Friday, July 31, 2009

UK Based Cisco Retraining Online Revealed

By Jason Kendall

If it's Cisco training you're after, but you're new to working with routers, the chances are your first course should be the Cisco CCNA qualification. This educates you in the knowledge you need to understand routers. The internet is constructed from huge numbers of routers, and large companies with multiple departments and sites also rely on them to allow their networks of computers to communicate.

Getting this certification will mean it's likely you'll end up working for large commercial ventures that are spread out geographically, but still want internal communication. Other usual roles could be with an internet service provider. Both types of jobs command good salaries.

The CCNA qualification is the right level to aim for; don't let some salesperson talk you into starting with the CCNP. With experience, you'll find out if this level is required. Should that be the case, you'll have the knowledge you need for the CCNP - which is quite a hard qualification to acquire - and mustn't be entered into casually.

A major candidate for the biggest issue to be got round for IT students is usually having to turn up to 'In Centre' days or workshops. Many training schools extol the virtues of the 'benefits' of going in to their classes, however, they quickly become a major problem because of:

* Many round journeys - usually 100's of miles.

* If you're working, then Monday to Friday workshops cause problems at work. Typically you are facing 2-3 days at a time as well.

* With just four weeks vacation allowance, sacrificing half of them for educational days means we'll be hard-pushed to get a holiday with our families.

* Classes usually become quickly full, leaving us with the '2nd best' solution.

* You may prefer to move at a somewhat more suitable pace - rather than be dictated to by the rest of the class. Sometimes this causes a lot of tension amongst the class.

* The growing costs associated with travel - driving or taking public transport to the training centre plus several days bed and breakfast can cost a lot each time you attend. With only an average of 5 to 10 workshops costing around 35 pounds for one over-night room, plus 40 pounds petrol and 15.00 for food, that becomes a minimum of four to nine hundred pounds of hidden costs that we now have to fund.

* Most students want their training to remain private thus avoiding all come-back in their work.

* Asking questions in front of other class-mates often makes us feel uncomfortable. Surely, at some point, you've avoided asking a question just because you didn't want to look foolish?

* Working and living away - a fair few attendees need to live or work somewhere else for certain parts of their study. Days in-centre are hard to get to, yet the monies have already been handed over with your initial fees.

The ultimate convenience is by viewing a pre-made workshop - enabling you to learn at any time of day. Consider... If you have a laptop then you're free to work wherever you happen to be at that time. And 24x7 support is only a web-browser click away in case of difficulty. Simply watch and re-watch the modules as many times as you want or need. And of course, you won't need to write any notes as you'll have direct access to the instruction whenever you want to go back to it. Essentially: Time and money is saved, you have reduced hassle and you avoid polluting the skies.

Frequently, your average person doesn't have a clue where to start with a computing career, let alone what market to focus their retraining program on. Consequently, if you've got no understanding of IT in the workplace, how are you equipped to know what someone in a particular field fills their day with? Let alone decide on which training route provides the best chances for a successful result. Contemplation on many factors is required if you need to get to a solution that suits you:

* Your hobbies and interests - these can highlight what possibilities will satisfy you.

* Do you hope to achieve a specific aspiration - like working from home sometime soon?

* What salary and timescale requirements that are important to you?

* Learning what the main work areas and sectors are - and what differentiates them.

* Our advice is to think deeply about the level of commitment that you will set aside for your education.

To be honest, it's obvious that the only real way to seek advice on these matters is via a conversation with an experienced advisor that understands computing (and specifically it's commercial needs and requirements.)

We're often asked why academic qualifications are now falling behind more commercial qualifications? As demand increases for knowledge about more and more complex technology, industry has of necessity moved to the specialised core-skills learning only available through the vendors themselves - namely companies such as Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe. This often comes in at a fraction of the cost and time. Academic courses, for example, often get bogged down in a lot of background study - with a syllabus that's far too wide. This prevents a student from getting enough specific knowledge about the core essentials.

Imagine if you were an employer - and you required somebody who had very specific skills. Which is the most straightforward: Go through loads of academic qualifications from several applicants, struggling to grasp what they've learned and what workplace skills have been attained, or pick out specific commercial accreditations that precisely match 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 establishing whether they can do a specific task.

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