Training for farm work

Rachel Kay, pictured with her dog Toby, visits 170 trainee dairy workers twice a year. Picture / Amos Chapple

My Job

Name: Rachel Kay
Age: 27
Job title: Training adviser
Working hours: 8am to 5pm but often longer and variable.
Employer: Agriculture Industry Training Organisation, secondary schools, careers advisers
Pay: from $35,000, plus a vehicle.
Qualifications needed: An understanding of the qualifications framework and how to get a qualification and what it means, good judgment of individual's competency
Career prospects: Wide range of jobs in the agricultural sector often identified in the course of the job.


Q: What do you do?

A: I co-ordinate training for people in the dairy industry. On a typical day I'll make phone calls in the morning and be on the road from 9am till 3pm.

I visit trainees on farms, visit classes, start new classes or collect practical results. Each trainee has to do practical and theory. In the afternoon I'm in my home office, maybe working on timetables or enrolling people in classes.

Q: Why did you choose this job?

A: I had a background of sheep and beef farming in the Hawkes Bay, did a degree in human resources at university and then worked at Telecom. I wanted to get back into agriculture and I was always right into training.

It is rewarding to see people achieve. It is hard for people to balance career and family and when you see them get a qualification it's very rewarding.

Q: Why is this job important?

A: You need to know so much when you're working in the agriculture industry. I told a woman the other day that I co-ordinated training for the dairy industry and she asked whether dairy industry people needed training.

I told her it's a multimillion-dollar industry and a farm manager can be in charge of million-dollar enterprises. It's really important to up-skill the agricultural workforce, especially as it's getting hard to attract people to it. They are not nine-to-five jobs and when you're a 17-year-old starting out and your city mates are off partying every weekend it's hard. Workers have to be business people as well.

Q: What's the best thing about the job?

A: Seeing people. A lot of the paperwork is boring but it's great to get out into the field, visiting people, seeing what they are doing. I cover an area from Hamilton to Morrinsville, Te Aroha and Paeroa. There are 170 trainees in that area. I visit them each at least twice a year. They are all different. I met a South African who told me in Africa he was on a farm milking 100 cows. I didn't think that was much until he told me it was by hand.

Q: What are your strengths?

A: You have to be organised. With 170 trainees that's 170 names you need to know, for a start. You have to have a good memory and be super organised because you're directing them and communicating with them and their employers.

Sometimes you need different forms of communication depending on who you're dealing with. You've got to build trust. I've been doing it two years and in the first year it was hard just finding where to go and find them. After the first year the stress levels went way down.

Basically, you're co-ordinating a big production. I'm doing a course in business planning. This is a role for training others but we're right into it ourselves.

Q: Where would you like to be in five years?

A: I'd like to have started a family and be able to combine that with the job.

Q: What's your job-hunting advice?

A: Be really honest. Ask a lot of questions. You have to be quite motivated. I don't sit next to my boss so you've got to get out and do it yourself.

You have to have a passion for it because if you don't the chances are that you won't care. You've got to be friendly, approachable, trustworthy and organised.