Congratulate yourself that you’re on the right track! A fraction of the population enjoy their work and find it stimulating, but vast numbers simply moan about it and take no action. Because you’ve done research we have a hunch that you’re at least considering retraining, so you’ve already stood out from the crowd. Take your time now to research and follow-through.
We recommend you seek advice first – talk to someone who’s familiar with your chosen field; a guide who can really get to know you and find the best job role for you, and analyse the learning programs which will get you there:
* Do you like to work collaborating with people? Is that as part of a team or with a lot of new people? Possibly operating on your own on specific tasks would be more your thing?
* Do you have a preference which market sector you would be suited to? (In this economy, it’s essential to choose well.)
* Once you’ve trained, how many years work do anticipate working, and will the market sector offer you that opportunity?
* Do you expect your new knowledge base to give you the chance to get a good job, and keep working until sixty five?
Prioritise Information Technology, that’s our best advice – unusually, it’s one of the growing market sectors in this country and overseas. Salaries are also more generous than most.
The perhaps intimidating chore of securing your first job is often made easier by training colleges, through a Job Placement Assistance service. Often, too much is made of this feature, as it’s relatively easy for well qualified and focused men and women to get a job in this industry – because there’s a great need for skilled employees.
However, avoid waiting until you have completed your exams before bringing your CV up to date. As soon as you start a course, enter details of your study programme and place it on jobsites!
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.
Not inconsiderable numbers of men and women, apparently, put a great deal of effort into their studies (sometimes for years), and then just stop instead of trying to get the right position. Market yourself… Do your best to put yourself out there. A job isn’t just going to bump into you.
A ridiculously large number of organisations only concern themselves with gaining a certificate, and forget what it’s all actually about – which is a commercial career or job. You should always begin with the final destination in mind – don’t get hung-up on the training vehicle.
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.
In most cases, your normal person has no idea in what direction to head in a computing career, let alone which market they should be considering getting trained in.
As having no previous experience in the IT industry, in what way could we understand what someone in a particular job does?
Generally, the way to deal with this question appropriately flows from a deep discussion of a number of areas:
* The sort of individual you reckon you are – what kind of jobs you find interesting, plus of course – what makes you unhappy.
* 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 bottom line is, your only chance of investigating all this is from an in-depth discussion with an advisor or professional that has enough background to lead you to the correct decision.
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. Go to LearningLolly.com for intelligent information on Wireless Networking Training and Happy Birthday Internet.