I Thought Secretaries Went Out With The Ark!
I was at a meeting this morning with a respected book publisher and we got talking about my Pitman Training franchises.
She was shocked to learn that demand for properly trained secretaries remains strong even though the jobs market as a whole is difficult.
She said she thought ”secretaries had died out with the ark” and that bosses nowadays did all their own typing and correspondence.
I was pleased to put her right! In fact, people taking secretary courses and our diploma level Executive PA course in particular, seem to be scooping up the few jobs around.
I imagine that is because firms now have such a wide choice of candidates that they can only focus on the few who stand out from the crowd.
By that I mean Pitman trained people as there can be no doubt Pitman is still the best recognised name in secretarial training.
Fortunately it’s a name that stands for practical ability rather than academia, so employers use our qualifications as a bit of an insurance policy in the sense that it’s pretty much a given that someone who has taken secretary courses with us will be able to type really quickly and accurately, know how to lay out a letter and use Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook to a very high level.
You could almost say to a student that “we’ll provide the productivity, you provide the personality.”
We tend to think of Pitman Training as a must have name for aspirational people. People who really want to get on and are prepared to work for the best qualifications they can get.
Employers seem to respect the fact that students have put in a lot of hard work (plus quite a bit of money!) to develop advanced secretarial skills. This gives a strong impression of being a highly motivated person which is bound to be attractive to potential employers.
But returning to the idea that bosses no longer need secretaries, the problem is that bosses are also much more stretched than they used to be and therefore they need administrative support more than ever as they concentrate on more knowledge-based activities.
Imagine the opportunity cost of having a senior manager trying to type a report at 18 wpm when a secretary can do it four times faster for a quarter of the salary. And with the best will in the world, a boss who has squeezed a one-day Word course into her busy schedule is never going to be able to achieve the productivity gains delivered by someone who has completed a Pitman secretarial course.
And when you factor in the specialisms we teach, such as legal secretary skills or medical secretarial training, it’s no wonder demand continues to grow for these highly skilled technicians.
But don’t take my word for it. Visit www.pitmanlondon.org and see what our students say.
Or if you want to see our course list, go to www.holborntraining.co.uk.
Pitman Training is a compelling story.
About The Author.
Keith Wymer is Managing Director of Holborn Training Ltd, which operates Pitman Training centres under franchise in London Notting Hill, London High Holborn and Manchester.
