by Jason Kendall
Four specialist training areas feature in the A+ syllabus, of which you’ll need certification in two subjects for your A+ qualification. We would advise however that only learning about 2 of the study sections could expose flaws in your knowledge when applying for a job. Look for training that covers all the specialist areas – employers will notice the difference.
Courses in A+ computer training cover diagnostics and fault finding – remotely as well as hands on, in addition to building and fixing and understanding antistatic conditions. You might also choose to think about supplementing the A+ with Network + as it will give you the knowledge to become a networking engineer, and become a more senior IT professional.
A number of men and women think that the state educational path is the right way even now. So why then are commercial certificates slowly and steadily replacing it? As we require increasingly more effective technological know-how, the IT sector has been required to move to specialist courses that the vendors themselves supply – that is companies such as Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe. Often this saves time and money for the student. They do this through focusing on the particular skills that are needed (together with a proportionate degree of background knowledge,) rather than going into the heightened depths of background ‘padding’ that academic courses can often find themselves doing – to fill a three or four year course.
Think about if you were the employer – and your company needed a person with some very particular skills. What’s the simplest way to find the right person: Trawl through loads of academic qualifications from several applicants, trying to establish what they know and what vocational skills they’ve acquired, or pick out specific commercial accreditations that exactly fulfil your criteria, and then choose your interviewees based around that. You’ll then be able to concentrate on getting a feel for the person at interview – instead of long discussions on technical suitability.
Finding job security nowadays is problematic. Businesses will drop us from the workforce at the drop of a hat – whenever it suits. Where there are growing skills shortfalls coupled with rising demand however, we almost always discover a newly emerging type of market-security; driven forward by conditions of continuous growth, businesses find it hard to locate the staff required.
Investigating the Information Technology (IT) sector, the most recent e-Skills study brought to light a twenty six percent deficit in trained staff. It follows then that for every four jobs that exist across the computer industry, businesses are only able to locate properly accredited workers for three of them. This one concept in itself shows why the UK urgently requires many more new trainees to enter the Information Technology market. We can’t imagine if a better time or market conditions is ever likely to exist for gaining qualification for this quickly expanding and budding industry.
Charging for exam fees with the course fee then including an exam guarantee is popular with many training course providers. However, let’s consider what’s really going on:
You’ll pay for it one way or another. You can be assured it’s not a freebie – it’s just been rolled into the price of the whole package. The fact is that if students pay for each examination, at the time of taking them, they’ll be in a better position to pass every time – since they’re aware of their investment in themselves and their application will be greater.
Don’t you think it’s more sensible to hold on to your money and pay for the exam when you’re ready, instead of paying a premium to a training company, and to do it locally – rather than in some remote centre? A lot of questionable training course providers net huge profits through getting in the money for examinations upfront then banking on the fact that many won’t be taken. Most companies will require you to do mock exams and hold you back from re-takes until you have proved to them you have a good chance of passing – so an ‘Exam Guarantee’ comes with many clauses in reality.
VUE and Prometric examinations are currently clocking in at an average of 112 pounds in the United Kingdom today. What’s the point of paying huge fees for ‘exam guarantees’ (usually wrapped up in the course package price) – when good quality study materials, the proper support and consistent and systematic learning, coupled with quality exam simulation software is what will really see you through.
The world of information technology is amongst the most exciting and ground-breaking industries you could be involved with. Being up close and personal with technology means you’re a part of the huge progress shaping life over the next few decades. We are really only just starting to get a handle on how all this will mould and change our lives. The way we interact with the world will be massively affected by computers and the internet.
Let’s not ignore salaries either – the income on average across the UK for a typical IT professional is significantly higher than average salaries nationally. It’s likely that you’ll receive a much greater package than you’d expect to earn doing other work. With the IT marketplace growing at an unprecedented rate, it’s predictable that demand for appropriately qualified IT professionals will continue actively for the significant future.
A fatal Faux-Pas that we encounter all too often is to choose a career based on a course, and take their eye off the end result they want to achieve. Universities are brimming over with unaware students that chose a program because it looked interesting – instead of what would yield an enjoyable career or job. Imagine training for just one year and then end up doing a job for a lifetime. Don’t make the mistake of opting for what may seem to be an ‘interesting’ course only to waste your life away with an unrewarding career!
Take time to understand your leanings around earning potential and career progression, plus your level of ambition. You need to know what (if any) sacrifices you’ll need to make for a particular role, what exams they want you to have and in what way you can develop commercial experience. It’s worth seeking help from someone who can explain the industry you think may suit you, and is able to give you ‘A day in the life of’ outline for each job considered. This really is incredibly important because you obviously have to know if you’re barking up the wrong tree.