The College’s Business Centre have worked with Dean Taylor, the actor who has recently held the role of the Emperor in Blackburn’s Empire Theatre’s production of Aladdin, to help him gain essential IT skills to improve his job prospects after the curtain falls.

Dean Taylor is an experience actor, with a passion for panto, who attended Nelson and Colne College’s Apprenticeship and Training Centre in Nelson Town Centre to improve his IT skills. More used to treading the boards than working at a keyboard, Dean was finding it difficult to secure part-time work between his acting commitments and decided to take basic IT classes to improve his CV.

Dean said, “As an actor, my career is led by theatre schedules and productions often have gaps between where I need to find regular work to infill. The modern workplace is extremely IT lead and it became obvious to me that in order to secure decent part-time work in-between my acting commitments, I was going to need some better IT knowledge. The team at the Nelson and Colne College Apprenticeship and Training Centre have been fantastic; showing patience, tolerance and understanding, helping me to pick up the skills I needed and never making me feel like I should know more! I now feel more confident that I will be able to find work in between my acting commitments.”

Nelson and Colne College offers a range of programmes aimed at helping people to get back to work or improve their job prospects. With a new adult prospectus for the New Year, call Student Services on 01282 440209 to find out how they can help you to gain essential work skills.