You only have 1 opportunity to make a GREAT first impression
No matter what type of work you do, you are always on display. Every day your work is scrutinized, and the way you come across is important. (after all – perception is reality). First impressions count and you will need to work very hard to change people’s minds about the first impression they have about you.
This thought ran through my mind because today I am interviewing a couple of people for a trainer role and find myself looking at these people thinking: would our students trust this person based on the way they walk into the room, the way they dress, the way they talk or look at the students? Would that be important? I can’t remember this being a subject during my education degree, but I am sure it has an impact on how you come across in the classroom.
You can trust me...
Mind you – this is not a deal breaker and certainly not my intention to hire on looks… we have interview questions and scorecards based on the skill and qualification requirements for that – but I was wondering from a psychology point of view how important 1st impressions are in a training situation.
And how do you create a great first impression in a variety of environments? Especially since we are delivering our education programs face to face in the classroom as well as via online elearning delivery. How do you make a good 1st impression online when you are an elearning instructor?
The top 3 things we do within the company are:
- Be there; this means that we answer all questions, we respond fast to email requests (even on the weekend) and work with the student to find the answers they need.
- Dress Code; in the office our dress code is business casual (and that is a VERY loose term… ) bordering to Queensland casual at times. (needless to say we don’t have ‘Casual Friday’ in our office!) But when we have face to face interaction with clients and students we dress up for the occasion.
- Language; as it is very tempting to use big words and difficult sentence structure during conversations with students we try to keep things simple. Especially when people approach us for their professional development path it is important to use positive and stimulating conversation. Oh – and no swearing in front of the customers…
