computeach-advice?

Savvy_Sue

My OH hasn't worked in computing for the last 6 years, but for at least 12 years before that I used to skim his free industry comics (mostly for the cartoons) and there was almost always a letter from someone desperate to break into the industry, qualified in some way but without experience, rejected for numerous jobs because of lack of experience, and asking HOW to get experience if no-one would employ them without it.

Unless things have changed radically over the last 6 years, getting work without experience could be pretty difficult. I'd suggest he has a close look at job ads in the area (geographical or topical) he's interested in and see if that's still the case.

Also, although employers mostly wanted people who'd been trained in a particular language or skill, and could be quite picky about this, they rarely wanted to train people without that language or skill. Which I always thought a bit short-sighted, because a good programmer will be a good programmer, regardless of what language s/he's working in.

Another suggestion would be that if his current employer has an IT dept, it might be worth talking to HR to see if he could transfer internally. This won't always work, especially not if IT is one person, but in a large company which is often recruiting they might prefer to transfer a known employee rather than risk losing him.

My gut feeling - and I'm no expert - would be that it's not worth paying a lot of money for anything very specific, unless you are SURE there is a niche market for it (and will still be a niche market in a year's time!) OU courses have the great advantage of being universally recognised and transferrable as qualifications in their own right, if that makes sense.

springchicken

thankyou to everyone who replied .Oh has decided not to sign up now thanks to your advice, he is looking into an OU course instead. It was the large amount of money required ,4,995 , and no guarantee of a job that has put him off.
Still curious to know if anyones had success with a computeach course though !

maarten

I am doing a Microsoft Course with a company similar to Computeach and feel that you are wise to wait before jumping into this. I paid £4000 for all of the study materials which included 2 computers, a printer and books that covered each module of the exams. The price also included the cost of sitting 7 exams at a test centre. Know I know what I was getting for my money I feel it was very expensive.

I would suggest that you could do things much cheaper by buying two cheap pc's if it is a networking exam, buying your own study guides (Sybex are quite common) and then going to your nearest test centre to sit your exams which I think are about £80ish each.

The study material is meant for distance learning and it seems that my company does keep it's distance from me until I need them. Then they seem very good.

One other thing that Computeach told me when I contacted them was that their test centre was in Birmingham which was a very long trip from me.

I have also done some OU courses and find them ok but they do seem a bit boring. I think this is because they are mostly theory based whereas the Microsoft courses require lots of practical work.