by Jason Kendall
For almost all web designers, Adobe Dreamweaver is the starting point of study. It is probably the most used web-development environment in the world. The whole Adobe Web Creative Suite ought also to be understood in-depth. This will educate you in Action Script and Flash, (and more), and means you’ll be in a position to take your Adobe Certified Expert or Adobe Certified Professional (ACE or ACP) qualification.
Knowing how to build a website is just the start. Creating traffic, maintaining content and knowledge of some programming essentials should come next. Consider training programmes with additional features that teach these subjects perhaps HTML, PHP and MySQL, as well as Search Engine Optimisation and E Commerce.
There is a tidal wave of change about to hit technology as we approach the second decade of the 21st century - and the industry becomes more ground-breaking every year. We are really only just starting to comprehend how all this change will affect us. The way we communicate and interact with everyone around us will be massively affected by technology and the internet.
Always remember that typical remuneration in IT in the United Kingdom is a lot greater than average salaries nationally, so you’ll most likely receive much more as a trained IT professional, than you would in most typical jobs. With the IT marketplace increasing at an unprecedented rate, the chances are that the requirement for well trained and qualified IT technicians will continue to boom for years to come.
Which sort of questions should we be raising if we’re to get the understanding we need? Since it looks like there are many fairly impressive opportunities for us to look at.
A ridiculously large number of organisations focus completely on the certification process, and forget the reasons for getting there - which is of course employment. You should always begin with where you want to get to - too many people focus on the journey. Never let yourself become one of the unfortunate masses who set off on a track that seems ‘fun’ or ‘interesting’ - only to end up with a qualification for an unrewarding career path.
Spend some time thinking about how much you want to earn and the level of your ambition. Usually, this will point the way to which particular exams you’ll need to attain and what’ll be expected of you in your new role. Look for help from a skilled advisor who has commercial knowledge of your chosen market-place, and who can give you ‘A day in the life of’ understanding of what you’ll actually be doing during your working week. It’s good sense to know if this change is right for you well before you start on any retraining programme. What’s the reason in beginning your training and then find you’ve taken the wrong route.
The classroom style of learning we remember from school, involving piles of reference textbooks, is an up-hill struggle for the majority of us. If this describes you, find training programs which have a majority of interactive, multimedia parts. Recent studies into the way we learn shows that much more of what we learn in remembered when we involve as many senses as possible, and we get physically involved with the study process.
Find a course where you’re provided with an array of DVD-ROM’s - you’ll be learning from instructor videos and demo’s, and then have the opportunity to use virtual lab’s to practice your new skills. Be sure to get a study material demo’ from any training college. The materials should incorporate expert-led demonstrations, slideshows and lab’s for you to practice your skills in.
Seek out CD and DVD ROM based physical training media in all circumstances. You can then avoid all the difficulties of broadband outages, failure and signal quality issues etc.
One thing you must always insist on is 24×7 round-the-clock support from dedicated instructors and mentors. Too many companies only seem to want to help while they’re in the office (9am till 6pm, Monday till Friday usually) and nothing at the weekends. You’ll be waiting ages for an answer with email based support, and phone support is usually just a call-centre which will make some notes and then email an advisor - who’ll call back sometime over the next 1-3 days, when it’s convenient to them. This is no good if you’re lost and confused and only have certain times available in which to do your studies.
The very best training providers incorporate three or four individual support centres around the globe in several time-zones. Online access provides the interactive interface to seamlessly link them all, at any time you choose, help is just seconds away, without any contact issues or hassle. Never make do with less than this. 24×7 support is really your only option with IT courses. Maybe late-evening study is not your thing; often though, we’re out at work while the support is live.
A lot of trainees assume that the state educational system is still the best way into IT. Why then are commercially accredited qualifications becoming more in demand? As demand increases for knowledge about more and more complex technology, industry has moved to specialist courses that can only come from the vendors - for example companies such as Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe. This frequently provides reductions in both cost and time. Academic courses, for example, clog up the training with too much loosely associated study - and much too wide a syllabus. This prevents a student from learning the core essentials in sufficient depth.
Imagine if you were an employer - and you needed to take on someone with a very particular skill-set. What’s the simplest way to find the right person: Wade your way through reams of different degrees and college qualifications from various applicants, trying to establish what they know and what workplace skills they’ve acquired, or pick out specific commercial accreditations that precisely match your needs, and draw up from that who you want to speak to. You’ll then be able to concentrate on getting a feel for the person at interview - rather than establishing whether they can do a specific task.
Adding in the cost of exam fees up-front then giving it ‘Exam Guarantee’ status is popular with many training course providers. But look at the facts:
Patently it’s not free - you’re still paying for it - the cost has just been rolled into the whole training package. People who take exams one at a time, paying as they go are in a much stronger position to qualify at the first attempt. They’re mindful of what they’ve paid and so are more inclined to be ready for the task.
Don’t pay up-front, but seek out the best deal for you at the time, and hang on to your cash. You also get more choice of where you do the examinations - which means you can stay local. Why tie up your cash (or borrow more than you need) for examination fees when you don’t need to? Huge profits are made because training colleges are getting money in early for exam fees - and banking on the fact that many won’t be taken. Remember, with ‘Exam Guarantees’ from most places - the company decides when you can do your re-takes. You’ll have to prove conclusively that you can pass before they’ll pay for another exam.
The cost of exams was approximately 112 pounds last year via local VUE or Pro-metric centres throughout the country. So don’t be talked into shelling out hundreds or thousands of pounds more to get ‘Exam Guarantees’, when it’s obvious that the most successful method is study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams.
The sometimes daunting task of getting your first computer related job can be eased by training colleges, through a Job Placement Assistance facility. Sometimes, this feature is bigged up too much, as it is genuinely quite straightforward for well qualified and focused men and women to get work in the IT environment - as there is such a shortage of trained staff.
Work on polishing up your CV right away however (advice and support for this should come from your course provider). Don’t procrastinate and leave it till the exams have actually been passed. You might not even have qualified when you’ll secure your initial junior support position; yet this won’t be the case unless your CV is with employers. In many cases, an independent and specialised local recruitment consultant or service (who will get paid by the employer when they’ve placed you) is going to give you a better service than a division of a training company. They should, of course, also be familiar with the local area and commercial needs.
Certainly make sure you don’t spend hundreds of hours on your training and studies, just to give up and leave it up to everyone else to find you a job. Stop procrastinating and start looking for yourself. Put the same time and energy into landing a good job as you did to get trained.
