Careers

What kind of things might a person searching for Microsoft certified training expect from providers these days? Clearly, training providers should be offering a variety of routes that match the needs of Microsoft certified training tracks.

Perhaps you’d want to be given advice on the sort of careers you might go for once you have passed your exams, and the type of individual those jobs would appeal to. Most students like to get advice on what they might be good at.

Having selected the career track for you, you’ll need a suitable training program matched to your ability level and skill set. The standard of teaching should be second to none.

Trainees hoping to start a career in IT usually don’t know which direction to consider, or which market to achieve their certification in.

How can we possibly grasp what is involved in a particular job if we’ve never been there? Most likely we haven’t met someone who performs the role either.

Ultimately, any kind of right choice only comes via a detailed examination of several altering factors:

* The kind of individual you think yourself to be – which things you enjoy doing, and on the other side of the coin – what you definitely don’t enjoy.

* Are you looking to realise a specific aim – for example, being your own boss someday?

* Does salary have a higher place on your priority-scale than anything else.

* Often, trainees don’t consider the energy involved to get fully certified.

* Taking a good look into the effort, commitment and time you’ll make available.

In all honesty, your only option to gain help on these matters is through a chat with an advisor or professional that has a background in IT (and chiefly the commercial needs.)

Qualifications from the commercial sector are now, very visibly, taking over from the traditional academic paths into the IT industry – why then is this the case?

The IT sector now acknowledges that for an understanding of the relevant skills, official accreditation from companies such as Microsoft, CISCO, Adobe and CompTIA most often has much more specialised relevance – at a far reduced cost both money and time wise.

Academic courses, as a example, often get bogged down in a lot of background study – and a syllabus that’s too generalised. Students are then held back from getting enough specific knowledge about the core essentials.

It’s rather like the advert: ‘It does what it says on the tin’. Employers simply need to know where they have gaps, and then request applicants with the correct exam numbers. They’ll know then that all applicants can do what they need.

Review the following points and pay great regard to them if you’ve been persuaded that the marketing blurb about ‘guaranteeing’ exams sounds like a benefit to the student:

You’ll pay for it one way or another. It’s definitely not free – they’ve simply charged more for the whole training package.

Should you seriously need to qualify first ‘go’, then you should pay for each exam as you go, focus on it intently and apply yourself as required.

Shouldn’t you be looking to go for the best offer at the appropriate time, not to pay any mark-up to a training college, and to do it in a local testing office – instead of the remote centre that’s convenient only to the trainer?

Big margins are secured by some training companies that get money upfront for exam fees. For quite legitimate reasons, a number of students don’t get to do their exams and so the company is quids-in. Believe it or not, there are training companies that depend on students not taking their exams – as that’s where a lot of their profit comes from.

Many training companies will require you to sit pre-tests and hold you back from re-takes until you’ve completely proven that you’re likely to pass – which makes an ‘Exam Guarantee’ frankly useless.

Due to typical VUE and Prometric tests coming in at around 112 pounds in the UK, it makes sense to pay as you go. Why splash out often many hundreds of pounds extra at the beginning of your training? Study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will really guarantee success.

A proficient and practiced consultant (in contrast with a salesperson) will talk through your current experience level and abilities. This is useful for calculating your starting point for training.

Don’t forget, if you have some relevant work-experience or certification, then you can sometimes expect to start at a different point than someone new to the industry.

If you’re a student beginning IT exams and training anew, it’s often a good idea to ease in gradually, by working on some basic Microsoft package and Windows skills first. This can be built into most training packages.

(C) 2009. Visit LearningLolly.com for clear career tips on Database Courses and SQL Training.

Should you be interested in training in Cisco, a CCNA is in all probability what you’ll need. The Cisco training is intended for individuals who wish to understand and work with routers. Routers are what connect networks of computers to other computer networks via dedicated lines or the internet.

The sort of jobs available with this kind of skill mean you’ll be more likely to work for national or international corporations that have various different locations but still need contact. On the other hand, you might end up working for an internet service provider. Either way, you’ll be in demand and can expect a high salary.

If you haven’t yet had any experience of routers, then studying up to CCNA is more than enough – at this stage avoid being tempted to do the CCNP. With a few years experience behind you, you can decide if it’s relevant for you to have this next level up.

Training support for students is an absolute must – look for a package that provides 24×7 direct access, as anything less will frustrate you and could hamper your progress.

Don’t buy training courses that only support trainees through a message system after 6-9pm in the evening and during weekends. Colleges will give you every excuse in the book why you don’t need this. The bottom line is – you need support when you need support – not when it’s convenient for them.

Be on the lookout for providers that utilise many support facilities from around the world. Each one should be integrated to offer a simple interface and round-the-clock access, when you need it, with no fuss.

Seek out an educator that is worth purchasing from. Only true live 24×7 round-the-clock support gives you the confidence to make it.

Make sure you don’t get caught-up, as a lot of students can, on the certification itself. Training for training’s sake is generally pointless; this is about gaining commercial employment. You need to remain focused on where you want to go.

Students often train for a single year but end up doing a job for a lifetime. Avoid the mistake of finding what seems like a program of interest to you only to spend 20 years doing a job you don’t like!

Stay focused on where you want to get to, and then build your training requirements around that – avoid getting them back-to-front. Stay on target – making sure you’re training for an end-result that will keep you happy for many years.

Before setting out on a training course, you’d be well advised to chat over individual market requirements with an experienced advisor, to ensure the training course covers all the bases.

The old fashioned style of teaching, using textbooks and whiteboards, is an up-hill struggle for the majority of us. If all this is ringing some familiar bells, find training programs which feature interactive and multimedia modules.

Research into the way we learn shows that memory is aided when we involve as many senses as possible, and we get physically involved with the study process.

Find a course where you’re provided with an array of CD and DVD based materials – you’ll start with videos of instructor demonstrations, and be able to practice your skills in interactive lab’s.

All companies should willingly take you through a few examples of the materials provided for study. You should hope for instructor-led videos and a wide selection of interactive elements.

Some companies only have access to training that is purely available online; sometimes you can get away with this – but, imagine the problems if you lose your internet access or you get intermittent problems and speed issues. A safer solution is the provision of physical CD or DVD discs that removes the issue entirely.

Most of us would love to think that our careers are secure and our work prospects are protected, but the growing reality for the majority of jobs in the United Kingdom currently appears to be that there is no security anymore.

We can however reveal security at the market sector level, by searching for high demand areas, tied with work-skill shortages.

Reviewing the computer industry, a key e-Skills study highlighted a twenty six percent shortfall of skilled workers. Or, to put it differently, this highlights that Great Britain is only able to source 3 trained people for every 4 jobs that are available today.

Well trained and commercially accredited new workers are consequently at a resounding premium, and it’s estimated to remain so for many years to come.

In actuality, acquiring professional IT skills during the next few years is likely the best career move you’ll ever make.

(C) Jason Kendall. Check out LearningLolly.com for intelligent career advice on Cisco CCNA and Cisco Training.