Networking Career Retraining – Thoughts
| Posted in Jobs and Careers | Posted on 06-01-2010
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Computer and network support technicians are constantly sought after in Great Britain, as organizations are becoming more reliant upon their knowledge and skills. Whereupon our society becomes growing beholden to our PC’s, we simultaneously inevitably become more reliant on the commercially qualified network engineers, who maintain those systems.
One thing you must always insist on is proper direct-access 24×7 support via dedicated instructors and mentors. Far too often we see trainers who only provide support to you inside of office hours (typically 9am-6pm) and sometimes a little earlier or later (but not weekends usually).
Avoid, like the plague, any organizations who use ‘out-of-hours’ call-centers – with your call-back scheduled for office hours. It’s not a lot of help when you’ve got study issues and could do with an answer during your scheduled study period.
Be on the lookout for study programmes that have multiple support offices active in different time-zones. Each one should be integrated to provide a single interface and also round-the-clock access, when you need it, with no fuss.
Never make do with less than you need and deserve. Direct-access round-the-clock support is the only way to go with computer-based training. Maybe burning the midnight-oil is not your thing; but for most of us, we’re at work while the support is live.
People attracted to this sort of work are often very practical, and won’t enjoy sitting at a desk in class, and slogging through piles of books. If this could be you, go for more modern interactive training, where you can learn everything on-screen.
If we’re able to utilize all of our senses into our learning, our results will often be quite spectacular.
The latest home-based training features self-contained CD or DVD materials. By watching and listening to instructors on video tutorials you’ll learn your subject via the expert demonstrations. Knowledge can then be tested by utilizing the practice lab’s and modules.
You’ll definitely want a training material demonstration from your training provider. You should ask for instructor videos, demonstrations, slide-shows and fully interactive skills-lab’s.
It’s usually bad advice to select online only courseware. With highly variable reliability and quality from most broadband providers, ensure that you have access to physical media such as CD or DVD ROM’s.
A capable and professional advisor (as opposed to a salesman) will ask questions and seek to comprehend your current level of ability and experience. There is no other way of understanding your study start-point.
Don\’t forget, if in the past you’ve acquired any previous certification, then you will often be able to pick-up at a different starting-point to someone new to the industry.
Where this will be your first attempt at IT study then it may be wise to cut your teeth on user-skills and software training first.
Watch out that all exams you’re studying for are recognised by industry and are bang up to date. The ‘in-house’ certifications provided by many companies are often meaningless.
Only properly recognised accreditation from the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA and Cisco will be useful to a future employer.

