Meet Matthew, 24, and find out about his life working as a senior PPC (pay per click) trainer at Mabo, a specialist digital marketing agency based in Middlesbrough. Part of our Bitesize world of work series.
Matthew:
I'm Matthew, I'm 24 years old, and I'm a senior PPC trainer at Mabo.
PPC is pay per click and it's to do with online advertising.
It's my role to train our staff members in the ways that we do PPC. That'll be bringing them up to speed on new features from Google, training the whole team for weekly training sessions, and I also get to go around the country and do talks, and do public speaking. I got to lecture at Teeside University and we host conferences with Google, so being involved with that is really great.
My passion for communicating comes from a public speaker that I've followed for quite some time, and has influenced me in a big way. He teaches how to sort of captivate a room, and how to sort of engage with people, and that was something that flared up within me, and I thought I'd love to do something like that.
I gave my first public talk round about 17 or 18 and was a bag of nerves, but you get used to it. It's actually that you have to learn to enjoy it, and to learn to love the nerves. Also, the more I get to do public speaking, the more events that I talk at, the more confident I've become, and the more I enjoy the occasion.
The equipment I use on a day-to-day basis is just a computer and a projector. The account managers that I teach here at Mabo, they just need a computer. So learning about Google ads and getting involved is really quite simple, and doesn't require loads of equipment.
The subjects from school that I use now are, a bit of Maths for data analysis and working out sort of bill adjustments and changes from that perspective, and also English from the creativity side of things, so writing new ads.
After college, and after my A-levels, all my friends were going to university. I looked at going to university, but I decided it wasn't for me. University wasn't for me because I was kind of bored of being in a classroom.
A university is great and can work for people who want to do certain things but, for me personally, I just decided that I wanted to experience working life, and I also wanted a bit of money in my pocket as well.
It's really important to do something you love and to chase your dreams and chase your passions. To get out of bed in the morning, to come to work and be like, I get to do this, is fantastic.
One of the things I learnt personally, is to have self confidence and to believe in yourself. When I started this job, I wasn't totally sure if I was cut out for it, I had a bit of self doubt. But I stuck with it and, a couple of years down the line, I became the youngest senior member of staff at the company.
The more I get to do public speaking and the more events that I talk at, the more confident I've become, and the more I enjoy the occasion.
- Matthew trains his colleagues in PPC – this stands for pay per click and is a way for business to bring customers to their websites
- He uses maths to calculate costs and for data analysis and English for writing online adverts
- Matthew uses skills in public speaking in his job when he delivers training sessions, and has even given a talk at a university.
Matthew is a senior PPC (Pay Per Click) trainer and delivers training sessions in PPC for a specialist digital agency . A similar role is a training manager. Training managers arrange and run training sessions in a wide range of businesses and organisations.
What to expect if you want to be a training manager
- Training manager average salary: £24,000 to £42,000 per year
- Training manager typical working hours: 37 to 39 hours per week
What qualifications do you need to be a training manager?
You could get into this role via a university course, a college course, an apprenticeship, specialist courses run by professional bodies, working towards the role or applying directly.
Sources: LMI for All, National Careers Service
This information is a guide and is constantly changing. Please check the National Careers Service website for the latest information and all the qualifications needed.
For careers advice in all parts of the UK visit: National Careers Service (England), nidirect (Northern Ireland), My World of Work (Scotland) and Careers Wales (Wales).
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