Red Driving School...The Instructor College...BSM...The AA Driving School...you see their adverts for driving instructor training courses virtually every time you turn on the TV, open a newspaper or surf the internet these days...there are loads of other similar adverts from other less well known companies too...
They're all trying to sell a dream...a dream of a well-paying career, a nice car, flexible working hours and job security...it's no coincidence that as the worldwide financial crisis starts to hit ordinary people that suddenly there's a brand new Red Driving School driving instructor training advert on the TV now promising that becoming a driving instructor will ensure you a "job for life".
The most important thing you must know before you go any further is this...training driving instructors is BIG BUSINESS...and I mean BIG...it is quite literally a goldmine and possibly one of the nearest things you'll get to a licence to print money...
Up until fairly recently, ordinary driving schools did virtually all the instructor training in the UK and there were only a few small independent instructor training organisations.However since then, seeing a niche in the market and the potential to make lots of money, a number of large instructor training companies have sprung up.Nowadays nearly all the big driving schools including the AA, BSM, and Red Driving School, make a great deal of their money from driving instructor training courses. It is now a VERY lucrative source of income for them...possibly even more lucrative than their "traditional" role of teaching people how to drive.
The Instructor College is not a driving school, but it and Red Driving School are both owned by the same company "LVG Ltd" (in 2007 they also incorporated "Lets Drive", a high-profile instructor training company and driving school).
It can cost up to £4000 for a driving instructor training course run by a big training company.
The "guaranteed job" or "guaranteed placement" training companies mention in their adverts brings them in even more of your money...what they actually offer is not a job in the sense that most people think...there's no guaranteed work or a salary or contract of employment - what they're actually providing is a FRANCHISE with them (definition:- "Franchise - the right or license granted by a company to an individual or group to market its products or services in a specific territory"). Virtually all of the driving school cars you see with "BSM", "AA Driving School", "Red Driving School" etc written all over them are not driven by people who "work" for these companies - they are self-employed driving instructors who have taken out a franchise with those companies (and that's the norm for the entire driver training industry - we're all self-employed either working independently or as franchisees of a larger drivng school).
Some of these big companies charge a lot of money for their franchises - close to a staggering £400 a WEEK in the case of the market leader (which you have to pay whether they supply you with enough work for you earn that amount or not.)
That's why phrases such as "instructors urgently needed" are used in adverts for driving instructor training...you might think it's because there is loads of work...in reality instructors are "urgently needed" by these companies for the franchise fees they pay...
There is nothing illegal about what these companies do...they do train people to become driving instructors and they do provide work for their franchisees (although they will not, and more to the point cannot, guarantee this)...what I (and many others) have an issue with, is the "simplistic" (and some would say downright misleading) manner in which their advertising suggests that it is easy is to become a driving instructor, the level of the potential earnings, the supply of work and the potential flexibility and future of driving instruction as a profession.
To end, PLEASE remember too that these big companies are NOT in the business of offering you "impartial careers advice", they are trying to sell you their product...they are offering this training because it is a way of making money...for THEM.
The people who you talk to on induction meetings are sales-people and they will use sales pitches and sales tactics to sell you their product (the training course). They will more than likely flatter you...tell you that "you're ideally suited" or "exactly the sort of person" they are looking for. They will big up the positives and neglect to tell you about the negatives. You may be taken out on a "test drive" - I've only heard of two people not passing this bit with flying colours and even then they were told that whatever they had done wrong could be "ironed out with a little bit of work" and the rest of the sales pitch was carried on regardless!
You may be told things like it's possible to do a 2 week intensive course to cover "everything" you'll need for Part 3...this is so wide of the mark, so misleading and so WRONG that polite words temporarily fail me...
You may well also be offered some kind of inducement to sign up for the course there and then...there'll be a discount offerred which just so happens to be "only available today" or the sales rep will go away and negotiate a "deal" for you with his/her manager if you sign up on the spot...PLEASE don't get carried away by attractive sales-pitches...do your research and always bear in mind the saying "if something seems to be too good to be true, it probably is"...
For lots more important things you should know about becoming a driving instructor and driving instructor training courses, please see;
Everything You Need To Know About Becoming A Driving Instructor...And The Real Truth Behind The TV Adverts For Driving Instructor Training
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