Courses in IT Support – Thoughts

There are four specialised areas of training in the overall A+ programme, of which 2 passes are needed for your A+ qualification. However only learning about 2 of the specialised areas is likely to leave your knowledge base somewhat light. Look for training that covers all the specialist areas – you’ll be glad you did when it comes to interview time.

Once on the CompTIA A+, you’ll be taught how to build and repair PC’s and operate in antistatic conditions. You’ll also cover fault-finding and diagnostic techniques, both remotely and via direct access.

Perhaps you see yourself as someone who is involved with a big team – in network support, you should include CompTIA Network+ to your training package, or consider an MCSA or MCSE with Microsoft to give you a better comprehension of how networks work.

Most training providers only give office hours or extended office hours support; very few go late in the evening or at weekends.

Avoid, like the plague, any organisations who use ‘out-of-hours’ call-centres – where an advisor will call back during standard office hours. This is useless when you’re stuck and need help now.

Top training companies have many support offices across multiple time-zones. An online system provides an interactive interface to provide a seamless experience, any time of the day or night, help is just seconds away, with no hassle or contact issues.

Never ever take second best where support is concerned. Many trainees who drop-out or fail, are in that situation because of a lack of support.

Consider only training programmes that’ll lead to commercially approved exams. There’s an endless list of small colleges pushing minor ‘in-house’ certificates that are essentially useless in today’s commercial market.

From the perspective of an employer, only the major heavyweights such as Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco (for instance) give enough bang for your buck. Anything less won’t make the grade.

Let’s admit it: There really is absolutely no personal job security anywhere now; there’s only market or business security – companies can just let anyone go when it suits the business’ commercial requirements.

But a quickly growing market-place, with huge staffing demands (due to a big shortage of properly qualified people), enables the possibility of lasting job security.

The most recent UK e-Skills study brought to light that over 26 percent of all available IT positions haven’t been filled mainly due to a lack of trained staff. Put directly, we only have the national capacity to fill 3 out of each 4 job positions in Information Technology (IT).

Accomplishing in-depth commercial IT exams is therefore a fast-track to achieve a long-term and worthwhile livelihood.

Actually, gaining new qualifications in IT throughout the years to come is likely the safest career direction you could choose.

Beginning with the understanding that we have to locate the job we want to do first, before we can consider what training program fulfils our needs, how can we choose the way that suits us?

I mean, if you have no experience in the IT sector, how can you expect to know what some particular IT person actually does day-to-day? And of course decide on what certification program will be most suitable for your success.

To come through this, there should be a discussion of several core topics:

* Personalities play an important role – what things get your juices flowing, and what are the areas that ruin your day.

* What time-frame are you looking at for your training?

* What priority do you place on salary vs job satisfaction?

* Often, trainees don’t consider the work demanded to attain their desired level.

* The level of commitment and effort you’ll spend on getting qualified.

The best way to avoid all the jargon and confusion, and find what’ll really work for you, have a good talk with an industry expert and advisor; an individual that appreciates and can explain the commercial realities while explaining each certification.

Copyright 2009 S. Edwards. Try CCNA Certification or Click HERE.