The Training Course Dichotomy
Once upon a time, after acknowledging the situation with my undergraduate major I was determined to glean marketable skills. You know the ones, that look great on any resume and make you seem like a 'jack of all trades'.
Okay, so I had extra time one summer and believe that I could successfully complete a Pharmacy Tech training course and a Bartending course, drop out of school and be a PharmTech wizard by day and bartender by night. Drop out of school and do both for the rest of my days. Yes, I too would like to walk into a night club and see a 70 year old bartender.
Previously, I hadn't experience in either; what I did have was 3years of customer service experiance under my belt. Depending on industry it either mattered or it didn't. Let's discuss the impact of those three years in concordance with attempting to secure a job as a PharmTech and as a Bartender.
After completing both courses I was, for lack of a better word stoked - after passing the PharmTech course and exam I could put letters after my name - the designation now escapes me and if I wanted to the course instructor had internships available such that you could work as a PharmTech just to gain a bit of experiance before you tried your hand at it. Now, you don't need to pass the exam or the course to work behind a pharmacy counter but it gives you a leg up on the other applicants, allows you to fulfill more responsibilities and log more hours.
Bartending was a different story, you finish the course, you take a test, you get a sparkly new diploma and you're off to a land all your own. The school that I took it through had a job placement website but it was severly out of date. You'd be surpised to know that with only a two week training course under my belt it was not experiance that people wanted but a certain look and personality flair - apparently, I had neither regardless of how many orders I could remember at a time and how well mixed my drinks tasted (in case you didn't know, the interview for a bartender is an audition in which you get judge while working a full shift) and how efficiantly I poured them out. Although only two weeks, the course really was an excellent way to gain experience and what to do was easy to remember. Though, not having the right look eliminated me from the night club / sports bar scene and not appearing poised enough eliminated me from the restaurant / country club scene.
Though, I speak highly of the training course as experience in this situation same does not go for a job that required more skill and less personality. As far as PharmTech goes, getting a job at a local drug store is a snap, there are dozens springing up all the time and they always need someone. Although the course harped on chemical compounds, pill shapes, dosage and had details labs it didn't help standing behind that counter. Sure, if you handed me a written exam with ill drawn out pictures and multiple choice questions, I'd pass to this day but throw me in with customers, new prescriptions coming about daily and a need to pair it with 30+ hours of new material yearly to keep your certification and it is a fight. You continually need behind the counter experience to understand your new classroom experience and vice versa, it's cycle that is not forseeable within the confines of a training course.
In short, the simplier the career the greater a small course can aid you tremendously..
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