Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Programming Courses Around The UK - Update

By Jason Kendall

Should you be looking for certified training from Microsoft, it stands to reason you'll want training providers to supply a large selection of the best training programs on the market today.

Maybe you'd choose to talk about career options with a person who's got industry experience - and should you be confused, then take counsel on whereabouts in industry would work for you, dependent on your abilities and personality.

Be assured that your training is designed to your needs and abilities. A reputable training company will always guarantee that the course is purpose built for where you want to get to.

It's essential to have the current Microsoft (or relevant organisation's) authorised simulation materials and exam preparation packages.

Due to the fact that a lot of examining boards for IT come from the United States, you must be prepared for the way exams are phrased. It isn't good enough merely understanding random questions - they must be in an exam format that exactly replicates the real thing.

Simulated exams will prove enormously valuable for confidence building - so much so, that at the real thing, you don't get phased.

An important area that is sometimes not even considered by people mulling over a new direction is the issue of 'training segmentation'. This basically means the method used to break up the program to be delivered to you, which can make a dramatic difference to where you end up.

You may think that it makes sense (with training often lasting 2 or 3 years for a full commercial certification,) that a training provider will issue a single section at a time, as you achieve each exam pass. However:

What would happen if you didn't finish each and every exam at the proposed pace? Sometimes their preference of study order doesn't work as well as some other order of studying might.

Ideally, you'd get ALL the training materials right at the beginning - meaning you'll have all of them to come back to at any time in the future - at any time you choose. Variations can then be made to the order that you move through the program as and when something more intuitive seems right for you.

A service provided by many trainers is job placement assistance. This is to help you get your first commercial position. Don't get overly impressed with this service - it's easy for companies marketing departments to overplay it. In reality, the massive skills shortage in Great Britain is why employers will be interested in you.

You would ideally have CV and Interview advice and support though; and we'd encourage all students to get their CV updated the day they start training - don't delay until you've qualified.

You may not have got to the stage where you've passed your first exam when you will get your initial junior support position; but this is not possible unless you've posted your CV on job sites.

If it's important to you to find work near your home, then you may well find that a local (but specialised) recruitment consultancy can generally be of more use than a centralised service, as they're going to be familiar with local employment needs.

Just make sure you don't conscientiously work through your course materials, and then just stop and expect somebody else to find you a job. Take responsibility for yourself and get on with the job. Put the same resource into getting your first job as it took to get qualified.

Qualifications from the commercial sector are now, most definitely, taking over from the traditional academic paths into IT - but why is this the case?

With an ever-increasing technical demand on resources, the IT sector has moved to the specialised core-skills learning that can only be obtained from the actual vendors - for example companies such as Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe. This usually turns out to involve less time and financial outlay.

In a nutshell, only that which is required is learned. It isn't quite as lean as that might sound, but the principle remains that students need to cover the precise skills needed (along with a certain amount of crucial background) - without trying to cram in all sorts of other things (as academia often does).

Assuming a company knows what they're looking for, then they simply need to advertise for the particular skill-set required. The syllabuses are set to meet an exact requirement and can't change from one establishment to the next (like academia frequently can and does).

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