Warhammer Games » Blog Archive » IT Career Courses Simplified

Monday, February 08th, 2010 | Author: Jason Kendall

There are four specialised areas of training in the full CompTIA A+ syllabus, of which 2 passes are needed for your A+ qualification. However restricting yourself to two of the four specialities is likely to leave your knowledge base somewhat light. At least learn about all four – employers will notice the difference.

Once on the CompTIA A+, you will learn how to build, fix, repair and work in antistatic conditions. Diagnostic techniques and fault finding are also on the syllabus, as is remote access.

It could be a good idea to think about adding the CompTIA Network+ training as it will enable you to work with networks, and have a more responsible working role.

Many trainers have a handy Job Placement Assistance program, designed to steer you into your first job. Often, too much is made of this feature, because it is actually not that hard for well qualified and focused men and women to find a job in the IT industry – as employers are keen to find appropriately trained staff.

Help with your CV and interview techniques is sometimes offered (if not, see one of our sites for help). Make sure you bring your CV right up to date right away – don’t leave it till you pass the exams!

It’s not unusual to find that you will be offered your first role whilst still on the course (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 won’t even be considered!

The top companies to help get you placed are usually specialist independent regional recruitment consultancies. As they’re keen to place you to receive their commission, they’re perhaps more focused on results.

Just ensure you don’t put hundreds of hours of effort into your studies, and then just stop and leave it up to everyone else to secure your first position. Stop procrastinating and get on with the job. Channel the same focus into finding your first job as you did to gain the skills.

A typical blunder that potential students often succumb to is to focus entirely on getting a qualification, and take their eye off the desired end-result. Schools are brimming over with students that chose an ‘interesting’ course – instead of what would yield an enjoyable career or job.

You may train for one year and then end up doing the job for 20 years. Avoid the mistake of finding what seems like a very ‘interesting’ program only to spend 20 years doing a job you hate!

Make sure you investigate what your attitude is towards career progression and earning potential, and if you’re ambitious or not. It’s vital to know what will be expected of you, what particular qualifications are required and in what way you can develop commercial experience.

Before you embark on a study course, trainees are advised to chat over the specific job requirements with an experienced industry advisor, in order to be sure the retraining programme covers all that is required.

One area often overlooked by those weighing up a particular programme is the concept of ‘training segmentation’. Basically, this means how the program is broken down into parts for drop-shipping to you, which makes a huge difference to the point you end up at.

Many companies enrol you into a 2 or 3 year study programme, and deliver each piece one-by-one as you complete each section or exam. Sounds reasonable? Well consider these facts:

What if for some reason you don’t get to the end of every exam? And what if you find the order of the modules counter-intuitive? Through no fault of your own, you might take a little longer and not receive all the modules you’ve paid for.

For future safety and flexibility, many trainees now want to insist that all study materials are delivered immediately, and not in stages. That means it’s down to you in what order and how fast or slow you’d like to work.

People attracted to this sort of work can be very practical by nature, and won’t enjoy sitting at a desk in class, and endless reading of dry academic textbooks. If this is putting you off studying, opt for more involving, interactive learning materials, where learning is video-based.

Research has always verified that becoming involved with our studies, to utilise all our senses, is proven to produce longer-lasting and deeper memory retention.

Courses are now available on CD and DVD discs, where your computer becomes the centre of your learning. Using video-streaming, you will be able to see the instructor presenting exactly how to do something, and then have a go at it yourself – in a virtual lab environment.

It would be silly not to view a small selection of training examples before you purchase a course. You should expect video tutorials, instructor demo’s and audio-visual elements backed up by interactive lab’s.

You should avoid purely online training. Ideally, you should opt for CD and DVD ROM courseware where obtainable, as you need to be able to use them whenever it’s convenient for you – and not be totally reliant on a good broadband connection all the time.

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