Over the years I have taken many classes and trainings. Trainings for Real Estate, both to get licensed and then in continuing education; trainings in the construction field related to safety. I’ve been given general onboarding training for many of the positions I’ve taken, whether working at a restaurant or stocking shelves at an OSU dining center. Having experienced so many of these different experiences, it is easy for them to begin to blend together. With that in mind, two key groups of trainings, online individualized ones, and hands-on in person ones. One example that comes to mine with this existed in the real estate licensing and continuing education space. Here, while I found learning the content to be rather straightforward, the complete training experience existed entirely online in preset modules. From my perspective as an aspiring real estate agent, it worked to provide a quick and easy path to getting my real estate license. However, this “Presentation” training method worked only to provide book knowledge for the role, but did nothing to provide an understanding of what a successful real estate agent looked like, and what skills I would have to learn in order to succeed in my job. This training method had no hands-on experience provided, nor was it done in a group environment where questions could be asked of the instructor. If that had been my full training experience within real estate, I’m sure my time working in this field would have been very short. Instead, I made the decision early on to join an existing real estate team that came alongside the severe limitations of basic training to prepare me for what I was actually going to face. With this team, I had structured on-the-job training where my supervisor spent dedicated time teaching me the ropes of what they believed made a successful agent. He sat with me and walked me through phone calls, taught me scripts, and all the other components necessary to understand my role. Finally, our Principal broker held weekly coaching meetings with me to first assess my areas of talent and then work with me to ensure that those talents were maximized into real estate production (e.g. more transactions, etc.).
