Well done! Hitting upon this feature suggests you’re thinking about your future, and if it’s re-training you’re considering you’ve already done more than almost everybody else. Did you know that hardly any of us describe ourselves as contented at work – but most will just put up with it. We encourage you to be different and move forward – you have the rest of your life to enjoy it.
When considering retraining, it’s vital to first define your requirements from the position you’d like to train for. You need to know that things would be a lot better before much time and effort is spent re-directing your life. It’s good sense to regard the big picture first, to make an informed decision:
* Do you like working on your own or is being in a team environment an important option?
* Do you have a preference which market sector you would be suited to? (In this economy, it’s essential to choose well.)
* Is this the last time you imagine you’ll re-train, and if so, do you suppose your new career will allow you to do that?
* Would you like your study to be in an industry where you believe your chances of gainful employment are high until retirement?
We would advise you to consider the computer industry – there are a larger number of roles than staff to fill them, plus it’s one of the few choices of career where the market sector is still growing. In contrast to the opinions of certain people, it isn’t just geeks looking at screens every day (some jobs are like that of course.) The vast majority of roles are occupied by ordinary men and women who enjoy better than average salaries.
A useful feature provided by many trainers is job placement assistance. This is to assist your search for your first position. With the growing demand for appropriately skilled people in this country right now, there’s no need to become overly impressed with this service however. It’s not as difficult as you may be led to believe to get a job as long as you’ve got the necessary skills and qualifications.
Having said that, it’s important to have help and assistance with preparing a CV and getting interviews though; also we would encourage any student to get their CV updated right at the beginning of their training – don’t put it off till you’ve finished your exams.
It’s not uncommon to find that junior support roles are offered to people who are in the process of training and haven’t even passed a single exam yet. This will at least get you into the ‘maybe’ pile of CV’s – rather than the ‘No’ pile.
Most often, a specialist locally based recruitment consultancy (who will, of course, be keen to place you to receive their commission) is going to give you a better service than a centralised training company’s service. They should, of course, also be familiar with the local area and commercial needs.
To bottom line it, as long as you focus the same level of energy into securing your first IT position as into studying, you’re not going to hit many challenges. A number of students strangely spend hundreds of hours on their training and studies and then just stop once qualified and would appear to think that businesses will just discover them.
Of course: a training course or a qualification isn’t what this is about; the career you’re training for is. Far too many training organisations completely prioritise the piece of paper.
It’s common, in some situations, to thoroughly enjoy one year of training and then spend 20 miserable years in a job you hate, as a consequence of not performing the correct research when you should’ve – at the outset.
Never let your focus stray from what you want to achieve, and build your study action-plan from that – avoid getting them back-to-front. Keep your eyes on your goals and study for something you’ll enjoy for years to come.
It’s good advice for all students to speak with an industry professional before following a particular study program. This gives some measure of assurance that it contains the commercially required skills for the chosen career path.
Starting with the idea that we have to locate the market that sounds most inviting first and foremost, before we’re able to chew over what method of training would meet that requirement, how do we decide on the right path?
How can we possibly grasp the tasks faced daily in an IT career if we’ve never been there? Often we have never met anyone who performs the role either.
Generally, the way to deal with this question appropriately flows from a deep discussion of a number of areas:
* Personality plays an important role – what things get your juices flowing, and what are the areas that really turn you off.
* Why you’re looking at starting in Information Technology – it could be you’re looking to overcome a particular goal such as working for yourself maybe.
* Does salary have a higher place on your priority-scale than some other areas.
* Learning what the main work types and markets are – plus how they’re different to each other.
* It’s wise to spend some time thinking about the level of commitment you’ll put into your training.
The best way to avoid the industry jargon, and discover what’ll really work for you, have an informal meeting with an advisor with years of experience; someone who understands the commercial reality whilst covering all the qualifications.
Only consider study programmes which move onto industry approved certifications. There are far too many small companies proposing minor ‘in-house’ certificates which are worthless when you start your job-search.
From a commercial standpoint, only top businesses such as Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe or CompTIA (as an example) really carry any commercial clout. Nothing else makes the grade.
(C) 2009. Navigate to LearningLolly.com for in-depth career advice on IT Jobs and Comptia Training Conference.
