Of Worlds

If you’re looking for Cisco training and you haven’t worked with routers before, what you need is a CCNA. This program has been designed to teach men and women looking to have practical know how on routers. Commercial ventures who have a number of branches use routers to join up their various different networks of computers to keep in contact with each other. The Internet also is based on huge numbers of routers.

Getting this certification will mean it’s likely you’ll end up working for large commercial ventures that are spread out geographically, but still want internal communication. Other usual roles could be with an internet service provider. Both types of jobs command good salaries.

Getting your Cisco CCNA is the right level in this instance - don’t be pushed into attempting your CCNP for now. Get a couple of years experience behind you first, then you will know if you need to train up to this level. Should that be the case, you’ll have a much better chance of succeeding - as your experience will help you greatly.

Some training companies are still using a now out-dated method of training - classroom days. Usually touted as a major benefit, if you talk to a student who has had to attend a few, you’ll find them listing some or all of these:

* Many round journeys - usually 100’s of miles.

* If you’re working, then Monday to Friday workshops cause problems at work. Typically you are facing 2-3 days at a time as well.

* Lost annual leave - the majority of working people get just four weeks holiday each year. If you use up half of that with educational days, you haven’t got a great deal of holiday time remaining for students and their families.

* Classes usually become quickly full, leaving us with the ‘2nd best’ solution.

* Tension can run high inside the classroom where the right pace for one student is not the same as another.

* The cost of travel - driving to and from the training centre together with several days accommodation can mount up every time you have to go. Assuming just 5-10 centre-days at a cost of 35 pounds for an over-night room, plus 40 pounds petrol and food at 15 pounds, we find an extra four to nine hundred pounds of hidden costs that we now have to fund.

* Most students want their training to remain private thus avoiding all come-back in their work.

* Who amongst us hasn’t avoided putting our hand’s up, because we wanted to look smarter?

* You should remember, events are simply impossible to attend, if you live away for part of your week or month.

Why don’t you simply watch and study with industry specialists one-on-one through videoed modules, working on them at a time that’s convenient for you and you alone. You can study from home on your desktop PC or why not in the garden on a laptop. Any questions that pop up, just utilise the 24×7 Support (that should come with any technical program.) You don’t have to worry about any note-taking - all the lessons and background info are laid out on a plate. If you need to cover something again, just go for it. While this won’t take away every little difficulty, it unquestionably reduces stress and eases things. You also have reduced travel, hassle and costs.

With all the options available, does it really shock us that a large percentage of newcomers to the industry don’t really understand the best career path they will follow. How likely is it for us to understand the many facets of a particular career if we’ve never been there? Often we have never met anyone who works in that sector anyway. Contemplation on the following factors is essential if you need to reveal a solution that suits you:

* Your hobbies and interests - these can highlight what possibilities will satisfy you.

* Do you hope to achieve a specific aspiration - like working from home sometime soon?

* What salary and timescale requirements that are important to you?

* Learning what the main work areas and sectors are - and what differentiates them.

* Taking a good look at how much time and effort you can give.

To be honest, it’s obvious that the only real way to seek advice on these matters is via a conversation with an experienced advisor that understands computing (and specifically it’s commercial needs and requirements.)

We’re often asked why academic qualifications are now falling behind more commercial qualifications? As demand increases for knowledge about more and more complex technology, industry has of necessity moved to the specialised core-skills learning only available through the vendors themselves - namely companies such as Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe. This often comes in at a fraction of the cost and time. Academic courses, for example, often get bogged down in a lot of background study - with a syllabus that’s far too wide. This prevents a student from getting enough specific knowledge about the core essentials.

As long as an employer is aware what work they need doing, then they simply need to advertise for someone with a specific qualification. Syllabuses all have to conform to the same requirements and can’t change from one establishment to the next (as academic syllabuses often do).

If you’re going through this material it’s probable that either you’re considering a career change into IT and you’ve heard good things about MCSE’s, or you’re currently an IT professional and it’s apparent that the next stage is the MCSE certification.

As you find out about training providers, ensure that you steer clear of those that short-change you by failing to provide the latest version from Microsoft. This is a false economy for the trainee as they will have been learning from outdated MCSE course material which doesn’t correspond to the current exam syllabus, so it could be impossible for them to pass. A computer training organisation’s attention must be centred on the best thing for their clients, and they should be passionate about students needs. Working towards an MCSE isn’t just about the certification - the process should be all about helping you to decide on the most suitable route for you.

Looking at the myriad of choice out there, there’s no surprise that a large majority of career changers have no idea which career they could be successful with. Because with no solid background in Information Technology, how should we possibly understand what anyone doing a particular job actually does? To attack this, a discussion is necessary, covering a variety of definitive areas:

* What hobbies you have and enjoy - often these show the areas will satisfy you.

* What time-frame are you looking at for retraining?

* Where do you stand on salary vs job satisfaction?

* Learning what the normal work areas and sectors are - and what differentiates them.

* The level of commitment and effort you’ll put into getting qualified.

For most of us, getting to the bottom of so much data needs a long talk with a professional that can explain things properly. And we don’t just mean the accreditations - you also need to understand the commercial requirements and expectations of industry too.

Typically, a new trainee will not know to ask about something of absolutely vital importance - the way their training provider divides up the physical training materials, and into how many separate packages. Many companies enrol you into some sort of program spread over 1-3 years, and send out each piece as you get to the end of each exam. On the surface this seems reasonable - until you consider the following: With thought, many trainees understand that their providers usual training route isn’t as suitable as another. They might find varying the order of study will be far more suitable. And what happens if they don’t finish within their exact timetable?

To avoid any potential future issues, it’s not unusual for students to make sure that every element of their training is couriered out in one package, all at the beginning. That means it’s down to you at what speed and in which order you want to work.

Of course: a actual training or the accreditation isn’t the end-goal; the job or career that you’re getting the training for is. A lot of colleges seem to completely prioritise the certificate itself. You could be training for only a year and end up doing the actual job for 10-20 years. Avoid the mistake of choosing what sounds like an ‘interesting’ training program only to spend 20 years doing a job you don’t like!

Make sure you investigate your leanings around career progression and earning potential, plus your level of ambition. You need to know what will be expected of you, which particular qualifications are needed and in what way you can develop commercial experience. Seek help from an industry professional that ‘gets’ the commercial realities of the area you’re interested in, and who can offer ‘A typical day in the life of’ synopsis of of what you’ll be doing on a day-to-day basis. It’s good sense to know if this change is right for you before the training program is started. What’s the point in kicking off your training and then find you’ve gone the wrong way entirely.

A question; why should we consider qualifications from the commercial sector as opposed to more traditional academic qualifications taught at schools and Further Education colleges? Key company training (as it’s known in the industry) is more effective in the commercial field. Industry has realised that specialisation is essential to cope with an acceleratingly technical world. Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe are the big boys in this field. University courses, as a example, clog up the training with a great deal of background study - and much too wide a syllabus. This prevents a student from learning the core essentials in sufficient depth.

In simple terms: Authorised IT qualifications let employers know exactly what you’re capable of - it says what you do in the title: as an example - I am a ‘Microsoft Certified Professional’ in ‘Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network’. So an employer can identify exactly what they need and which qualifications are required to fulfil that.

Review the following points very carefully if you’re inclined to think that old marketing ploy of ‘guaranteeing’ exams sounds like a benefit to the student:

Everyone knows they’re still footing the bill for it - obviously it has been added into the overall price charged by the training provider. It’s certainly not free - and it’s insulting that we’re supposed to think it is! For those who want to qualify first ‘go’, then the most successful route is to pay for each exam as you go, give it the priority it deserves and apply yourself as required.

Isn’t it in your interests to find the best exam deal or offer at the time, rather than coughing up months or even a year or two in advance to a training course provider, and to do it locally - instead of miles away at the college’s beck and call? Many current training colleges secure a great deal of profit through getting paid for examinations upfront and cashing in if they’re not all taken. Pay heed to the fact that, with ‘Exam Guarantees’ from most places - the company controls how often and when you are allowed to have another go. Subsequent exam attempts are only authorised at the company’s say so.

Splashing out often many hundreds of pounds extra on an ‘Exam Guarantee’ is naive - when a commitment to studying and the use of authorised exam preparation tools is what will really guarantee success.