TAPF Articles

If it weren’t for a continuous flood of knowledgeable network and PC support staff, commercial enterprise in Great Britain (along with most other places) would inevitably grind to a halt. Consequently, there’s a constantly increasing demand for people to support systems and users alike. Our country’s need for increasing numbers of skilled and qualified individuals is enhanced, as human beings become consistently more dependent upon PC’s in these modern times.

Listening to the sheer volume of debate on the area of Information Technology (IT) currently, how is it possible to know what in particular to look for?

So many training providers focus completely on the certification process, and forget what it’s all actually about - which is a commercial career or job. You should always begin with the end in mind - don’t make the journey more important than where you want to get to. Don’t let yourself become part of that group who set off on a track that on the surface appears interesting - and end up with a certification for something they’ll never enjoy.

You also need to know how you feel about career progression and earning potential, plus your level of ambition. You need to know what will be expected of you, what particular qualifications will be required and how to develop your experience. Your likely to need help from an experienced person who can explain the industry you’re hoping to qualify in, and who can offer ‘A day in the life of’ explanation of what you actually do on the job. This is of paramount importance because you obviously have to know whether or not you’ve chosen correctly.

Only consider training courses which lead to industry accepted exams. There’s an endless list of minor schools suggesting their own ‘in-house’ certificates which are worthless when it comes to finding a job. All the major IT organisations such as Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco or CompTIA have nationally approved proficiency programs. These heavyweights will give some sparkle to your CV.

Of all the important things to consider, one of the most essential is always 24×7 round-the-clock support via expert mentors and instructors. It’s an all too common story to find providers that will only offer a basic 9am till 6pm support period (maybe later on certain days) with very little availability over the weekend. Beware of institutions that use call-centres ‘out-of-hours’ - with the call-back coming in during typical office hours. It’s not a lot of help when you’ve got study issues and need an answer now.

We recommend that you search for colleges that incorporate three or four individual support centres around the globe in several time-zones. These should be integrated to provide a single interface and 24×7 access, when it’s convenient for you, with no fuss. If you fail to get yourself online 24×7 support, you’ll regret it. You may not need it throughout the night, but you’re bound to use weekends, early mornings or late evenings.

Students who consider this area of study can be very practical by nature, and don’t always take well to classrooms, and struggling through thick study-volumes. If you’re thinking this sounds like you, use multimedia, interactive learning, where everything is presented via full motion video. If we can get all of our senses involved in our learning, then the results are usually dramatically better.

The latest audio-visual interactive programs with demonstrations and practice sessions will turn you off book-based study for ever more. And you’ll find them fun and interesting. All companies must be able to demonstrate a few examples of their courseware. Expect video tutorials, instructor led classes and interactive areas to practice in.

You’ll find that many companies will only provide training that is purely available online; while you can get away with this much of the time, consider what happens if your access to the internet is broken or you get slow speeds and down-time etc. It is usually safer to have actual CD or DVD ROMs that will not have these problems.