Training in Computer Support – Update
Congratulate yourself that you’re on the right track! A fraction of the population enjoy their work and find it stimulating, but vast numbers simply moan about it and take no action. Because you’ve done research we have a hunch that you’re at least considering retraining, so you’ve already stood out from the crowd. Take your time now to research and follow-through.
Before you make decisions on any career courses, discuss your thoughts with an industry expert who can help you sort out which area will be right for you. Someone who can get to know your personality, and find out what types of work suit you:
* Do you like to work collaborating with people? Is that as part of a team or with a lot of new people? Possibly operating on your own on specific tasks would be more your thing?
* What do you require from the market sector you work in? (Things do change – look at the building trade, or banks for example.)
* Is this the last time you imagine you’ll re-train, and if so, do you suppose your new career will allow you to do that?
* Do you expect your new knowledge base to give you the chance to get a good job, and keep working until sixty five?
Prioritise Information Technology, that’s our best advice – unusually, it’s one of the growing market sectors in this country and overseas. Salaries are also more generous than most.
Finding your first job in the industry is often made easier with a Job Placement Assistance program. At the end of the day it isn’t so complicated as you might think to land a job – as long as you’re correctly trained and certified; the shortage of IT personnel in Britain looks after that.
Having said that, it’s important to have help and assistance with preparing a CV and getting interviews though; also we would encourage any student to get their CV updated right at the beginning of their training – don’t put it off till you’ve finished your exams.
It’s not unusual to find that you’ll secure your first job whilst you’re still studying (occasionally right at the beginning). If your CV doesn’t show your latest training profile (and it’s not being looked at by employers) then you don’t stand a chance!
Most often, a specialist locally based recruitment consultancy (who will, of course, be keen to place you to receive their commission) is going to give you a better service than a centralised training company’s service. They should, of course, also be familiar with the local area and commercial needs.
A big frustration for a number of training providers is how much people are focused on studying to get top marks in their exams, but how un-prepared they are to work on getting the role they’ve acquired skills for. Get out there and hustle – you might find it’s fun.
Don’t get hung-up, as many people do, on the certification itself. Training is not an end in itself; you should be geared towards the actual job at the end of it. You need to remain focused on where you want to go.
Students often train for a single year but end up performing the job-role for decades. Don’t make the mistake of choosing what sounds like an ‘interesting’ training program only to spend 20 years doing a job you hate!
Never let your focus stray from what you want to achieve, and build your study action-plan from that – avoid getting them back-to-front. Keep your eyes on your goals and study for something you’ll enjoy for years to come.
It’s good advice for all students to speak with an industry professional before following a particular study program. This gives some measure of assurance that it contains the commercially required skills for the chosen career path.
In most cases, your normal person has no idea in what direction to head in a computing career, let alone which market they should be considering getting trained in.
Perusing long lists of different and confusing job titles is a complete waste of time. Surely, most of us have no idea what our own family members do for a living – so we have no hope of understanding the ins and outs of any specific IT role.
Getting to the right answer really only appears through a thorough investigation of many unique criteria:
* What hobbies you have and enjoy – these can point towards what areas will give you the most reward.
* Why you’re looking at starting in Information Technology – it could be you’re looking to overcome a particular goal such as working for yourself maybe.
* How highly do you rate salary – is it of prime importance, or do you place job satisfaction a little higher on the scale of your priorities?
* Learning what the main work types and markets are – plus how they’re different to each other.
* The time and energy you’ll commit your training.
The best way to avoid the industry jargon, and discover what’ll really work for you, have an informal meeting with an advisor with years of experience; someone who understands the commercial reality whilst covering all the qualifications.
Only consider study programmes which move onto industry approved certifications. There are far too many small companies proposing minor ‘in-house’ certificates which are worthless when you start your job-search.
From a commercial standpoint, only top businesses such as Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe or CompTIA (as an example) really carry any commercial clout. Nothing else makes the grade.
