by Jason Kendall
If you’re considering a web design career, find a course in Adobe Dreamweaver. The whole Adobe Web Creative Suite should additionally be learned comprehensively. This will educate you in Action Script and Flash, amongst others, and means you’ll be in a position to take your Adobe Certified Professional (ACP) or an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) qualification.
Creating a website is only the beginning of what you’ll need - in order to drive traffic to the site, maintain its content, and work with dynamic database-driven sites, you’ll need to bolt on more programming skills, such as PHP, HTML, and MySQL. You should also develop a practical knowledge of E-Commerce and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Lately, do you find yourself questioning how safe your job is? For most of us, we only think of this after we experience a knock-back. But in today’s marketplace, the painful truth is that job security simply doesn’t exist anymore, for the vast majority of people. Security can now only exist via a fast increasing marketplace, pushed forward by a shortage of trained workers. These circumstances create the correct background for a secure marketplace - definitely a more pleasing situation.
A rather worrying United Kingdom e-Skills study showed that 26 percent of all IT positions available remain unfilled as an upshot of a huge deficit of trained staff. Therefore, for every 4 jobs that are available in IT, employers can only locate trained staff for three of the four. Well qualified and commercially accredited new professionals are accordingly at a resounding premium, and it’s estimated to remain so for many years to come. We can’t imagine if a better time or market circumstances will exist for getting trained into this swiftly growing and developing sector.
How are we supposed to go about making the right decisions then? With such prospects, it’s important to know where to investigate - and what we should be digging for.
Looking at the myriad of choice out there, there’s no surprise that a large percentage of trainees balk at what job they will enjoy. Perusing long lists of different and confusing job titles is next to useless. Most of us have no concept what our good friends do at work - so we’re in the dark as to the ins and outs of a new IT role. Contemplation on these different factors is important if you want to dig down a solution that suits you:
* Your individual personality and interests - which work-oriented areas you love or hate.
* Are you looking to realise a closely held dream - for instance, being your own boss as quickly as possible?
* Where is the salary on a scale of importance - is an increase your main motivator, or is day-to-day enjoyment a lot higher on your priority-list?
* Looking at the many markets that the IT industry encapsulates, you’ll need to be able to understand the differences.
* Our advice is to think deeply about the amount of time and effort that you will set aside for the accreditation program.
To cut through all the jargon and confusion, and reveal the best route for you, have an informal chat with an experienced professional; a person who will cover the commercial realities and truth while explaining all the qualifications.
The old fashioned style of teaching, with books and manuals, is an up-hill struggle for the majority of us. If all this is ringing some familiar bells, look for learning programmes which have a majority of interactive, multimedia parts. Where we can utilise all of our senses into our learning, our results will often be quite spectacular.
Search for a course where you’ll get a host of CD and DVD ROM’s - you’ll begin by watching videos of instructors demonstrating the skills, followed by the chance to use virtual lab’s to practice your new skills. Don’t take any chances and look at some of the typical study materials provided before you purchase a course. The minimum you should expect would be instructor-led video demonstrations and a variety of audio-visual and interactive sections.
Avoiding training that is delivered purely online is generally a good idea. Physical CD or DVD ROM materials are preferable where offered, enabling them to be used at your convenience - you don’t want to be reliant on your internet connection always being ‘up’ and available.
An important area that is sometimes not even considered by people thinking about a course is ‘training segmentation’. This basically means the method used to break up the program for delivery to you, which completely controls how you end up. Delivery by courier of each element one piece at a time, as you pass each exam is the normal way of receiving your courseware. This sounds sensible, but you should consider these factors: What if you don’t finish each and 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 get all the study materials as a result.
For future safety and flexibility, many trainees now want to have all their training materials (which they’ve now paid for) sent immediately, and not in a piecemeal fashion. You can then decide how fast or slow and in what order you want to work.
We can’t make a big enough deal out of this point: Always get full 24×7 support from professional instructors. We can tell you that you’ll strongly regret it if you let this one slide. Beware of institutions which use ‘out-of-hours’ call-centres - with the call-back coming in during the next ‘working’ day. This is no use if you’re stuck and want support there and then.
Top training companies utilise several support facilities active in different time-zones. Online access provides the interactive interface to join them all seamlessly, any time of the day or night, there is always help at hand, without any contact issues or hassle. Never make the mistake of compromise when you’re looking for the right support service. Most IT hopefuls that drop-out or fail, just need the right support system.
One crafty way that training providers make more money is through up-front charges for exams then giving it ‘Exam Guarantee’ status. This sounds impressive, but is it really:
You’ll pay for it somehow. It’s definitely not free - they’ve simply charged more for the whole training package. The fact is that when trainees fund each progressive exam, at the time of taking them, there’s a much better chance they’ll pass first time - because they’ll be conscious of their investment in themselves and will therefore apply themselves appropriately.
Find the best exam deal or offer available when you take the exam, and avoid college mark-up fees. You’ll also be able to choose where to do your exams - so you can choose somewhere closer to home. Buying a course that includes payments for exams (which also includes interest if you’ve taken out a loan) is madness. Why fill a company’s coffers with your hard-earned cash only to please their Bank Manager! A lot bank on the fact that you won’t get round to taking them - so they don’t need to pay for them. It’s also worth noting that exam guarantees often have very little value. The majority of companies won’t be prepared to pay again for an exam until you have demonstrated conclusively that you won’t fail again.
With the average price of Pro-metric and VUE exams in the United Kingdom costing around 112 pounds, it makes sense to pay as you go. It’s not in the student’s interests to fork out hundreds or thousands of pounds for exams when enrolling on a course. Study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will really guarantee success.
Watch out that all exams you’re working towards will be recognised by employers and are up-to-date. Training companies own certificates are often meaningless. You’ll find that only recognised qualifications from the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA and Cisco will be useful to a future employer.
