Should you be aspiring to become Cisco accredited, but you’ve no practical experience with switches and routers, we’d recommend taking the Cisco CCNA qualification. This teaches you the knowledge you need to understand routers. The world wide web is built up of many routers, and big organisations with multiple departments and sites also use them to allow their networks of computers to communicate.
Jobs that use this qualification mean it’s likely you’ll end up working for large commercial ventures that have several different sites but need their computer networks to talk to each other. On the other hand, you might end up joining an internet service provider. These jobs are well paid and in demand.
You’ll need a bespoke training program that takes you on a progressive path to ensure that you’ve mastered the necessary skills and abilities before getting going with Cisco.
Commercially accredited qualifications are now, very visibly, already replacing the older academic routes into IT – but why has this come about?
With university education costs spiralling out of control, together with the industry’s general opinion that key company training is often far more commercially relevant, we have seen a great increase in Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA accredited training programmes that create knowledgeable employees at a much reduced cost in terms of money and time.
University courses, for example, become confusing because of too much loosely associated study – and much too wide a syllabus. Students are then prevented from getting enough core and in-depth understanding on a specific area.
The bottom line is: Authorised IT qualifications give employers exactly what they’re looking for – it says what you do in the title: i.e. I am a ‘Microsoft Certified Professional’ in ‘Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network’. Consequently employers can look at their needs and what certifications are required to fulfil that.
We can’t make a big enough deal out of this point: It’s essential to obtain proper 24×7 round-the-clock professional support from mentors and instructors. You’ll definitely experience problems if you don’t.
Don’t buy certification programs which can only support trainees through a call-centre messaging service after 6-9pm in the evening and during weekends. Training schools will try to talk you round from this line of reasoning. But, no matter how they put it – support is required when it’s required – not as-and-when it’s suitable for their staff.
We recommend looking for training programs that utilise many support facilities active in different time-zones. Every one of them needs to be seamlessly combined to offer a simple interface and also 24 hours-a-day access, when it suits you, with no hassle.
Never make the mistake of compromise when you’re looking for the right support service. The vast majority of would-be IT professionals that drop-out or fail, would have had a different experience if they’d got the right support package in the first place.
It’s quite a normal occurrence for students not to check on a painfully important area – the way the company actually breaks down and delivers the courseware elements, and into how many bits.
Most companies will sell you a program typically taking 1-3 years, and drop-ship the materials to you piecemeal as you get to the end of each exam. If you think this sound logical, then consider this:
Students often discover that the company’s ’standard’ path of training isn’t as suitable as another. Sometimes, a slightly different order suits them better. Could it cause problems if you don’t get everything done at the pace they expect?
To be honest, the perfect answer is to have their ideal ‘order’ of training laid out, but to receive all the materials up-front. You then have everything in the event you don’t complete everything within their ideal time-table.
Searching for your first position in IT can be a little easier with the help of a Job Placement Assistance service. With the huge need for more IT skills in Britain right now, there’s no need to get too caught up in this feature though. It’s not as difficult as you may be led to believe to land employment as long as you’re correctly trained and certified.
Update your CV at the beginning of your training though – you should get plenty of help from your training provider on this. Don’t wait till you’ve finished your exams.
It can happen that you haven’t even passed your first exam when you will be offered your first junior support position; however this isn’t going to happen unless you’ve posted your CV on job sites.
You can usually expect quicker service from a specialist locally based employment agency than you will through a training course provider’s recruitment division, as they’ll know the area better.
A good number of men and women, so it seems, conscientiously work through their course materials (for years sometimes), and then just stop instead of looking for the right position. Sell yourself… Work hard to let employers know about you. A job isn’t just going to bump into you.
(C) 2009 S. Edwards. Pop to CCNA Training Courses or www.cisco-training-in.co.uk.
