did not know John yet the minute he got the chance to - he sent me his CV. So what am I supposed to do with it? Ok - so there might be a chance that I have a job or know someone but am I inclined to help if I've just had a random CV pushed in my face? No - so don't do it. 4. Applying to all the ads you can find The other day I was talking on the phone to Tom. He was down in the dumps and has been trying to many months to get a job. After asking what he's been doing - he explains how he's 'you know, the usual - I sit for hours at a day going through jobsites and applying for all the roles I can find'. When asked if there's something specific he's after - the reply is a no. He also 'sits by the phone waiting for the recruitment agencies to ring, but they don't. They aren't really taking any notice of me'. Sad but true.. Spending hours of your time applying for everything under the sun without any focus or way to distinguish yourself from the crowd - will get you no-where. It will make you tired and frustrated perhaps but the likelihood of getting any of those millions of jobs you applied for is low. 5. Relying on recruitment agencies or headhunters Following on from Tom's comment on this - you cannot rely on the agencies of headhunters to magic up a job for you. It does not work like that. They are sitting on literally hundreds of thousands of CVs at any one time. Their CV database is huge. You are a number to them and they will only contact you if you happen to fit one of their roles. Given there are thousands of candidates for them to choose from - you cannot leave this as your only or main route to finding a job. There is a general theme to the techniques used above. They are all impersonal, mass and volume orientated, time consuming - and they just do not work! There is a great book 'What Color is your parachute?' which you can find out more about or buy via our recommended reading section. It tells you that:   Using the internet as a way to look for a job is at the very most 10% effective Mailing out resumes to employers at random is usually 7% effective Answering job ads you see in the press, trade journals etc are also around 7% to 24% effective at most Using search firms, recruitment agencies is 5-28% effective So the way that does actually work is to do what they call a 'Life changing job hunt' where you look at what, where and how. What we specialize in is actually an extension of this idea where we look at: what your skills are, what makes you, what you can do. Then we look at where you want to use those skills - so the options available to you. Then finally it's the how - and from our experience you get there most effectively via connections or what is more commonly referred to as networking. This method is around 90% effective.   If you are looking for a new job then please do not spend all of the hours in a day doing the above. There is a very small chance that it may bring about something - but if you want to get ahead - be smart about how you use your time. Get out there - talk to people - meet and get to know them properly. Be curious about them. Ask questions. Seth Godin has a cute note which sums up the need to being curious well in: Why ask why? So - use your network wisely. If you want to learn about networking - ask us about our networking workshops. That's how I ended up with most of my roles. Give it a whirl - contact us for more information if you need help - and let us know how you get on! Find out http://www.positionignition.com http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/-biggest-mistakes-in-job-hunting-29.html 2010-01-17T12:01:45Z In today\'s world, individuals will change careers on average 7 times more in their lifetime, compared to only a couple of decades ago - and this rate is rising. There is more choice available to us - especially for those with talent, drive and ambition. Currently the support that we tend to find is really limited. It\'s also pretty generic - maybe some careers advice from your school, uni or MBA school. Otherwise not much support until you are really senior in an organisation - and even then whether it is effective or not is debatable! What results is a combination of lack of control and a cycle of movement from one unfulfilling job to another, or getting stuck at a \'dead end\'. However - do not fear - you do not need to stay in this \'rut\'. New horizons could be just around the corner.. So - you want to look for a new and the right role. This can be challenging, difficult, lonely, and sometimes stressful. You might want to consider getting someone to \'walk the path\' with you and help you get clear about what your options are, what you want to do and how to get there can be hugely valuable. It is even more helpful when you know that the person accompanying you has been involved in this process before on many occasions and is a real expert. So if you work with someone to help with your career change look at their work and life experience to make sure they know what they are on about! Right - so you are ready to change careers and want to find that right role. In order to succeed bare in mind the following tips: 1. Invest in yourself This journey is important - so give yourself time to work it all out. You will need a significant amount of thought, consideration, time and investment in order to make this change smoothly and to make it the right career change. There are many key stages and turning points to consider so take the time to do it. 2. Get Clear Without real clarity about what you want to do or how to get it, achieving any sense of fulfilment or being in control of your future will be very difficult. Therefore it is really important to work on getting clear about what your central goal is and how to achieve it. If you want to learn about the different ways to do this then feel free to drop us a note. 3. Make an action plan Simply knowing what you want will not ensure that you get it. You need to be clear about your plan of action and how to carry out what you have specifically designed for yourself. Get clear achievable steps in place. Outline it so that it is broken down into steps that you can work through towards that bigger goal. Reward yourself and be proud of yourself as you get through each stage of your plan. 4. Keep your energy focused on the task Making a change and finding the right role is not always an easy task. It can be tough, tiresome and long. You need to stay really focused and be efficient around where you put your energy and effort to get the outcome you want. Make sure that you are in control of the key elements in your world and are able to drive forward with the career and life of your choosing. You will need perseverance and determination to help. Being smart about how you spend your time is crucial. 5. Understand your strengths Get to know yourself better. Identify what your key strengths are. What are you really good at? What do you enjoy that you are also good at? What skills have you learnt? What are you naturally inclined to do and be better at? Make sure that you get right to the core of it. The more you know yourself the more confident you will become and the better you will be at identify the right role for you and projecting yourself in order to get it. 6. Get Passionate Without real passion for a role - it will be difficult to get. Even if you do get it - you will find it difficult to maintain and grow within and beyond it. What you want here is the right role. This means something that you are truly passionate about. It might take a bit of experimenting to find what \'floats your boat\' - but it will be worth it when you have found it. 7. Get clear about your boundaries Being clear about what works and what doesn\'t work for you in order to be happy can be groundbreaking. It sounds simple but so many of us do not actually take the time to work it out. In each different work situation - we may have different boundaries. By being clear about what they are and then communicating this clearly to others and staying true to what is important - will make a huge difference. This impacts work and your personal settings. 8. Learn to manage relationships better This is important from all aspects. If you learn to manage your relationships effectively you will be able to control the process and transition. You will be able to manage your exit smoothly from your current or old role. Understanding where your old boss is coming from and the impact you have on him/her - and how you interact could really influence how you leave a job. How you get your next job and keep it may also rely heavily on your ability to manage relationships well. 9. Harness your connections Learn how to network and harness your connections effectively. This does not mean bombarding people you do not know with emails or adding everyone you can find to LinkedIn. Neither is this picking up as many business cards you can at a networking event and calling that person part of your \'network\'. Real networking is about getting to know people. You need to work on identifying and getting to know those who can help you along your way. 10. Get free from your blocks, fears and insecurities All of us have them at one stage or another. Many of us keep them for years. However, do not let them stop you. If you are afraid - that is ok - just do not let it take over and control what you do or do not do. If something is blocking you from moving forward - take the time and action you need to confront it, deal with it and resolve it. This does not have to be done alone. Find support from those around you. Get support from a professional if it is a deep personal issue that is troubling you. If you do not deal with it now - it will keep blocking you in different ways throughout your career and life. Once you have worked through the blocks - you will be so much more energised, comfortable, confident and free. Those are the 10 pieces of the pie that you must do before or as you start your journey and change careers. Each step requires some work, time and thought - but they are important if you really want to make it work. There might be a lot to do - but you are not alone and you CAN do it. Find out more: Website: http://www.positionignition.com Blog: http://www.positionignition.com/blog http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/-things-you-must-do-before-you-change-careers-28.html 2010-01-17T12:01:36Z Trade skills courses have always been a popular area of CoursesPlus and Plumbing Training in particular is an area of our site that has secured a spot in our hottest categories list for a few years now. This week though traffic and enquiries for plumbing courses have peaked with the announcement of the Governments boiler scrappage scheme. The new scheme, announced by Prime Minister Brown on January 5th, will see 125,000 households receive a £400 grant towards the a new, eco-friendly boiler if their old one is energy inefficient and G-rated. In announcing the scheme Gordon Brown said it “will help to secure 250,000 jobs across the tens of thousands of small and medium businesses involved in boiler manufacture, sales and installation that form a vital component of Britain\'s low carbon economy” The announcement, and the boost that it will give to the plumbing trade has sparked interest in plumbing courses. The plumbing trade is being seen as an area of growth in difficult economic times and many are predicting that more people than ever will look to qualify as plumbers in the coming year. Those interested in qualifying as plumbers can find over 130 plumbing courses here on CoursesPlus with training being offered throughout the UK. Related topics can be found in our Construction and Trade Skills training category. http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/plumbing-training-courses-in-demand-27.html 2010-01-07T01:01:26Z The government have announced that 4.5 million pounds will be added to the budget to fund apprenticeships and trainees in the engineering construction sector. It is a move designed to encourage continual development in what is undeniably an important area of commerce and technology. The £4.5 million offered by the government will be matched, in part, by the industry. The increase came about as a result of the Gibson Review of Engineering Construction, a study of effectiveness and skill levels in the industry, commissioned in February 2009 by the Secretary of State for Business, Lord Mandelson. One of the biggest problems in the industry is thought to be a lack of engineers to do all of the necessary work in the future. The money is to be used to enable employers to take on more apprentices and trainees. The aim is to double the number of apprenticeships available to reach a level of 1100 by 2011. There will also be a focus on getting more graduates into the sector. The Gibson report suggests that the U.K. must increase the number of individuals with expertise in engineering construction in order to meet the challenges of the coming years. Those challenges include the repair, maintenance and upgrading of oil, gas and chemical facilities; and satisfing the anticipated increase in investment in nuclear and other forms of power, carbon capture and storage, biofuels and all of the low carbon technologies; and to counteract rising carbon levels whilst increasing productivity. The engineering construction industry is poised at the front line of technology. Any improvements will have a direct impact on all areas of life including environmental protection, energy provision, automotive and aerospace development. In order to rise to the challenge, plenty of talented candidates must be able to find suitable training. A new cross-industry body is also being set up. It will take the form of a forum designed to encourage the sharing of information and technologies between the different sectors. The forum is going to set out a plausible and comprehensive plan to negate the risk posed by a lack of workers and to encourage the success and increase the productivity of engineering construction companies and skilled individuals. Another area that was found to be inefficient in the Gibson Report was project management. Managers in the engineering construction industry were found to have a high awareness of good practice but were reticent to implement it. This is seen to be a key area for improvement part of which will necessitate an increase in communication between employers and employees. The pooling of information through the forum, combined with a higher number of skilled individuals alongside directives to encourage excellent project management and to open employer, employee communication, is hoped to be able to invigorate the engineering construction sector in the U.K. http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/government-promise-additional--million-to-fund-training-in-the-engineering-construction-sector-26.html 2010-01-05T01:01:30Z Welcome to the new Courses Plus website, launched on the 13th of November 2009. We have recently upgraded our site and wanted to tell you what we have done to improve the services we offer to you. http://www.coursesplus.co.uk is a website of training courses, in essence it is a directory with content controlled directly by training providers. Any training provider can add any number of courses for free, this has not changed. We believe that allowing any provider to add their courses for free makes Courses Plus a great resource for potential students. We have added thousands more courses to our site to give students the maximum amount of choice. To make the site really easy to use we have added dozens more categories. This means that anybody that visits our site will be able to find exactly what they are looking for quickly and easily. As a training provider it means that you can ensure that your new courses are in exactly the right place so any visitor will be able to find the courses you offer without having to browse through overly large categories. We have not just made our site easy to use for potential students, it is now packed with a host of features that are designed to make life simple for training providers as well. There is now a tool enabling training providers to track the success of the courses they have added. These report tools compile live data on leads and allow you to manage and monitor performance. You can see how may people have viewed your course, how many have clicked through to more information and how many enquiries you have received. This information can be displayed for all of your courses or for an individual course over a time period of your choosing. The differences will enable you to see which courses are performing better than others on Courses Plus. This information will enable you to make changes to your course descriptions, categories and titles to make them more appealing to visitors. One of the factors that affects where your courses are listed in the standard listings is how visitors interact with your course details, the more useful they find them the higher your course will rank. We have also introduced a featured and premium listing service. This service allows you to get your courses listed at the top of a specific category for a whole year. If you choose to upgrade one course to a premium listing it costs just £40 for the year. Having your course listed at the top of the category means that you are likely to receive more enquires about your course. There is a discount system in place if you want to upgrade more than one course, this means that you could be paying only £10 per course for premium listings for a year making this option an affordable and effective form of advertising. Another new option is becoming a category sponsor. Being a category sponsor means that your logo and message are at the top of every page in that category. Your listing will be above premium and standard listings. The sponsored advert can link to specific courses on Courses Plus or to your own website if you prefer. We only permit there to be two category sponsors at any one time and it is a strictly first come first serve basis. You can choose to sponsor a category for one month for £40 or if you want to sponsor for a longer term you can get discounts which could make category sponsorship only £12.50 a month. Being the first training provider listed will enhance your reputation and increase interest in your courses. All of this means that Courses Plus is very easy to use for both training providers and students. The simplified navigation allows students to find what they are looking for with the minimum amount of hassle. The new provider tools allow for detailed examination of course performance and productive interaction with course details. The standard service is still completely free, so you can try out all of these great services offered by Courses Plus without paying a penny. http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/welcome-to-courses-plus-19.html 2009-11-18T04:11:16Z With new training courses being added to CoursesPlus every day, we work continually on improving the categorisation an search on the site – helping put more candidates in touch with UK training providers. Readying the site for the busy new-year training period, we have added a number of new categories for December to reflect the ever changing scope of training courses available from our providers. New training topics added for December include: Catering & Hospitality Corporate Finance Music Contract Law C Programming We\'ve also had an influx of training courses for Microsoft products resulting in a big re-organisation of that section and the creation of the following new categories: Microsoft Sharepoint Windows XP Microsoft Dynamics ASP The organisation of training on CoursesPlus is an ongoing process. If you have suggestions of topics that you would like to see us cover please let us know. http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/news/coursesplus-changes-for-early-december-13.html 2009-11-18T01:11:04Z words http://www.coursesplus.co.uk/course-search.php Search for Training Courses on Courses Plus