This section covers commonly asked and expert level Corporate Trainer Interview questions and answers. The types of questions covered are general, conceptual, behavioral, situational and experience based. You can also find interesting examples and sample answers with each question.
Who are these Corporate Trainer Interview Questions useful for?
These interview questions will be very useful for all candidates appearing for the role of corporate trainer, training specialist, training and development manager etc.
1. What are the duties and responsibility of the corporate trainer?
A corporate trainer is an educator who helps the employees to cultivate their skills and knowledge. They could be soft skills trainers, technical trainers or product trainers etc. Their goal is to promote efficiency and competitive advantage by developing the skills of the employees.
The responsibilities of a corporate trainer are:
Consult and liaise with managers to determine training needs.
Schedule training sessions.
Prepare effective training sessions.
Look for appropriate venues for the training.
Conduct seminars, workshops, individual training sessions etc.
Prepare educational material for the employees for reference.
Provide support to the new employees and act as a mentor to them.
Keep proper attendance of the training sessions other records.
Evaluate training budgets.
Continuously carry out evaluations to identify the areas of improvement.
Monitor employee performance and response to training.
Video : Corporate Trainer Interview Questions and Answers
2. How do you identify the training needs of the employees?
The corporate trainers help to improve the employee’s efficiency and productivity by developing them and their skills.
i.) Self-evaluation of the employees
ii.) Evaluation by the managers
iii.) Requirement to take up a new project
iv.) Self nominations
can be some of the ways to identify the training needs.
To answer this question you can say something like: "To identify the training needs of the employees I try to understand the organizational, departmental and operational needs. I also analyze the performance feedback of the employees. This gives me an insight into the employee’s developmental needs. In addition to this, I also communicate with the managers and supervisors to understand their requirement. Also, I conduct surveys and ask employees to nominate themselves voluntarily for a particular training if they feel a need to do so."
If there is anything additional that you do to identify the training needs of employees, this question is the perfect opportunity to share it with the interviewers.
3. What are the common challenges the training coordinators face?
Major challenges that training coordinators face are:
i.) Lack of managerial support – for not giving it required importance, lack of time, funds, motivation etc.
ii.) Lack of employee motivation leading to poor participation and learning transfer.
iii.) Lack of proper resources and tools.
iv.) Lack of adequate budget.
4. What are the qualities of effective trainers?
The attributes required to be a top-notched trainer are:
i.) Excellent communication skills: A good trainer needs to communicate in a clear and engaging presentation style. They need to be good speakers.
ii.) Knowledgeable: They should know the topic in and out with a clear understanding of all the concepts. They should understand questions clearly and if they do not know the answer they should know where to look for and promise the trainees to answer them as soon as possible.
iii.) Good with people: They may have different personality but they should be the one who enjoy being around people. They can engage with people and work to meet the training goals.
iv.) Creative: They have creative minds and inspire the trainees to explore new ideas and methods. They have the ability to create an environment to encourage the trainees to reach beyond what they already know.
v.) Well- prepared: They know their objective, their plan of action for the presentation.
vi.) Flexible: They adjust and accommodate their training plan so that they meet the training objective.
vii.) Well- organized: Good trainers know well to handle their time and work.
viii.) Continuous learners: They know the value of learning and they keep on learning. They are willing to keep up with the new techniques in corporate teaching.
ix.) Decision making:They possess critical thinking and decision making abilities.
5. As a trainer, what would you do to make your training programs successful?
As a trainer, I would take the following steps to ensure the training programs are successful.
i.) With the top management, I would set specific training goals.
ii.) Align the goals directly with the company’s strategic and financial goals.
iii.) Set up accountability system to measure the effectiveness of the training program.
iv.) Check if the trainees have successfully implied to what they have learned in the training session to improve their job performance.
v.) Design a training calendar and include a schedule for on-going training such as beginner, intermediate and advanced session as well as a refresher course.
vi.) I prefer to have a representative from the upper management on the training committee to ensure that the training is an integral part of company’s present and future plans of success.
6. How would you end the training session?
It is very important to end the training session on a high note. Usually, the employees remember what you said at the end. So here are a few things I do to end the session:
i.) Give a short recap of the training session. Highlight all the keep points in the end as this helps them to retain what they have learned in the training session.
ii.) Ask the trainees to write down what they have learned from the session.
iii.) Ask them how they will imply the learning in their actual work.
iv.) Ask them for feedback. This helps in self-improvement as well.
v.) Thank them for attending the session.
7. What do you need to keep in mind when using PowerPoint training method?
PowerPoint presentation is one of the most powerful tools used for training purpose. Here are some of the points to remember when using PowerPoint presentations:
i.) Do not use a lot of animation as it will act as a distraction and it also hinders the participants from retaining the important points.
ii.) Limit the number of slides. Fewer slides may not cover the topic fully and too many slides may cause information overload.
iii.) Check the presentation on your own computer and fix any mistakes and glitches.
iv.) Choose the spot from where the slides are seen clearly. Adjust the lighting and figure out the best place to position yourself.
v.) Begin each session with an overview of each topic before beginning with the slide presentation.
8. What is Kirkpatrick's Four Level training Evaluation Model?
The Kirkpatrick's Four-Level training evaluation model was first created by Donald Kirkpatrick in the year 1959 which was revised several times later. It was created to analyze the training effectiveness and to understand the impact of the training session.
These four levels help to understand the effectiveness of the training and how can the training be improved in future. But at times measuring the effectiveness of the training with the help of this model can be a time- consuming affair and also it will involve the use of many resources.
