Technical clerk training: Switch from tradesman to office - Rolf Schmalz explains job opportunities and career options
Please introduce yourself briefly and tell us about your career to date.
My name is Rolf Schmalz and I was born in England in 1964. I returned to Bern in Switzerland as a child. It was there that I completed my training and further education in tourism, the hotel industry, marketing, sales, didactics and methodology. In my working life, I have experienced various industries - for example as an advertising manager, broker or in a printing company. I have always lectured on the side. Didactics, methodology and further education have always inspired me more in my life. That's why I now have my own school with around 160 students and 35 lecturers. The school is geared towards online teaching, which I believe is a must in this day and age and we have been offering WBA further education at the school since April 2020.
Who is the Technical Business Management Assistant course particularly suitable for?
The Technical Business Management Assistant course is particularly suitable for people who have learned a trade and would like to develop their business management skills. Those who come from the skilled trades sector can use the course to acquire additional business knowledge in order to be able to think and act in a customer-oriented manner. This enables the technical business management assistant to offer his or her technical skills or technical products in line with requirements and to respond to the special wishes of customers in terms of both business management and craftsmanship.
What are the classic careers that benefit from training as a technical business management assistant?
Anyone who has completed training as a technical salesperson is then very well suited for a job in customer service. The classic path leads to field service or internal sales. Business management of a company is also a classic career for technical business management assistants and this often ensures a succession plan. This is because a technical salesperson has both feet on the ground and possesses a combination of technical skills and business management expertise that is in demand on the market.
What are the benefits of further training as a technical business management assistant?
Technical salespeople come in particular from technical trades such as carpentry, car mechanics, plumbing specialists, electricians, etc., where the focus is on craftsmanship. The focus there is on craftsmanship. For such people, a business management supplement to their knowledge is very valuable. The Technical Business Management Assistant course is ideal for this. With this combination, technical business management assistants are automatically in demand with customers, as they can provide them with the best possible advice. This is why most technical sales representatives work in customer service. With good customer advice, the company can generate turnover and turnover is the lifeblood of every company.
What are the classic positions of technical sales representatives?
People who graduate as technical sales assistants with a federal certificate usually find themselves working in customer service relatively quickly. They often also take over the management of a team or department. They also frequently succeed in taking over and managing a business independently - often parental businesses - but not only. The combination of the technical knowledge gained from the apprenticeship and the business knowledge acquired results in a combination that is very popular on the job market. And thanks to the good foundation, technical business management assistants can also bear the corresponding responsibility. Technical business management assistants are employed in lower to middle management positions.
What alternatives are there to training as a technical salesperson in order to switch to the office as a technician or craftsman?
In principle, there are alternatives to training as a technical business management assistant. This would be a three-year part-time training course to become a business economist HF. This course therefore takes twice as long and is more geared towards people from the service sector. A clear focus of business administration training at a higher technical college is on accounting. However, this in-depth knowledge of accounting is not so necessary for people in technical sales and customer service. English is also a subject for which prior knowledge is required, which few tradespeople have. I would rather not recommend the commercial diploma as an alternative to the technical sales training for the change from tradesman to office or administration, as in my view it does not go deep enough in the deepening of knowledge. This is because this diploma only teaches office skills, which do not create a link to the craft activity or its sale. However, I would recommend that tradespeople switch from the trades to the office by taking the further training course in technical business management with a federal certificate, as this is the ideal training for tradespeople and is tailored precisely to their needs.
What are the advantages of the technical salesperson compared to the alternatives, what are their strengths?
The technical business management assistant apprenticeship with a federal certificate was created by the Anavant professional association and was reformed in 2017. The core competencies of technical business management assistants lie in basic business management concepts. The continuing education program lasts a good one and a half to two years. This is also a good thing in terms of time. During this time, graduates of the technical business management assistant course learn the necessary knowledge for working in the office and are also tested in the examination to see whether they have really understood the business management context and not just memorized it. For me, this is therefore the best training for a business management supplement for tradespeople.
Is it also possible for students who did poorly or mediocrely at vocational school at the time to master the technical business management qualification?
Especially for such people, it is advisable to look for a school that offers a solid business education from the ground up. In other words, a methodically complete didactic concept. In my opinion, preliminary courses are not necessary because the comprehensive technical business management course teaches business management skills from the ground up. It is then feasible for everyone to learn business administration. Good lecturers link the individual fields of activity with each other in such a way that the overall understanding can be built up. This is why the success rate for the WBA technical business management assistant course is a very high 90%. We also offer a learning guarantee, with which we achieve 99.9 %. This means that people who do not pass the exam the first time despite a high willingness to learn can take the course again for a year free of charge. We are also happy to give a few more lessons free of charge to people with comprehension problems in one area of activity in order to eliminate this problem. After all, our top priority is to train people who are willing to learn. At the end of the day, a complete whole must be created in business administration and this only works if all the partial elements are also available in full - or have been understood. The ultimate goal for participants should be to obtain a federal diploma as a technical business management assistant, as a diploma from a school simply does not have the same value due to the lack of national recognition. This distinction is very important for future employers to be able to classify the qualification and therefore also for the application documents of technical business management assistants. People with the federal certificate were examined by a body independent of the school.
Are there typical subjects that many course participants find difficult?
There are also classic subjects in the technical business management apprenticeship that many participants find difficult. For example, business management thinking, how to steer a company through management. In the area of personnel management, too, a soft spot for this topic often has to be developed during the technical business management assistant course. Leading and motivating are simply elements that cannot necessarily be learned, but must be developed. In order to be able to approach other people and influence them. Accounting is also a big question mark for many at first, but this subject can be built up very simply and logically from the ground up. Marketing also contains some surreal elements that you can't really assess at the beginning in terms of their effect on the market. So far, I have always managed to convince people in these areas and teach them the necessary knowledge.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of full-time or part-time technical business management training?
For many people, full-time training as a technical business administrator is not possible from a financial perspective, as it requires economic independence. So if you can afford it, you can concentrate fully on business administration in a short space of time and will certainly have the knowledge even more present in your head at the exam. Part-time training and further education makes perfect sense for me personally, because the practical relevance can be integrated very well into the further education. In my work as a lecturer, I always consciously try to establish this link to practice and encourage participants to consciously integrate it into their day-to-day work. By linking theoretical elements with practice, I can see what results from this. In addition to the theory learned in the Technical Business Management Assistant course, this combination provides an additional learning effect through the application of the knowledge acquired.
What are the best postgraduate courses after the Technical Business Management Assistant course?
There are suitable postgraduate courses after the Technical Business Management Assistant course with a federal certificate, but these differ slightly depending on your career goal. For those who want to continue their education in business, I recommend the business administration HF in a shortened form. One option for specializing in sales as a technical salesperson is the sales manager with a federal diploma. If you want to develop further in marketing, you can complete the marketing manager with a federal diploma or specialize in areas such as social media or event management. There are therefore numerous opportunities open to technical business management assistants for their further development.
Why is the Federal Certificate of Proficiency in Technical Business Administration one of the most popular educational paths?
I can only advise all people who have learned a trade in Switzerland to complete additional business management training later on. It is no coincidence that technical business management with a federal qualification is a very popular training course, with 1,500 people taking the federal examination every year. It is an important supplementary business training course that craftsmen and women need for their professional development. It also enables graduates to ensure that they can maintain their profession. Those who can combine craftsmanship with business management thinking have a much better chance of successfully placing products on the market. This is because technical salespeople can combine manual work with customer needs and business calculations. This means that such specialists are really in demand on the market as technical merchants. And thanks to this special combination of knowledge, technical salespeople can make companies successful.
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