A Croydon man has begun to gain new skills, make himself more employable and turn his life around thanks to this local UK online centre.
Errol Hall, 53, had been out of work for around five months when he visited Best Training, hoping gaining computer skills would increase his chances of finding employment. What he didn’t expect was that it would give him a new passion for learning, taking him onto further training and even better prospects.
Errol, from the Thornton Heath area says, “I’m a fitter welder by trade and have also driven for a living so I’ve never needed to use computers at work before. They certainly weren’t around when I was at school. After going to the Jobcentre though I found out that almost all job applications are now online.”
It was at the Jobcentre that Errol saw a leaflet telling him about the courses at the Best Training UK online centre. Once he’d decided to take the plunge, he popped into the centre itself and made an appointment to join an Online basics session.
“I was nervous at first. I didn’t know what to expect or where to start with a computer. And it is scary getting back into learning at my age. But the staff at Best Training were great. They were so welcoming and really made me feel comfortable straight away.”
Soon Errol was going to the centre two or three times a week. He says, “I really enjoyed it. The staff always found time for me and they were so caring and supportive.”
He’d soon finished Online basics and was looking for his next challenge. “The Online basics course was really clear and easy to use. It’s given me a really good idea of how computers and the internet work and I love that I can work at my own pace. It’s great to be able to go back to it whenever I want, just to keep practicing and keep it fresh in my mind.”
As a jobseeker, getting back into learning has proved important to Errol in other ways too. He says “I think it’s really important to keep your mind active and creative, and the courses have helped me meet new people, talk about my situation and stopped me getting down or depressed about being out of work.
“It’s also really good to be able to show that I’m doing something, to be able to go into an interview and say that even though I’m out of work, I’m being proactive, I’m learning and trying to do something.”
Errol has now moved on to a numeracy course with learndirect and wants to carry on to further learning. He says; “I’ll be going back to Online basics to keep improving my IT skills and will be looking at the jobs and CV courses on the Go ON website so I can apply for jobs myself online. As soon as I’m able to, I’ll be getting my own laptop.
I’m really happy with what I’ve achieved so far but I feel like there’s so much more out there. I just want to keep learning really, until I can’t learn any more!”
