The CompTIA A+ course has four specialist sections – you’ll have to qualify in just two sectors to be competent in A+. You’ll find that most training providers restrict their A+ to just two of the training options. To us, this is too much of a compromise – of course you can gain accreditation, but experience of all four will set you apart in the workplace, where knowledge of all four will be necessary. This is why you need education in the whole course.
Alongside being taught about building and fixing computers, students involved in this training will be shown how to operate in antistatic conditions, along with remote access, fault finding and diagnostics.
Should you want to work towards taking care of computer networks, add the excellent Network+ to your A+ course. This will put you in a position to apply for more interesting jobs. Other ones that might be interesting to you are the route to networking via Microsoft, in the form of MCP’s, MCSA or the full MCSE.
Sometimes men and women presume that the traditional school, college or university track is the right way even now. Why then is commercial certification beginning to overtake it?
Industry is now aware that for mastery of skill sets for commercial use, the right accreditation from companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA is closer to the mark commercially – at a far reduced cost both money and time wise.
University courses, for instance, clog up the training with a lot of loosely associated study – with a syllabus that’s far too wide. Students are then prevented from getting enough core and in-depth understanding on a specific area.
What if you were an employer – and your company needed a person with some very particular skills. What is easier: Go through a mass of different academic qualifications from hopeful applicants, struggling to grasp what they’ve learned and which commercial skills have been attained, or choose a specific set of accreditations that precisely match your needs, and then choose your interviewees based around that. Your interviews are then about personal suitability – rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.
It only makes sense to consider study programs that’ll move onto industry recognised exams. There are loads of small colleges suggesting unknown ‘in-house’ certificates that are essentially useless when you start your job-search.
If your certification doesn’t come from a conglomerate such as Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA or Cisco, then you’ll probably find it won’t be commercially viable – because no-one will recognise it.
Don’t get hung-up, as can often be the case, on the training process. You’re not training for the sake of training; you’re training to become commercially employable. You need to remain focused on where you want to go.
Imagine training for just one year and then end up performing the job-role for decades. Don’t make the mistake of finding what seems like an ‘interesting’ course only to waste your life away with an unrewarding career!
You’ll want to understand the expectations of your industry. Which accreditations you’ll need and in what way you can gain some industry experience. You should also spend a little time considering how far you reckon you’re going to want to build your skill-set as it will force you to choose a particular set of certifications.
All students are advised to speak with an experienced industry professional before they embark on a study program. This gives some measure of assurance that it has the required elements for the career that is sought.
The perhaps intimidating chore of finding your first IT job is often made easier because some trainers offer a Job Placement Assistance programme. It can happen though that too much is made of this feature, as it’s really not that difficult for any motivated and trained individual to land a job in the IT environment – because companies everywhere are seeking trained staff.
Get your CV updated straight-away though (advice and support for this should come from your course provider). Don’t delay till the exams have actually been passed.
Many junior support jobs have been offered to people who’re still on their course and have still to get qualified. This will at least get you into the ‘maybe’ pile of CV’s – rather than the ‘No’ pile.
The most efficient companies to help get you placed are normally specialist locally based employment services. As they will get paid by the employer when they’ve placed you, they have more incentive to get on with it.
A big aggravation for a number of training providers is how much men and women are prepared to study to get top marks in their exams, but how ill-prepared they are to market themselves for the position they have qualified for. Have confidence – the IT industry needs YOU.
Copyright 2010 Scott Edwards. Visit Database Training or www.MCSA2008-4IT.co.uk.
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