Shade, Shutters & Blinds

What kind of things might a person looking for training tracks certified by Microsoft expect to discover? Clearly, training organisations should give access to a range of routes that meet the requirements of Microsoft authorised training routes.

Perhaps you’d like to have a chat about jobs with a person who’s got industry experience - and should you be confused, then have some guidance on what kind of IT job would be right for you, based on your personality and ability level.

After settling on the career track for you, you’ll need an appropriate course customised to your ability level and skill set. The quality of training should more than match your expectations.

It’s not uncommon for companies to offer inclusive exam guarantees - this always means you have to pay for the exams before you’ve even made a start on the course. Before you get carried away with a course with such a promise, why not be aware of the facts:

You’ll pay for it ultimately. It certainly isn’t free - it’s just been rolled into the price of the whole package.

For those who want to get a first time pass, you must pay for each exam as you go, give it the priority it deserves and give the task sufficient application.

Take your exams somewhere local and don’t pay up-front, but seek out the best deal for you when you’re ready.

A great deal of money is made by a number of companies that get money upfront for exam fees. Many students don’t take them for one reason or another but the company keeps the money. Believe it or not, there are training companies who rely on that fact - as that’s how they make a lot of their profit.

You should fully understand that re-takes via organisations who offer an ‘Exam Guarantee’ are always heavily controlled. You’ll be required to sit pre-tests until you’ve proven that you’re likely to pass.

Average exam fees were about 112 pounds last year when taken at Prometric or VUE centres around the United Kingdom. So don’t be talked into shelling out hundreds or thousands of pounds more for ‘Exam Guarantees’, when any student knows that the responsible approach is study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams.

The area most overlooked by those thinking about a course is the issue of ‘training segmentation’. This basically means how the program is broken down into parts for drop-shipping to you, which vastly changes where you end up.

You may think it logical (with a typical time scale of 1-3 years to pass all the required exams,) that a training provider will issue one section at a time, as you achieve each exam pass. Although:

Maybe the order of study pushed by the company’s salespeople doesn’t suit all of us. It may be difficult to get through every element inside their defined time-scales?

For the perfect solution, you want everything at the start - meaning you’ll have all of them to return to any point - at any time you choose. You can also vary the order in which you move through the program if you find another route more intuitive.

It’s so important to understand this key point: It’s essential to obtain proper 24×7 round-the-clock professional support from mentors and instructors. You will have so many problems later if you don’t adhere to this.

Try and find training with proper support available at any time of day or night (no matter if it’s in the middle of the night on a weekend!) Make sure it’s always access directly to professional tutors, and not simply some messaging service that means you’re parked in a queue of others waiting to be called back at a convenient time for them.

It’s possible to find professional training packages which give students online support at all times - even in the middle of the night.

If you fail to get yourself direct-access 24×7 support, you’ll quickly find yourself regretting it. You might not want to use the service during late nights, but what about weekends, early mornings or late evenings.

A so-called advisor who doesn’t dig around with lots of question - chances are they’re just a salesperson. If they push a particular product before learning about your history and experience, then you know you’re being sold to.

With a strong background, or even a touch of real-world experience (some industry qualifications maybe?) then obviously the level you’ll need to start at will be very different from someone who is just starting out.

Working through a user skills program first can be the best way to start into your IT programme, but depends on your skill level.

(C) Jason Kendall. Browse LearningLolly.com for the best ideas. MCDBA Courses or Database Training Course.