As your research has brought you here it’s possible that either you’re considering a career change into IT and an MCSE certificate appeals to you, or you’re currently an IT professional and it’s apparent that you need the Microsoft qualification.
When looking into training providers, steer clear of any who reduce their out-goings by not upgrading their courses to the latest version from Microsoft. Overall, this will end up costing the student a great deal more as they will have been educated in an outdated MCSE course which will have to be revised to suit the working environment.
Don’t rush into buying a course for MCSE before you feel comfortable. Set your sights on finding a computer training company that will put effort into advising you on the most suitable training path for you.
When was the last time you considered your job security? For most of us, this only rears its head when something goes wrong. However, the painful truth is that true job security has gone the way of the dodo, for all but the most lucky of us.
However, a sector experiencing fast growth, where there just aren’t enough staff to go round (due to a big shortfall of commercially certified people), creates the conditions for real job security.
Taking the computing sector as an example, the last e-Skills analysis demonstrated a national skills shortage across the UK of around 26 percent. To explain it in a different way, this highlights that Great Britain can only find three qualified staff for every 4 jobs that are available at the moment.
Fully taught and commercially accredited new staff are thus at an absolute premium, and in all likelihood it will stay that way for much longer.
In reality, gaining new qualifications in IT throughout the coming years is most likely the best career move you’ll ever make.
A proficient and professional advisor (vs a salesman) will talk through your current situation. This is useful for calculating the starting point for your education.
Sometimes, the level to start at for a student with some experience will be substantially different to the student with no experience.
Starting with a foundation module first may be the ideal way to start into your IT programme, but really depends on your level of familiarity with computers.
With all the options available, there’s no surprise that nearly all students have no idea which career they should even pursue.
Perusing a list of odd-sounding and meaningless job titles is just a waste of time. The vast majority of us have no idea what the neighbours do for a living - so we’re in the dark as to the intricacies of a new IT role.
To attack this, there should be a discussion of several core topics:
* Our personalities play a significant part - what kind of areas spark your interest, and what tasks put a frown on your face.
* Is your focus to obtain training because of a particular reason - for example, is it your goal to work based from home (working for yourself?)?
* How important is salary to you - is it of prime importance, or does job satisfaction rate further up on your priority-list?
* When taking into account all that IT encompasses, it’s a requirement that you can take in what is different.
* You’ll also need to think hard about the amount of time and effort that you will set aside for your education.
For the average person, considering these areas requires a good chat with an advisor that has direct industry experience. And we’re not only talking about the accreditations - but also the commercial requirements besides.
We’re regularly asked to explain why qualifications from colleges and universities are being overtaken by more commercially accredited qualifications?
Corporate based study (in industry terminology) is more effective in the commercial field. Industry has acknowledged that specialisation is necessary to meet the requirements of an acceleratingly technical commercial environment. Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe are the key players in this arena.
Clearly, a necessary degree of associated information has to be learned, but precise specifics in the required areas gives a commercially trained student a distinct advantage.
Imagine if you were an employer - and your company needed a person with some very particular skills. Which is the most straightforward: Trawl through reams of different degrees and college qualifications from several applicants, struggling to grasp what they’ve learned and which workplace skills they’ve mastered, or select a specialised number of commercial certifications that perfectly fit your needs, 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.
You should only consider study paths that lead to industry acknowledged certifications. There’s an endless list of trainers pushing minor ‘in-house’ certificates which will prove unusable in today’s commercial market.
All the major IT organisations like Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe or CompTIA each have nationally recognised proficiency programmes. These heavyweights will ensure your employability.