Training for your CompTIA A+ covers four specialised areas – you’ll need exam certification in just two sectors to reach the level of A+ competent. For this reason, most training providers simply provide 2 of the training options. Our opinion is this is selling you short – of course you can gain accreditation, but knowing about the others will set you apart in the workplace, where you’ll need to know about all of them. So that’s why you require information in all four areas.
Passing the A+ exam in isolation will set you up to mend and maintain computers and Macs; ones which are usually not part of a network – essentially the domestic or small business sector.
Perhaps you see yourself as the kind of individual who is involved with a big team – supporting, fixing and maintaining networks, you’ll need to add CompTIA Network+, or consider an MCSA or MCSE with Microsoft to give you a wider knowledge of how networks work.
You’ll come across courses which guarantee examination passes – this always means exams have to be paid for upfront, at the start of your training. However, prior to embracing this so-called guarantee, look at the following:
Patently it’s not free – you’re still paying for it – the cost has just been rolled into the whole training package.
Should you seriously need to qualify first ‘go’, you must pay for each exam as you go, prioritise it appropriately and be ready for the task.
Shouldn’t you be looking to find the best exam deal or offer when you’re ready, not to pay the fees marked up by a training company, and to do it in a local testing office – rather than in some remote centre?
Huge profits are netted by some training companies that take the exam money up-front. A number of students don’t take them for various reasons and so they pocket the rest. Amazingly, there are companies around who depend on students not taking their exams – and that’s how they increase their profits.
Re-takes of any failed exams through training course providers who offer an ‘Exam Guarantee’ are monitored with tight restrictions. You’ll be required to sit pre-tests to make sure they think you’re going to pass.
Spending hundreds or even thousands extra on an ‘Exam Guarantee’ is foolish – when consistent and systematic learning, coupled with quality exam simulation software is what will really see you through.
Commercially accredited qualifications are now, very visibly, already replacing the traditional routes into IT – but why has this come about?
As we require increasingly more effective technological know-how, industry has moved to specialist courses only available through the vendors themselves – that is companies like Microsoft, CISCO, Adobe and CompTIA. Frequently this is at a far reduced cost both money and time wise.
Essentially, only required knowledge is taught. It isn’t quite as lean as that might sound, but the most important function is always to focus on the exact skills required (along with a certain amount of crucial background) – without overdoing the detail in everything else (as degree courses are known to do).
What if you were an employer – and you required somebody who had very specific skills. What is easier: Pore through a mass of different academic qualifications from graduate applicants, asking for course details and which workplace skills they have, or choose a specific set of accreditations that precisely match your needs, and draw up from that who you want to speak to. Your interviews are then about personal suitability – rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.
One feature that several companies offer is a Job Placement Assistance program. It’s intention is to help you find your first job in the industry. At the end of the day it’s not as hard as some people make out to land a job – assuming you’re well trained and qualified; the shortage of IT personnel in Britain looks after that.
However, don’t leave it until you’ve completed your exams before polishing up your CV. As soon as your training commences, enter details of your study programme and place it on jobsites!
A good number of junior support jobs have been bagged by people who’re still on their course and haven’t even passed a single exam yet. This will at least get your CV into the ‘possible’ pile and not the ‘no’ pile.
If you’d like to get employment in your home town, then it’s quite likely that a specialist independent regional recruitment consultant or service could serve you better than a national service, for they are much more inclined to be familiar with what’s available near you.
Just be sure that you don’t spend hundreds of hours on your training and studies, only to stop and expect somebody else to secure your first position. Get off your backside and get out there. Invest as much resource into securing your first job as it took to pass the exams.
At times individuals don’t understand what IT is doing for all of us. It’s stimulating, innovative, and means you’re working on technology affecting everyones lives in the 21st century.
We’re barely beginning to comprehend what this change will mean to us. How we communicate and interact with everyone around us will be inordinately affected by technology and the web.
And it’s worth remembering that income in the IT sector across the UK is significantly more than average salaries nationally, so in general you’ll more than likely gain considerably more as an IT specialist, than you could reasonably hope to achieve elsewhere.
It seems there’s no easing up for IT sector increases in Great Britain as a whole. The market sector is still growing hugely, and as we have a skills gap that means we only typically have three IT workers for every four jobs it’s not showing any signs that there’ll be any kind of easing off for years to come.
Copyright 2009 S. Edwards. Try A+ Certification or Click HERE.
