Choosing Computer Training 2009
With an abundance of computer training courses available, it can be difficult to know what to look for. Pick out one that matches up with your personality and your level of ability, and one that is in demand commercially. The courses range from Microsoft User Skills up to career training for Web Design, Databases, Programming and Networking. There’s a great deal of choice and so the chances are you’ll want to talk through your options with an industry expert prior to making your choice: you don’t want to get on the wrong course for something that doesn’t suit you!
Due to the vast number of low cost, easily understood courses and support, you’re sure to get to something that should take you where you want to go.
Since the IT sector provides such an array of fantastic career possibilities for everyone – then what kind of questions should we ask and what factors are important to consider?
It’s important to understand: the actual training program or a qualification is not what you’re looking for; the career that you want is. A lot of colleges seem to place too much importance on the certificate itself. You could be training for only a year and end up doing the job for 20 years. Avoid the mistake of finding what seems like a program of interest to you and then spend decades in an unrewarding career!
It’s well worth a long chat to see what expectations industry may have of you. Which particular certifications they will want you to have and how you’ll go about getting some commercial experience. It’s definitely worth spending time setting guidelines as to how far you wish to build your skill-set as often it can control your selection of accreditations. Speak to a skilled advisor who understands the work you’re contemplating, and could provide detailed descriptions of what you actually do in that role. Establishing this before starting out on a retraining course will save you both time and money.
Watch out that all qualifications you’re working towards will be recognised by employers and are the most recent versions. Training companies own certificates are usually worthless. If the accreditation doesn’t feature a big-hitter like Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe or CompTIA, then it’s likely it won’t be commercially viable – because it won’t give an employer any directly-useable skills.
It’s so important to understand this key point: You absolutely must have proper 24×7 support from professional instructors. We can tell you that you’ll strongly regret it if you don’t. Avoid, like the plague, any organisations who use call-centres ‘out-of-hours’ – where you’ll get called back during normal office hours. This is useless when you’re stuck and could do with an answer during your scheduled study period.
The very best training providers have many support offices across multiple time-zones. By utilising an interactive interface to link them all seamlessly, any time of the day or night, help is just seconds away, avoiding all the delays and problems. Don’t under any circumstances take a lower level of service. Direct-access round-the-clock support is the only way to go with IT courses. Perhaps you don’t intend to study during the evenings; but for most of us, we’re working during the provided support period.
Often, trainers provide piles of reference manuals and workbooks. This isn’t very interesting and not a very good way of achieving retention. Long-term memory is enhanced when we use multiple senses – experts have been clear on this for as long as we can remember.
Locate a program where you’ll receive a library 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. It’s very important to see the type of training provided by each company you’re contemplating. Be sure that they contain full motion videos of instructors demonstrating the topic with lab’s to practice the skills in.
You should avoid purely online training. You want physical CD/DVD ROM course materials where obtainable, enabling them to be used at your convenience – you don’t want to be reliant on your broadband being ‘up’ 100 percent of the time.
Students often end up having issues because of a single training area which doesn’t even occur to them: The breakdown of the course materials before being delivered to your home. By and large, you’ll join a programme that takes between and 1 and 3 years and receive a module at a time. It seems to make sense on one level, but consider these issues: Maybe the order of study pushed by the company’s salespeople doesn’t suit all of us. What if you find it hard to complete all the sections within their timetable?
Truth be told, the best option is to obtain their recommendation on the best possible order of study, but get everything up-front. You then have everything in case you don’t finish quite as quick as they’d want.
It’s not uncommon for companies to offer inclusive exam guarantees – this always means you have to pay for the exams at the start of your training. But before you get taken in by a course with such a promise, why not be aware of the facts:
Everyone knows they’re still paying for it – it’s obviously been added into the gross price invoiced by the training company. It’s certainly not free (it’s just marketing companies think we’ll fall for anything they say!) Trainees who go in for their examinations when it’s appropriate, funding them as they go are far more likely to pass first time. They are aware of the cost and revise more thoroughly to ensure they are ready.
Hold on to your money and pay for the exam at the appropriate time, and hang on to your cash. You’ll also be able to choose where to take your exam – which means you can stay local. Is there a good reason to pay interest on a bigger loan than is necessary because you’ve paid early for examinations when you didn’t need to? Huge profits are netted by organisations charging upfront for all their exams – and banking on the fact that many won’t be taken. Remember, in the majority of cases of ‘exam guarantees’ – the company decides when you can re-take the exam. They’ll only allow a re-take once completely satisfied.
On average, exams cost around the 112 pounds mark twelve months or so ago via UK VUE or Prometric centres. So what’s the point of paying maybe a thousand pounds extra for ‘an Exam Guarantee’, when it’s no secret that the responsible approach is a regular, committed, study programme, with an accredited exam preparation system.
Often, individuals don’t catch on to what IT is all about. It’s ground-breaking, exciting, and means you’re doing your bit in the gigantic wave of technology affecting everyones lives in the 21st century. Technology, computers and communication through the web will noticeably affect our lifestyles in the near future; profoundly so.
Let’s not ignore salaries either – the average salary in Great Britain for an average IT professional is much more than average salaries nationally. Chances are that you’ll receive a much greater package than you’d expect to earn doing other work. Excitingly, there is a lot more room for IT expansion in the United Kingdom. The sector is still growing rapidly, and with the skills shortage of over 26 percent that we’re experiencing, it’s highly unlikely that this will change significantly for decades to come.
