Computer and network support staff are more and more sought after in Great Britain, as organisations are becoming more reliant on their technical advice and fixing and repairing abilities. As we’re all becoming growingly reliant on our PC’s, we additionally inevitably become more reliant on the well trained network engineers, who keep the systems going.
Considering how a program is ‘delivered’ to you is usually ignored by most students. How many stages do they break the program into? What is the specific order and at what speed is it delivered?
Trainees may consider it sensible (with training often lasting 2 or 3 years to achieve full certification,) for a training company to release the courseware in stages, as you achieve each exam pass. However:
What if you find the order offered by the provider doesn’t suit. You may find it a stretch to finalise all the sections at the speed required?
Truth be told, the perfect answer is to get an idea of what they recommend as an ideal study order, but to receive all the materials up-front. Meaning you’ve got it all in case you don’t finish as fast as they’d like.
Only consider training programs which will move onto commercially acknowledged exams. There’s an endless list of minor schools proposing ‘in-house’ certificates that are essentially useless when you start your job-search.
If the accreditation doesn’t feature a major player like Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco, then you may discover it could have been a waste of time and effort – as no-one will have heard of it.
Remember: a training program or the accreditation is not the ultimate goal; the particular job that you want to end up in is. Many trainers unfortunately place too much importance on just the training course.
Don’t let yourself become one of the unfortunate masses that choose a course that seems ‘fun’ or ‘interesting’ – only to end up with a qualification for an unrewarding career path.
You’ll want to understand the expectations of your industry. Which exams you’ll need and how you’ll build your experience level. You should also spend a little time considering how far you think you’ll want to progress your career as it will force you to choose a particular set of qualifications.
Seek advice from an experienced advisor, even if there’s a fee involved – it’s usually much cheaper and safer to investigate at the start whether you’ve chosen correctly, rather than realise after 2 years that the job you’ve chosen is not for you and have to start from the beginning again.
We’d all like to believe that our jobs will remain secure and the future is protected, however, the truth for most sectors throughout Great Britain currently is that there is no security anymore.
Where there are increasing skills shortfalls coupled with high demand areas though, we can find a new kind of security in the marketplace; driven by a continual growth, organisations struggle to find the staff required.
The IT skills-gap throughout the United Kingdom falls in at approximately 26 percent, as shown by a recent e-Skills analysis. Or, to put it differently, this means that the UK is only able to source 3 trained people for every four jobs that are available at the moment.
Acquiring in-depth commercial computing qualification is as a result an effective route to succeed in a long-term and pleasing livelihood.
It’s unlikely if a better time or market circumstances is ever likely to exist for getting certified in this rapidly expanding and evolving market.
Copyright 2009 S. Edwards. Look at Alternative Careers or NewCareerOpportunities.co.uk.
22 Dec
