What are your print industry training resources?

[davehultin-mi4p]

You just hired a new team member! They're a perfect fit for your culture but they're light on knowledge of the printing industry.

How do you educate them? What training resources do you use to quickly get them up to speed with print industry knowledge?

 

[billowen99]

This is one of the best classes anyone can attend. Best bang for the buck out there! https://aldertech.com/sgia-color-management-boot-camps/

 

[gordo]

You just hired a new team member! They're a perfect fit for your culture but they're light on knowledge of the printing industry.

How do you educate them? What training resources do you use to quickly get them up to speed with print industry knowledge?

You hire on culture rather than skill?

 

[davehultin-mi4p]

Thanks billowen99, I'll check that out.

You hire on culture rather than skill?

No, not really. I was creating a scenario in which a printer has someone on their team that would benefit from a structured curriculum of print industry instruction. I'm curious what others are using for print-specific training materials.

But, FWIW, my company has implemented a very methodical and scientific hiring process that works really well for us, and I suspect it would be a big help for any company starting a hiring process. There are 22 steps in our hiring process, but it focuses on these four key steps:

1. Identify the level of work
2. Organize the role description
3. Create a list of interview questions
4. Conduct the face-to-face interview

Sounds simple enough, but there's a LOT of science in each step. For instance, we typically end up with 50 to 100 interview questions designed on the idea that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, which means the interviewer only has to ask about specific past behavior related to the critical role requirements for the open position.

This hiring process is based on the book Hiring Talent (http://amzn.com/0988916517) by Tom Foster (https://managementblog.org/about/). He also has a self-paced on-demand course at http://www.hiringtalent.com/. Anyways, I'm a big fan of Tom's work!

 

[keith1]

I must have been doing something wrong all these years. I've generally been able to tell if a prospective hire was a good fit and knew what they were talking about after a minute or 2 of conversation.

 

[OffsetStorefront]

I was that very employee. I created an account on this forum and read every new post every day and still do that to this day. You learn quite a lot.

 

[davehultin-mi4p]

I must have been doing something wrong all these years. I've generally been able to tell if a prospective hire was a good fit and knew what they were talking about after a minute or 2 of conversation.

I look at Tom's approach as "greatly improving what may already be done right!" I think of his approach as hiring insurance. To be clear, Tom Foster's work is rooted in the work of Elliott Jaques, who puts the science into this process. Jaques's work is really deep stuff, and Tom has been able to shift Jaques's ultra-academic approach into something that is approachable by those of us that don't want to invest a lifetime of study into Jaques's science and research.

To quote Tom:

Elliott spent his life as a scientist, in research, looking for answers to questions about the way we live our working lives. He was interested in the concept of work, how we work, why we work, the role of work. He was curious about the way we work together in companies, in the pursuit of goals.

Prior to basing our hiring process on Tom Foster's work I've made lots of good hires (and even GREAT hires!). But now that we use this process, I'm more confident about the long-term success of each new hire.

 

[JerrytheBookGuy]

Why is it that I think this thread is just a subtle, but clever effort to sell books and a $599 online training course?

 

[gordo]

Why is it that I think this thread is just a subtle, but clever effort to sell books and a $599 online training course?

You question the integrity of a marketing company that states: "We honor God in our actions by doing the right thing." as its core value? Hmmmm.

 

[hrlevenson]

Consider the following. It is designed specifically for new people just joining the industry and needing a quick orientation to the industry. It's interactive--print, video, sound.
www.igcbook.com

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

hrlevenson Is this book available worldwide? We had this book https://www.ebooks.com/en-se/817524...-_mgSOidPZCQmWH_vmZ1j6ANJIdQS29hoCfA4QAvD_BwE, but some of the material needs to be updated.

 

[hrlevenson]

Yes, it is available worldwide. Write to the publisher, John Parsons at IntuIdeas for how to acquire a copy. His email address is: [email protected]
The book, published in 2018, is current and priced modestly. Tell him that I sent you. Copy me if you care to at: [email protected]

 

[aqazi81]

Maybe not much relevant to your question.
I'm from Pakistan and Print Planet and Colorprintingforum.com have been my biggest knowledge sources so far. I learned a lot from these two forums. In our country there wasn't any place to get the industry knowledge except for one or two polytechnic colleges that were offering outdated courses and nothing was taught there that could benefit you in this industry. So the experience in trade was one's biggest source of learning.
Things are changing now as more and more print houses are buying newer equipment and local print association has developed a few basic courses with the help of German Govt.