CCNA is your entry level for Cisco training. This teaches you how to work on maintaining and installing routers and switches. The internet is made up ...
CCNA is your entry level for Cisco training. This teaches you how to work on maintaining and installing routers and switches. The internet is made up of many routers,
and many large organisations who have different locations need them to allow their networks of computers to communicate.
Successfully achieving this qualification will mean it's likely you'll end up working for national or international corporations that have several different sites, but still need contact. The other possibility is working for an internet service provider. Either way, you'll be in demand and can expect a high salary.
Qualifying up to the CCNA level is the right level in this instance - you're not ready for your CCNP yet. Get a couple of years experience behind you first, then you will have a feel for if you need to train up to this level. If so, you'll be much more capable to succeed at that stage - as your working knowledge will put everything into perspective.
Qualifications from the commercial sector are now, very visibly, taking over from the more academic tracks into the IT industry - but why has this come about? Accreditation-based training (to use industry-speak) is far more effective and specialised. The IT sector has acknowledged that this level of specialised understanding is essential to meet the requirements of an increasingly more technical workplace. CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA dominate in this arena. Many degrees, for instance, often get bogged down in vast amounts of background study - and a syllabus that's too generalised. Students are then prevented from learning the core essentials in sufficient depth.
Put yourself in the employer's position - and you required somebody who had very specific skills. What's the simplest way to find the right person: Trawl through reams of different degrees and college qualifications from several applicants, asking for course details and which workplace skills they have, or choose a specific set of accreditations that precisely match your needs, and then choose your interviewees based around that. Your interviews are then about personal suitability - rather than establishing whether they can do a specific task.
Starting with the idea that we have to choose the area of most interest first and foremost, before we can chew over which training program ticks the right boxes, how are we supposed to find the right path? What is our likelihood of grasping what is involved in a particular job if we've never been there? We normally don't even know anybody who does that actual job anyway. Contemplation on these different points is essential if you need to uncover the right answers:
* What hobbies you're involved with in your spare-time - these can show the areas will provide a happy working life.
* Is your focus to obtain training for a precise reason - e.g. are you pushing to work from home (self-employment possibly?)?
* Does salary have a higher place on your priority-scale than some other areas.
* When taking into account all that computing encapsulates, it's a requirement that you can absorb how they differ.
* You should also think long and hard about what kind of effort and commitment that you will set aside for gaining your certifications.
To be honest, your only option to gain help on these matters tends to be through a good talk with an advisor who has years of experience in the IT industry (and more importantly it's commercial requirements.)
Let's face it: There really is very little evidence of individual job security anywhere now; there's really only market and sector security - companies can just remove anyone when it fits their commercial needs. We could however reveal security at market-level, by digging for high demand areas, coupled with a shortage of skilled staff.
A rather worrying British e-Skills survey brought to light that twenty six percent of all IT positions available remain unfilled mainly due to a chronic shortage of trained staff. Put directly, we can't properly place more than just three out of each four job positions in the computer industry. This single fact in itself underpins why the country requires so many more new trainees to get into the IT industry. In reality, gaining new qualifications in IT over the years to come is probably the safest career choice you could ever make.
Adding in the cost of exam fees upfront then giving it 'Exam Guarantee' status is popular with many companies. But let's examine why they really do it:
Everyone knows they're still paying for it - it's obviously been added into the overall price charged by the training company. It's certainly not free (it's just marketing companies think we'll fall for anything they say!) The honest truth is that when trainees fund each examination, one at a time, there's a much better chance they'll pass first time - since they'll be conscious of what they've paid and will therefore apply themselves appropriately.
Take your exams as locally as possible and find the best deal for you at the time. Paying upfront for examinations (which also includes interest if you've taken out a loan) is bad financial management. It's not your job to boost the training company's account with your money just to give them a good cash-flow! Some will be pinning their hopes on the fact that you will never make it to exams - then they'll keep the extra money. You should fully understand that re-takes through companies with an 'Exam Guarantee' inevitably are heavily regulated. You'll be required to sit pre-tests till you've proven conclusively that you can pass.
Exams taken at VUE and Prometric centres are approximately 112 pounds in Britain at the time of writing. Why pay exorbitant 'Exam Guarantee' costs (usually wrapped up in the course package price) - when good quality study materials, the proper support and study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will really guarantee success.
