Susanne Schiltz is coordinator of the Transport & Logistics Clerk course at CVO-LBC in Berchem and has herself been teaching for 22 years. Most trainees are able to work in the industry after the course.
As a child, Schiltz wanted to either teach or go sailing. Her father had died very young and her mother did not allow her to go sailing. “Going sailing in the 1980s as a woman was not obvious. But in what was I supposed to teach, I found everything so boring. Languages? You can read that grammar in a book and then you know it too. I then took Shipping-Expedition at Sint-Lodewijk and passed after two years. Then I took two more years of languages. In my final year, I already had a contract at Easter to start in June.”
Freight forwarder and dispatcher
I worked in the transport sector for 15 years as a freight forwarder and also as a dispatcher for road transport. In a normal week, I worked between 50 to 60 hours and in a non-normal week sometimes up to 80 hours. Because of private reasons, I started teaching, initially combined with a day job. I started at Portilog and then here in evening training at CVO-LBC. That’s how the ball got rolling. First with a limited number of modules, but then I got the chance to teach full-time.”
“In retrospect, I created the subject myself by first gaining 15 years of practical experience in the sector, to end up teaching on what I felt was a top subject. Had I had to teach a subject other than transport or logistics, I would have done something else a long time ago. I am sure of that,” she says.
Evening and daytime courses
Originally, the Transport & Logistics Assistant course was an evening course. “As this alone did not allow me to fill a full-time position, I started looking for other training options. For instance, I contacted the staffing sector for short training courses. This has since grown to five five-week short courses with four serious basic modules.”
“The employment agencies screen people for their suitability for the sector. They register them with us, we train them and afterwards the temporary employment sector leads them to work. First with an interim contract and then eventually with a permanent contact. In the meantime, we had also convinced the VDAB of our abilities and started a day training with them. We already organise two VDAB day courses of five months per school year. One time these are 12 modules including French and the other time 11 modules including Customs instead of French.”
We also organise company visits at CEVA Logistics, DHL, BCTN and Combinant, among others, and do a port visit
“VDAB and CVO LBC screen candidates together, VDAB finances their training and towards the end of the training, the trainees look for work themselves. To support their job search, VDAB organises job dates and I myself also teach communicative techniques Dutch. We have guest speakers, companies, headhunters and temporary employment agencies come here. Then they can already hand over their CV and come into contact with other people from the sector. We also organise company visits at Colruyt, Nike, CEVA Logistics, DHL, BCTN and Combinant, among others, and do a port visit. Every now and then I try to organise something new. Of course, we also coach our trainees”.
Someone who wants to take an evening course takes at least three school years to do so without exemptions. “We only have four evenings a week with a different module each evening. Together with the languages, that’s 940 teaching hours. You can never do that in one year, not in the evening course anyway. So someone who is really motivated has to last three school years”.
From practice
The instructors for the Transport & Logistics Clerk course are people from the field. “Among other things, we are accredited to train an official customs declarant. That subject is also taught by a customs declarant who is still working himself. The one who teaches air cargo is the CEO of an air freight forwarding company. Inland shipping is taught by someone who has owned an inland ship himself and now runs an inland shipping brokerage firm. So we all teach from our practical experience and not only try to use ‘real cases’ during the lessons, but also apply various forms of gamification so that there is a lot of interaction between the students and the teachers.”
I myself now teach Port Knowledge, Road Transport, Incoterms, Intermediaries or the legal status of the freight forwarder
“I started teaching 14 modules, a bit too much of a good thing. We also have to write and update our courses ourselves. Now I have a team of nice colleagues who have taken over some modules from me. I myself now teach Port Knowledge, Road Transport, Incoterms, Intermediaries or the legal status of the forwarder and Communicative Techniques Dutch”.
Further training or career switch
In both the evening and day courses, the trainees are either people who come to upskill because they work in the sector and are shopping a module, or people, and the majority are, who want to make a career switch. “For example, there are many women and men who start out as order pickers, load-loaders and so on but cannot physically sustain that and want an administrative position. There are also non-native speakers who, because they do not yet speak the language, start in a blue-collar job but have a master’s degree from another country. These all end up in transport and logistics. Our youngest trainee is 18 and the oldest is 60. All colours, backgrounds, religions are together in the class here”.
From cleaning lady to planner
In terms of career switch, Schiltz can cite some striking examples. “There is a woman who took classes for 10 years with her mother, who was a customs clerk. She herself was a cleaning lady. She had a child who needed intensive care. She needed a job that she could tailor to that child, but she had more up her sleeve. Taking one module a year for ten years obviously didn’t get her into the flow. I then asked her if she wanted to take the day course. She was able to put her job as a cleaning lady on hold. She was given a bath for five months and redid all the subjects. Now she works at Corneel Geerts. She started as a counter clerk and has since become a dispatcher and does planning. Then I think: wow.”
“A man from Africa who was a customs officer there came here and also wanted to become a declarant here. He was able to start at TNT in the night shift. He loved that because it worked out well with his wife’s job cleaning at night. He still works there and has now got a permanent contract as a customs declarant. Then there was someone who was a medical laboratory technician. She started working at Monsanto as a counter clerk on a one-year contract. After that, she could not be employed back as a counter clerk, but on planning. She did that and then another position. Three years, each time with a one-year contract. After that, she could opt for a permanent contract. She chose counter clerk again because she loves the contact with the drivers and the variety in the job.”
“Youssef is a former student who is now a sales manager at a Korean company. Together with his colleague Peter, he had a breakbulk project in Nigeria. They had to coordinate everything, both logistics and transport to build a railway line with stations there. A lot of our trainees have drifted everywhere as CEOs, managers and so on. I get messages via LinkedIn where they are, what they do and if they urgently need someone extra. The other day, for instance, I was asked by someone at C.H. Robinson to come and give refresher training on Incoterms. That is very pleasant,” says Schiltz.
Mother hen
As training coordinator, Schiltz also has a mother hen feel. “When they go to the VDAB job date, I say: behave professionally, you should not deny your clothing style but make the most of it. For your CV, please use spelling and grammatical correction. For every word in the CV, make sure you can give an example of it. This is how I am doing. It’s a hands-on mentality. If an undergraduate degree is requested, which you don’t have, highlight your other qualities and apply! That’s how we try to get them all to work. We have an average of 80-95 per cent job outflow,” she concludes.
