As part of our feature on trainer development, we asked TrainingZONE members to tell us a bit about how they came to be involved in the training profession, and offer some thoughts on what it means to be a trainer today. We received a fantastic selection of responses, which will be published throughout the month. Here, Peter Keep, a self-employed Training and Development Consultant responds.

1. What's your current job role? My current job role is self-employed Training and Development Consultant.

   
   

2. What did you do before this job? I had a 19-year career as Sales Manager, operating at area and national level.

   
   

3. Describe your route into training Redundancy brought a career decision, people development has always been my passion and I would describe my management philosophy as achieving through people. I decided to make the change to working directly in the area that most motivated me, namely training coaching and developing people.

   
   

4. Did you always want to work in training and development? I considered it at times in my career however the opportunity and salary did not emerge.

   
   

5. What would you say has been the most significant event in your career to date? Making the change to the training and development field and sustaining my self-employment for the last 3 years.

   
   

6. How do you think the role of the trainer has changed since you began your training career? I can see in the last 3 years a move to accepting training as a way forward to solve skill shortages however it to me is still a poor relation to the HR function partly I believe to the elitist attitude of the CIPD.

   
   

7. What single thing would improve your working life? Moving from my home work base to a small office to accommodate all the materials acquired over the last 3 years.

   
   

8. What's your favourite part of the TrainingZONE site? The trainer resources area of the site followed by the tenders area.

   
   

9. Do you have any advice for those looking to embark on a career in training? Yes - stick at it and get qualified in a wide range of techniques, so you can offer a better option to all current and future employers and, for that matter, if you want to become self-employed in the future.

   
   

10. What do you think are the biggest challenges facing the trainer today? Keeping up-to-date with the ever changing and some times faddy market place, as well as the fact that there is a lot of talk about how training is important but seemingly little funding and for that matter, great words from the Government, but little practical money or support.