Training in IT

n57602000

I am considering i move into training into IT as i feel i would be good within that area which company would be best to go with? can someone give me a quick brief cost of course(s) and length of time? etc... i am in surrey if that helps out thanks

C_Ronaldo

im at college doing a course in system support, its good, i paid £400 for it, it lasts 4 2 years but u can do the 1 year

bobbie78

ok IT is a very big subject and there are a lot of companies offering to take your money and promise you a job that never happens. IT is one of those industries where you need experience to get a job, but can't get a job to get the experience in the first place without starting at the bottom. Have a look at the learndirect page which explains different career types, do you want to work in a help desk (like working in a call centre? but fixing computers?) for that you might want to start off with some microsoft exams - get a book from the library and have a read through, the exams are 150 each and you need 7 to be fully certified in a version.

Do you want to do websites? there is no official one course to prove you can do websites, the best thing again is to get some books on html, php, cgi, mysql from the library and practice at home. You could build up a portfolio of sites you have made at home to take to interviews with you so you can explain how you made them and show what you can do.

If you want to write software eg Java C++ etc again get a book from the library.

There are a million forums just like this one where people will help you if you get stuck. but no one certificate is going to guarantee you a job, not even a degree, and believe me I know about this.

See if you can get some volunteer work at a learn direct centre or somewhere that has computers so you can put you fix them on your cv to get your foot in the door for a first job.

Look on monster or jobserve.co.uk for jobs you think sound cool, pay what you want and what experience they ask for (they very rarely ask for qualifications apart from Microsoft ones or other similar certificates and even those don't prove you can do the job). Then you know what things you need to think about learning.

OU do some courses if you aren't happy doing stuff from a book at home and want a bit more help - and you can use tesco points to pay for the OU courses.

Again without knowing what kind of IT you are interested in it is hard to advice properly but PM me if you want some more help.

bobbie78

oh another place to look for advice would be the British computer society - they invented the European driving licence exams for office workers which have taken off quite well. However they haven't managed to get their other exams standardised enough as they would like. I've never had a interviewer ask if i was a member or not or if my qualifications exempt me from their exams and I've worked for lots of really big places as well as smaller ones. They do have local interest groups and meetings to go to which might be interesting depending on what area of IT you want to focus on.

It also depends where in the uk you are and if you are happy to work for an outsourcing company that will make it easier but you can't mind the fact you might get made redundant a lot. That applies for any job in IT just as companies buy each other all the time or outsource their work to different companies you will change jobs every 2-4 years if you're lucky. I've been made redundant 3 times now in just over 3 1/2 years and that is pretty standard. So look on job sites and see what takes your fancy and what you might train for, unless you do a degree (which I wouldn't advise without knowing more detail about your plans) don't do any course that takes more than 2 years, or 1 year really, as it will be out of date by the time you finish or will be too theory based so you'll have to do more qualifications (or grovelling) to try and get a job on the back of it.

I'm sure others will disagree with what I've said but it depends on your expectations, you won't get a 25k job just by doing 1 set of exams it doesn't work that way. Look for yourself at the job adverts and what they require, if you can find jobs that pay that much and require a set of exams and no experience and look like real jobs then good on you I stand corrected and i wish you luck.