Shade, Shutters & Blinds

In today’s high speed society, support workers who have the ability to solve problems with PC’s and networks, plus give regular help to users, are hugely valuable in every sector of the economy. Our country’s need for larger numbers of qualified personnel is growing, as society becomes ever more dependent on computers in these modern times.

Now, why is it better to gain commercially accredited qualifications and not the usual academic qualifications taught at schools and Further Education colleges?

With a growing demand for specific technological expertise, the IT sector has had to move to the specialised core-skills learning that the vendors themselves supply - that is companies such as CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA. This usually turns out to involve less time and financial outlay.

University courses, for example, often get bogged down in vast amounts of loosely associated study - and much too wide a syllabus. Students are then prevented from getting enough specific knowledge about the core essentials.

In simple terms: Recognised IT certifications provide exactly what an employer needs - it says what you do in the title: as an example - I am a ‘Microsoft Certified Professional’ in ‘Windows XP Administration and Configuration’. So an employer can look at their needs and what certifications are required to perform the job.

Getting into your first IT role is often made easier with the help of a Job Placement Assistance program. Because of the massive need for more IT skills in the United Kingdom at the moment, it’s not too important to make too much of this option though. It isn’t so complicated as you might think to get employment once you’re properly qualified.

Advice and support about getting interviews and your CV should be offered (if not, see one of our sites for help). Ensure you work on your old CV today - don’t wait until you’ve finished your exams!

Getting onto the ‘maybe’ pile of CV’s is far better than not even being known about. A decent number of junior support jobs are got by trainees (who’ve only just left first base.)

If you’d like to keep travelling time and costs to a minimum, then you’ll probably find that a specialist independent regional recruitment consultant or service can generally work much better for you than a national service, because they’re far more likely to know the local job scene.

A good number of students, it seems, spend evenings and weekends on their training and studies (for years sometimes), and just give up when it comes to trying to get a job. Sell yourself… Do everything you can to get in front of employers. A job isn’t just going to bump into you.

Be careful that the certifications you’re studying for will be recognised by employers and are the most recent versions. ‘In-house’ certificates are generally useless.

To an employer, only the big-boys like Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco (to give some examples) will get you short-listed. Anything less just won’t hit the right spot.

A successful training program will undoubtedly also include Microsoft (or key company) exam preparation packages.

As the majority of examining boards for IT are from the USA, you must be prepared for the way exams are phrased. It’s no use merely going through the right questions - they have to be in the same format as the actual exams.

Ensure that you verify whether you’re learning enough through tests and mock ups of exams prior to taking the actual exam.

(C) 2009 S. Edwards. Browse around microsoft-interactive-training.co.uk or Network Training Courses.