Top Stories Virginia Beach

As you’ve arrived here it’s possible that either you want to get into networking and the MCSE has reared its head, or you’re already a professional and you know that your career is blocked until your get the Microsoft qualification.

As you try to find out more, you will notice companies that short-change you by not upgrading their courses to the latest Microsoft version. Don’t use training companies like these as it will create challenges for you in the exam. If your knowledge is of the wrong syllabus, it is going to be hugely difficult to get qualified.

Stay away from organisations who are only trying to make a sale. You deserve time, expertise and advice to ensure you’re registering on the correct course. Guard against being rushed into their standard course by an inadequate outfit.

A successful training package will also include fully authorised exam preparation packages.

Don’t go for training programs relying on unofficial preparation materials for exams. The type of questions asked is sometimes startlingly different – and often this creates real issues once in the actual exam.

You should make sure you analyse your depth of understanding through quizzes and practice in simulated exam environments to get you ready for the real thing.

Don’t put too much store, as can often be the case, on the training process. Training is not an end in itself; this is about gaining commercial employment. Begin and continue with the end in mind.

It’s a terrible situation, but the majority of trainees commence training that sounds wonderful in the sales literature, but which provides the end-result of a job that is of no interest at all. Speak to a selection of college leavers for a real eye-opener.

You need to keep your eye on what it is you’re trying to achieve, and formulate your training based on that – not the other way round. Keep on track and study for a job that will keep you happy for many years.

Obtain help from an experienced industry advisor that ‘gets’ the commercial realities of the area you’re interested in, and who can give you ‘A day in the life of’ synopsis of what you’ll actually be doing during your working week. It’s sensible to know if this change is right for you before you start on any retraining programme. What’s the point in starting your training only to discover you’re on the wrong course.

Now, why ought we to be looking at qualifications from the commercial sector instead of familiar academic qualifications gained through schools and Further Education colleges?

Vendor-based training (as it’s known in the industry) is far more effective and specialised. The IT sector has acknowledged that such specialised knowledge is what’s needed to service the demands of an acceleratingly technical marketplace. Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe are the key players in this arena.

They do this through focusing on the actual skills required (together with a proportionate degree of background knowledge,) instead of covering masses of the background ‘extras’ that degrees in computing often do – to pad out the syllabus.

Think about if you were the employer – and you needed to take on someone with a very particular skill-set. Which is the most straightforward: Go through reams of different degrees and college qualifications from several applicants, trying to establish what they know and which workplace skills have been attained, or choose a specific set of accreditations that perfectly fit your needs, and then select who you want to interview from that. The interview is then more about the person and how they’ll fit in – rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.

Talk to a skilled consultant and they’ll entertain you with many awful tales of students who’ve been sold completely the wrong course for them. Stick to an experienced professional who asks lots of questions to find out what’s right for you – not for their pay-packet! You need to find the right starting point of study for you.

An important point to note is that, if you have some relevant qualifications that are related, then it’s not unreasonable to expect to start at a different point than someone who is new to the field.

For those students beginning IT exams and training for the first time, you might like to avoid jumping in at the deep-end, starting with some basic PC skills training first. Usually this is packaged with most training packages.

(C) 2009. Pop over to LearningLolly.com for smart ideas on Microsoft MCSE and MCSE 2008.