What do you need to become a tutor?

When you are considering choosing to work as a tutor, you first need to ask yourself whether you have the necessary skills to successfully help your students. Some people are naturally talented in educating others whereas other people need to work hard at it.

With Save The Student stating that working as a tutor is not only a great career choice, but also fantastic to put on your CV if you are currently in university, there is no better time to look into the prospect of tutoring others.

However, it is not as easy as just posting an advertisement in the local paper and carrying out a couple of hour-long lessons before collecting your earnings. You need specific attributes that will assist you and your students in this career. But what exactly are the skills you need to become a tutor?

Five skills that help you as a tutor

1. Patience - Whether it is explaining a concept a number of times until your student grasps it or waiting until they feel confident enough to tackle a problem, as a tutor you need to have ample amounts of patience.
2. Adaptability - Through helping students of varying needs, education levels and learning styles, you will need to be incredibly adaptable. You will need to be able to easily change your teaching style to suit each individual as you go between lessons.
3. Problem-solving - Working as a tutor has a lot in common with solving problems. It may be that you are met with an individual who is unwilling to do a large amount of work and you need to figure out a way to excite them about the subject.
4. Time-management - This may go without saying but as a tutor you need to ensure that you are able to manage your time well. This will come through amply planning your lessons and knowing exactly what you need to get through that day.
5. Good communication - Being able to explain things in a clear and concise manner may be one of the most important aspects of working as a tutor. It does not matter whether you are the most knowledgeable person in the world about a subject, if you can’t properly explain the details, then your students will not be able to benefit from this.

The best personality for a tutor

Even if you have all of the above skills, your natural personality also comes into play when you are looking to be a successful tutor. Everyone remembers a teacher they are scared of at school, someone they wouldn’t ask for help and instead would struggle with the subject.

As a tutor, you want to be the exact opposite of this strict teacher. You want your students to feel comfortable asking any questions they have, happy to come to you with any problems they are experiencing and feel empowered during your tutoring sessions.

In order to achieve this, you need to exude a warm personality and a compassionate nature. You need to genuinely want to help your students and be open to any criticism they may have.