Living Out Of Debt

Training for your CompTIA A+ covers four specialised areas – you’ll need exam certification in just two sectors to reach the level of A+ competent. For this reason, most training providers simply provide 2 of the training options. Our opinion is this is selling you short – of course you can gain accreditation, but knowing about the others will set you apart in the workplace, where you’ll need to know about all of them. So that’s why you require information in all four areas.

Passing the A+ exam in isolation will set you up to mend and maintain computers and Macs; ones which are usually not part of a network – essentially the domestic or small business sector.

If your ambition is being responsible for networks of computers, add the very comprehensive CompTIA Network+ to your A+ course. This qualification will mean you can apply for more interesting jobs. Other ones that might be interesting to you are the route to networking via Microsoft, in the form of MCP’s, MCSA or the full MCSE.

Think about the points below very carefully if you believe that old marketing ploy of an ‘Exam Guarantee’ sounds great value:

Patently it’s not free – you’re still paying for it – the cost has just been rolled into the whole training package.

Should you seriously need to qualify first ‘go’, you must pay for each exam as you go, prioritise it appropriately and be ready for the task.

Shouldn’t you be looking to find the best exam deal or offer when you’re ready, not to pay the fees marked up by a training company, and to do it in a local testing office – rather than in some remote centre?

Paying in advance for examination fees (plus interest – if you’re financing your study) is a false economy. Resist being talked into filling the training company’s account with your money simply to help their cash-flow! Many will hope you won’t get to do them all – so they don’t need to pay for them.

In addition to this, ‘Exam Guarantees’ often aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The majority of companies will not pay again for an exam until you’ve completely satisfied them that you’re ready this time.

Due to typical VUE and Prometric tests in the United Kingdom costing around 112 pounds, it makes sense to pay as you go. Not to fork out thousands extra in up-front costs. Commitment, effort and practice with quality exam preparation systems are the factors that really get you through.

Commercially accredited qualifications are now, very visibly, already replacing the traditional routes into IT – but why has this come about?

Corporate based study (as it’s known in the industry) is far more specialised and product-specific. The IT sector has become aware that specialisation is necessary to handle an increasingly more technical world. Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA are the key players in this arena.

They do this through concentrating on the particular skills that are needed (along with a relevant amount of related knowledge,) instead of covering masses of the background non-specific minutiae that computer Science Degrees are prone to get tied up in (because the syllabus is so wide).

What if you were an employer – and you required somebody who had very specific skills. What is easier: Pore through a mass of different academic qualifications from graduate applicants, asking for course details and which workplace skills they have, or choose a specific set of accreditations that precisely match your needs, and draw up from that who you want to speak to. Your interviews are then about personal suitability – rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.

Some training providers offer a Job Placement Assistance program, designed to steer you into your first job. Often, this feature is bigged up too much, as it’s really not that difficult for a well trained and motivated person to secure a job in the IT industry – as employers are keen to find appropriately qualified personnel.

Help and assistance with preparing a CV and getting interviews is sometimes offered (if not, see one of our sites for help). Make sure you update that dusty old CV straight away – not when you’re ready to start work!

You might not even have taken your exams when you will be offered your first junior support job; yet this isn’t going to happen unless your CV is with employers.

You can usually expect better results from an independent and specialised local recruitment consultancy than you will through a training company’s recruitment division, as they’ll know the local area and commercial needs better.

Just be sure that you don’t spend hundreds of hours on your training and studies, only to stop and expect somebody else to secure your first position. Get off your backside and get out there. Invest as much resource into securing your first job as it took to pass the exams.

Doing your bit in revolutionary new technology is as thrilling as it comes. You become one of a team of people creating a future for us all.

Computing technology and dialogue through the internet will noticeably change our lives in the future; remarkably so.

And it’s worth remembering that income in the IT sector across the UK is significantly more than average salaries nationally, so in general you’ll more than likely gain considerably more as an IT specialist, than you could reasonably hope to achieve elsewhere.

The requirement for appropriately qualified IT professionals is a fact of life for many years to come, due to the continuous development in IT dependency in commerce and the massive skills gap that remains.

(C) 2009 Scott Edwards. Pop to This Site or acertification.co.uk.