Congratulations! By landing here you’re probably toying with the idea of retraining for a new career – that means you’ve already taken one more step than the majority. A small minority of us are happy and fulfilled in our work, but most just moan and do nothing about it. You could be a member of the few who decide to make the change.
We suggest that you discuss your ideas first – talk to someone who’s familiar with your chosen field; a guide who can really get to know you and find the best job role for you, and then show you the career tracks you may be suited to:
* Do you like working on your own or do you find company is an important option?
* Have you given much thought to which area you choose to work in? (These days, it’s even more crucial to be selective.)
* Would you like this to be a one off time that you’ll have to retrain?
* Do you think being qualified will give you the opportunity to discover new employment possibilities, and remain in employment until you wish to retire?
A predominant industry in the United Kingdom to meet the above criteria is Information Technology. There is a requirement for greater numbers of qualified technicians in this sector, just search any jobs website and you’ll discover what we mean. However, it’s not all nerdy people staring at theirscreens all the time – there’s a lot more to it than that. The majority of employees in the industry are ordinary people, but they enjoy their work and get well paid.
How can job security truly exist anymore? In the UK for instance, with industry changing its mind at alarming speeds, we’d question whether it does.
Of course, a marketplace with high growth, where there just aren’t enough staff to go round (because of a big shortage of properly qualified workers), enables the possibility of proper job security.
With the Information Technology (IT) market for example, a key e-Skills investigation highlighted major skills shortages throughout the country in excess of 26 percent. Meaning that for each 4 job positions that are available across IT, we’ve only got three properly trained pro’s to perform that task.
Properly taught and commercially educated new employees are correspondingly at a total premium, and it’s estimated to remain so for many years to come.
For sure, now really is the very best time to join the computing industry.
A lot of people assume that the tech college or university system is the right way even now. Why then is commercial certification slowly and steadily replacing it?
Corporate based study (as it’s known in the industry) is far more effective and specialised. Industry has acknowledged that specialisation is necessary to service the demands of an increasingly more technical commercial environment. Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA are the big boys in this field.
Many degrees, for instance, clog up the training with too much loosely associated study – with a syllabus that’s far too wide. This holds a student back from learning the core essentials in sufficient depth.
The crux of the matter is this: Commercial IT certifications give employers exactly what they’re looking for – the title is a complete giveaway: as an example – I am a ‘Microsoft Certified Professional’ in ‘Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2003′. Consequently companies can identify exactly what they need and which qualifications are required to fulfil that.
In most cases, a typical student doesn’t know in what direction to head in a computing career, or even what market they should be considering getting trained in.
Since without any solid background in Information Technology, how could any of us be expected to understand what a particular job actually consists of?
To work through this, we need to discuss a variety of unique issues:
* Your hobbies and interests – often these highlight what possibilities will provide a happy working life.
* Why it seems right starting in computing – maybe you’d like to conquer a long-held goal such as firing your boss and working for yourself maybe.
* Where do you stand on salary vs job satisfaction?
* Looking at the many markets that computing covers, you really need to be able to take in what’s different.
* Our advice is to think deeply about the level of commitment that you will set aside for your training.
When all is said and done, the only real way of checking this all out is through a long chat with an advisor or professional that knows the industry well enough to lead you to the correct decision.
Students often end up having issues because of a single training area usually not even thought about: The way the training is divided into chunks and sent out to you.
Delivery by courier of each element one stage at a time, according to your own speed is how things will normally arrive. Of course, this sounds sensible, but you should consider these factors:
What would their reaction be if you find it difficult to do each section at the speed they required? And maybe you’ll find their order of completion won’t be as easy as some other order of studying might.
Put simply, the best option is to obtain their recommendation on the best possible order of study, but to receive all the materials up-front. You then have everything in the event you don’t complete everything as fast as they’d like.
Copyright 2010 S. Edwards. Pop over to Microsoft Online Training or www.RetrainingCourses.co.uk/trecourse.html.
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