PC and network support staff are ever more sought after in the UK, as institutions are becoming more reliant upon their knowledge and skills. The need for such qualified and commercially astute people is growing at an impressive rate, as commercial enterprise becomes more and more reliant on computers.
The age-old way of teaching, utilising reference manuals and books, is an up-hill struggle for the majority of us. If this sounds like you, dig around for more practical courses which have a majority of interactive, multimedia parts.
Studies have consistently confirmed that connecting physically with our study, is far more likely to produce long-lasting memories.
Search for a course where you’re provided with an array of DVD-ROM’s – you’ll learn by watching video tutorials and demonstrations, followed by the chance to fine-tune your skills in fully interactive practice sessions.
Every company that you look at should be able to show you samples of their training materials. Expect video tutorials, instructor led classes and interactive areas to practice in.
You should avoid purely online training. Ideally, you should opt for CD and DVD ROM courseware where available, so that you have access at all times – and not be totally reliant on a good broadband connection all the time.
Talk to any specialised consultant and they’ll entertain you with many terrible tales of how students have been duped by salespeople. Only deal with an experienced professional that quizzes you to discover the most appropriate thing for you – not for their pay-packet! You need to find an ideal starting-point that fits you.
With some work-based experience or certification, you could discover that your appropriate starting-point is very different to someone completely new.
Where this will be your first stab at studying for an IT examination then you might also want to practice with some basic user skills first.
You have to make sure that all your certifications are commercially valid and current – forget courses which provide certificates that are worthless because they’re ‘in-house’.
Unless the accreditation comes from a big-hitter like Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA or Adobe, then you’ll probably find it will have been a waste of time – because it won’t give an employer any directly-useable skills.
Don’t forget: a actual training or a certification isn’t what this is about; the job or career that you want to end up in is. A lot of colleges seem to put too much weight in the certificate itself.
You may train for one year and then end up doing the job for 20 years. Ensure you avoid the fatal error of opting for what may seem to be a program of interest to you and then put 10-20 years into an unrewarding career!
Get to grips with what you want to earn and the level of your ambition. This can often control which certifications you’ll need to attain and what you can expect to give industry in return.
Look for advice and guidance from a skilled advisor, even if you have to pay – it’s considerably cheaper and safer to find out at the start whether something is going to suit and interest you, rather than find out after two full years that you aren’t going to enjoy the job you’ve chosen and have wasted years of effort.
(C) 2009 – S. Edwards. Pop over to Learn InDesign or Website Design Training.
