ahhhhh right!!......well to be honest your current job will stand you in good stead as it is VERY safety critical and i assume that you have to deal with emergencies, concentrate and pay attention to detail for long periods of time??.......if so that's half the battle straight away! i wouldn't of thought you need to worry about gaining any other skills to give you an advantage!
one of the areas i found the most difficult was getting through the paper sift itself!......on the recruitment before mine apparently there were fully qualified pilots that didn't get through so that gives you an idea of the calibre of people that apply and that are sometimes unsuccessful!
given the experience and qualities that applicants like that have it can only mean that their applications had things within it that were not up to scratch!.....unfortunately this is where the railway can be VERY picky as thousands apply!.....so it could be anything from a simple spelling mistake to something like the distance they live from a depot........so what i am trying to say is make sure that your application is top notch and that you have done your research on the industry,company you are applying for and the role of a driver itself.
to be honest this role is probably more about experience and common sense than qualifications mate so there's not a lot out there training wise that would probably aid you! (although they do like customer service these days) from what I've seen and gathered from my time in the industry is they'd rather a decent person with their head screwed on and no qualifications than a complete tool with a degree! (operational role wise anyway)
i say if you wanna go straight for driving do it!.....if for example you were applying for the job having come from working in a butchers or something like that I'd say maybe try and get your foot in the door as a guard or some other safety crit role as an aid but to me an air traffic controller is more than fitting to go straight to driver........but i will say the guards job in particular is fantastic so if you get a sniff do it mate.
If you want to go driving, only pursue that particular path. Trainee driver vacancies come up pretty regular and to try for a job you don't really want is wasting everybody's time including yours and may actually mean you miss opportunities to go driving.
At my depot, we have brickies, police, ex forces, paramedics, butchers, postmen, bus/tram drivers, milkmen, slaughtermen, engineers, car mechanics, shop workers, etc, etc.
It does not matter what you work as or how well educated you are, what does matter is your attitude/ability to get through the various stages.
With your background, if you put the effort into the initial application, I would be extremely surprised if you did not progress to the next stage. Good luck.
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Hi,
I don't mean retrain, exactly. But, I'm guessing that when it comes to the application and selection process, there are going to be some skills that will give me more of an 'edge' over other candidates.
For example, if I was going through a selection process to become an air conditioning engineer, it would be beneficial for me to have done a refrigerator repair course first. (I feel I should explain, I know someone who has just left the RN to be an air con engineer, in Dubai)!
So, whilst I don't mean retrain, in the strictest of senses. What I actually mean to say is - what skills/qualifications would be beneficial to me to gain before I try the application process?
You can't really do anything regarding skills/qualifications, what would be far more beneficial is life/work/real world experience and with your background you will of had plenty I assume!
The train driver training course is designed to teach people from all walks of life and backgrounds to drive trains. No experience whatsoever is needed of the operational railway and I believe they actually prefer this as they have a clean slate to work with.
