Team-CanvasAs promised in our previous post, this entry is the first in a series that will look at some of the categories of jobs that might be available to be searching for IT placements in the Bay Area and that might utilize some of the information learned from our online IT training consultancy. It seems appropriate to begin by offering up a brief Training and Development Specialist job description and considering some of the online IT training courses California job seekers might want to have under their belts if they’re interested in pursuing this opportunity.

A Training and Development Specialist can be expected to be involved in all tasks related to making appropriate hires for his or her firm and making sure that they are prepared for the responsibilities that will be place before them in a new role. The specialist may be involved at other levels of human resources, as well, responding to managerial or interpersonal complaints by recommending useful training programs and types of skills development to rectify problems or produce better outcomes.

The Training and Development Specialist job description at a good company will probably provide the individual with a role in recruiting people from inside or outside of the firm into relevant training programs, and then helping them to find business or IT placements on appropriate teams, commensurate with the skills and work habits observed during the training.

With that in mind, the Training and Development Specialist will also be expected to actually design whatever training programs may be needed, and to schedule and organize sessions to accommodate both the company and the participants, and also to monitor training in progress.

The design role indicates that even if you plan to pursue a career as a Training and Development Specialist in a non-IT firm, you may still need solid online IT training, just as long as you might be making decisions relevant to IT staff working somewhere in the company.

You probably wouldn’t trust someone to train you or even to design a remote training program if they didn’t have substantial expertise in the topic of the training. Thus, a would-be Training and Development Specialist should take care to be well-aware of the current business and IT trends in the industry or company he or she hopes to enter. Whether the specialist is serving a predominantly IT or non-IT crowd, there will almost certainly be some overlap between the two fields.

That is to say that a business analyst certification and some sort of background in software training courses may equally serve to make an aspiring Training and Development Specialist more attractive to prospective employers. What’s more, Agile training and certified scrum master training, both usually the domain of aspiring IT professionals, provide notable insight into methods of working as part of a team, which could be invaluable to Training and Development Specialists as they move into roles where they will have to both train people in groups and prepare them to work in professional teams on high level projects.

The general Training and Development Specialist job description probably doesn’t hold any surprises for anyone reading this. But what might be more surprising than the actual content of the job is the fact that online IT training courses can prove relevant to preparing for that role whether or not IT staff development turns out to be the specialists ultimate focus.