Computer Training – Some Thoughts
When thinking of a course in IT it’s crucial that the certification you will gain falls in line with the needs of industry. It’s also important that the program will suit you, and is pitched at the right level. You can select office skills packages from Microsoft, or more advanced IT professional certifications. Plain speaking courses will soon propel you to achieving your goals.
Today, there are a variety of easy-to-use and well priced courses to be had that can supply you with all you require.
Can job security really exist anywhere now? In the UK for example, where business constantly changes its mind whenever it suits, it certainly appears not. We could however find market-level security, by digging for areas of high demand, mixed with shortages of trained staff.
Taking the computing market for example, a key e-Skills study showed a skills shortage in the United Kingdom of over 26 percent. This shows that for each 4 job positions that are available in Information Technology (IT), there are only 3 trained people to fulfil that role. Acquiring in-depth commercial computing qualification is correspondingly a fast-track to realise a continuing and rewarding living. Unquestionably, now really is a fabulous time to consider retraining into IT.
How do we go about making a good decision then? With so much reward available, we’ll need to know where to search – and what we should be searching for.
Students looking to begin an IT career usually haven’t a clue what path to follow, or which sector to get qualified in. Working through a list of odd-sounding and meaningless job titles is no use whatsoever. The majority of us have no concept what our good friends do at work – so we’re in the dark as to the complexities of a specific IT job. Arriving at the right resolution only comes via a meticulous examination of many unique factors:
* Personality factors and interests – which work-centred jobs please or frustrate you.
* What time-frame are you looking at for retraining?
* What are your thoughts on travelling time and locality vs salary?
* Getting to grips with what the normal work types and sectors are – and what differentiates them.
* What effort, commitment and time you’ll have available to set aside for your training.
In actuality, the only way to research these issues will be via a meeting with someone that understands IT (and more importantly it’s commercial needs.)
Those that are drawn to this type of work often have a very practical outlook on work, and won’t enjoy sitting at a desk in class, and poring through books and manuals. If you’re thinking this sounds like you, use multimedia, interactive learning, where learning is video-based. Memory is vastly improved with an involvement of all our senses – this has been an accepted fact in expert circles for decades now.
Fully interactive motion videos involving demonstration and virtual lab’s will turn you off book-based study for ever more. And they’re a lot more fun to do. It’s very important to see some example materials from each company you’re contemplating. Be sure that they contain video, demonstrations and various interactive elements.
It’s usually bad advice to select online only courseware. Connection quality and reliability varies hugely across the ISP (internet service provider) market, you should always obtain disc based courseware (On CD or DVD).
Quite often, students have issues with one area of their training which is often not even considered: The method used to ‘segment’ the courseware before being physically delivered to you. Usually, you’ll join a programme that takes between and 1 and 3 years and receive a module at a time. This sounds logical on one level, until you consider this: What if for some reason you don’t get to the end of each and every exam? And what if you find the order of the modules counter-intuitive? Because of nothing that’s your fault, you may not meet the required timescales and consequently not get all your materials.
To be honest, the best option is to have a copy of their prescribed order of study, but get everything up-front. You then have everything in case you don’t finish within their ideal time-table.
Of all the important things to consider, one of the most essential is always full 24×7 support from expert mentors and instructors. Far too often we see trainers who only provide office hours (or extended office hours) support. Avoid, like the plague, any organisations that use messaging services ‘out-of-hours’ – with the call-back coming in during typical office hours. This is no use if you’re stuck and want support there and then.
The best trainers utilise several support facilities across multiple time-zones. By utilising an interactive interface to seamlessly link them all together, at any time you choose, there is always help at hand, without any contact issues or hassle. Don’t ever make the mistake of taking second best when you’re looking for the right support service. Many would-be IT professionals who can’t get going properly, are in that situation because they didn’t get the support necessary for them.
One interesting way that training providers make extra profits is by adding exam fees upfront to the cost of a course and then including an ‘Exam Guarantee’. It looks like a good deal, but is it really:
Clearly it isn’t free – you’re still being charged for it – it’s just been included in your package price. If it’s important to you to pass in one, then you should pay for each exam as you go, give it the necessary attention and be ready for the task.
Isn’t it in your interests to hold on to your money and pay for the exam at the time, not to pay any mark-up to a training course provider, and to do it in a local testing office – instead of the remote centre that’s convenient only to the trainer? A surprising number of unscrupulous training colleges make big margins through charging for exam fees early and hoping that you won’t take them all. Also, many exam guarantees are worthless. The majority of organisations will not pay for re-takes until you have demonstrated conclusively that you won’t fail again.
Paying maybe a thousand pounds extra on ‘Exam Guarantees’ is naive – when a commitment to studying and the use of authorised exam preparation tools is actually the key to your success.
Watch out that all qualifications you’re working towards are commercially relevant and are up-to-date. The ‘in-house’ certifications provided by many companies are not normally useful in gaining employment. From the viewpoint of an employer, only the major heavyweights such as Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA or Adobe (for example) will get you short-listed. Anything less won’t make the grade.
