Should you be wanting to study to get an MCSE, it’s likely you’ll come into one of two categories. You might be ready to come into the computer world, and you’ve discovered that the industry has lots of demand for those with appropriate certifications. On the other hand you possibly are someone with a certain amount of knowledge looking to consolidate your skill-set with the Microsoft qualification.
When researching training companies, be sure to avoid those that compromise their offerings by not upgrading their courses to the most up-to-date Microsoft version. This will only hamper the trainee because they’ll have been studying an out-of-date syllabus which doesn’t fall in with the current exam syllabus, so they’ll probably fail.
Steer clear of providers who are only trying to make a sale. You deserve time, expertise and advice to make sure you’re on the best program for your needs. Resist being forced into some generic product by some pushy sales person.
Authorised exam simulation and preparation software is a must – and should definitely be offered by your training company.
Be sure that the exams you practice are not only asking questions on the right subjects, but ask them in the way the real exams will phrase them. This throws students if the questions are phrased in unfamiliar formats.
Mock exams will prove enormously valuable in helping you build your confidence – so when it comes to taking your actual exams, you won’t be worried.
Far too many companies only look at the plaque to hang on your wall, and completely miss what it’s all actually about – which is a commercial career or job. Your focus should start with the end goal – don’t make the vehicle more important than the destination.
You may train for one year and then end up doing a job for a lifetime. Avoid the mistake of finding what seems like an ‘interesting’ training program and then put 10-20 years into a job you don’t like!
Set targets for how much you want to earn and whether you’re an ambitious person or not. This will influence which particular accreditations you’ll need to attain and how much effort you’ll have to give in return.
Take advice from a skilled advisor, irrespective of whether you have to pay – it’s much safer and cheaper to find out at the start if a chosen track will suit, instead of discovering after two full years that you aren’t going to enjoy the job you’ve chosen and have to return to the start of another program.
Several companies offer a Job Placement Assistance program, to assist your search for your first position. In reality it’s not as difficult as you may be led to believe to land a job – once you’re trained and certified; because there’s still a great need for IT skills in the UK today.
Nevertheless, avoid waiting until you’ve completed your exams before polishing up your CV. As soon as you start a course, enter details of your study programme and get promoting!
You’ll often find that you’ll secure your initial role whilst still on the course (sometimes when you’ve only just got going). If your CV doesn’t say what you’re learning (and it hasn’t been posted on jobsites) then you’re not even going to be known about!
You can usually expect better results from a specialist independent regional employment service than you will through a training company’s national service, as they’ll know local industry and the area better.
Fundamentally, as long as you focus the same level of energy into finding a job as into training, you won’t find it too challenging. A number of trainees curiously put hundreds of hours into their course materials and just give up once qualified and would appear to think that businesses will just discover them.
Quite often, students have issues with one aspect of their training which doesn’t even occur to them: How the training is broken down and sent out to you.
The majority of training companies will set up a 2 or 3 year study programme, and courier the materials in pieces as you complete each section or exam. This sounds reasonable until you consider the following:
Maybe the order of study prescribed by the provider doesn’t suit you. What if you find it hard to complete each and every section at the speed required?
To be straight, the best option is to have a copy of their prescribed order of study, but get everything up-front. You’re then in possession of everything in case you don’t finish as fast as they’d like.
(C) 2009 – S. Edwards. Try MCSA MCSE or www.learninglolly.com/MCSA_Training_Courses.html.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.