Thread: IT Training/Courses (UK)

Why not just do some M$ online stuff?

Speaking for all the big companies I have worked at, they would go for experience over everything else. After that they would be looking for Microsoft (or Oracle or IBM) certification. The official Microsoft courses are run by several companies, QA and Learning Tree spring to mind. A typical 3 day course is around £1000.

We are seriously looking at sending people to India to do the training combined with a visit to our outsourcing site. They also do bootcamps in India which combine several courses to gain the Microsoft Certification.

Certification is for a specific release of software so they are on a nice little earner each time a new release comes out. To be honest most don't bother with Certification unless they need the bragging rights, eg. a support company claiming all their engineers are certified.

The current in demand skill on the Microsoft side is Sharepoint, a content management system.

Originally Posted by BigRed

After that they would be looking for Microsoft (or Oracle or IBM) certification. The official Microsoft courses are run by several companies, QA and Learning Tree spring to mind. A typical 3 day course is around £1000.

Which would be the entry level courses/qualifications to look for? Anything will do at the moment to get an idea of time/price.

Learning tree are crap, my company refused to pay them when I reported back that two people had to share one machine, also the course was years out of date (mac) Done a few MS courses but some companies do cut down versions and just go through the stuff too quickly. Ms courses are pretty horrible and dull with very big impressive books you have to plod through. Never did any of the exams.

Originally Posted by melvbot

Im thinking of doing a course while Im back in the UK, something IT based. Ive searched for stuff about this before but I just end up with hundreds of sites offering courses etc.

Im not 100% sure what area I might do, could be any of the following

Networking Home/Business sort of stuff
PC Building/Maintenance/Troubleshooting etc
Telecomms engineer

If anyone is in the UK and knows where I can find decent info rather than a sales pitch on stuff like which basic qualifications to go for/look out for then I would be grateful.

IT is a rather big blanket. Gotta find a direction that interests you first.

PC buiding/maint. Hardware is truly a mugs game these days.

If I was starting out I would ignore traditional IT, it's way too mature. Go for the net. Opportunities abound. Not in webdesign.

Im open to trying anything. The purpose of this was for answers like yours, to get the lowdown on whats going off at the moment.

What sort of areas would you say to look at?

Originally Posted by crazy dog

Ms courses are pretty horrible and dull with very big impressive books you have to plod through.

You have to use their certified course notes to teach a certified course as well.

Look at Microsoft certifications - Training Courses - QA as a starting point. For instance MCSA Windows Server 2003 - Training Courses - QA

how do you intend to use what you have learned? work for a big firm, consultancy, set up a retail outlet? Lots of stuff getting outsourced these days so something needing hands on is good.

Originally Posted by melvbot

Im open to trying anything. The purpose of this was for answers like yours, to get the lowdown on whats going off at the moment.

What sort of areas would you say to look at?

What I wouldn't look at is web design, Adsense and all the low-hanging fruit. Ecommerce only if lucrative niche. Gotta keep economy in mind, there's always opportunity. Financial I haven't looked at since the crash, but there's always scope, and it can be very lucrative but highly competitive.

SEO is saturated. SEM is good. PPC managemnt can be very good - when you're paying $40/click you need someone able to drive it in an highly competitive market or you'll lose your shirt. Google makes it's fortune from it. It runs courses.

Many other goodies to do. The net is saturated with people doing things badly. Rise above it and you won't look back.

Try webmasterworld for getting ideas of whats cooking. Digitalpoint

Cheers for the pointers. Id like a small business of my own but thats pipe dreams at this stage, helping out all the technophobes set stuff up in their homes, installations etc.

As usual I need to think things through more and find a focus/direction, could be messy.

I'm studying at an IT school.

For your future pipe dreams I'd guess you'd want to start off with looking at the compTIA A+ (for hardware) and Network+ (for networks) qualifications. Seem to be entry level qualifications to get before going on to the bigger more industry desired quals.

I don't how good they are as I've never done them (I'm in the coding side) but other students at my school coming from absolute beginner level do them before going on to Cisco and MS stuff.

Originally Posted by melvbot

Cheers for the pointers. Id like a small business of my own but thats pipe dreams at this stage, helping out all the technophobes set stuff up in their homes, installations etc.

As usual I need to think things through more and find a focus/direction, could be messy.

The net is a great leveler as far is business is concerned. In bricks'n'mortar, to start a small business, you need some expertise and quite a bit of cash, in addition to all the other things - a solid business plan, location (which costs) etc. On the net, cash and location counts for far less. What you need is a well-researched plan, a good niche and a good product or service.

Then the real advantage. Once you have established a successful small business in bricks'n'mortar, it ain't easy to grow it substantially. Can take a load of cash or funding to make it take off. Establish a successful small business on the net in a good niche and growing it by 100x is really not hard, with little to no funding.

People don't believe the opportunity, because they look at what is done badly on the net, all the followers. To grow a small successful ecomm bus from $40 000 profit/annum to $400 000 profit/annum is actually piss easy if you are in the right niche.

BBC NEWS | Business | Struggle to get back into IT

This is why Im thinking of doing something now. If a course or 2 takes something like 2 years then hopefully things will have turned by then, at the worst Ill have a few more qualifications for if/when something does come along.

Im starting to learn Xcode (Mac) by myself to get the old brain thingy working again. I'll see how that goes until Ive got enough cash or found a focus on what Id like to do.

Originally Posted by melvbot

Im starting to learn Xcode (Mac) by myself to get the old brain thingy working again.

in all honesty a waste of time, and definitely something not to put on a CV, it has wankers written all over. When I used to do IT recruiting, we would trash anyone who would claim some kind of Mac experience or Mac expertise, it was a major red flag

I would concentrate on doing training on some specialized infrastructure apps, some network apps maybe, even virtualization (VMWARE) or parrallel processing (XEN) integration, that seems to be the new hot things these days, cutting cost in server infra

have you tried looking at different EAI options ? that used to be very much in demand, paid about 500 UKP a day, more if you knew a lot of tricks on those platforms.

Like I said, the Xcode is to start the brain working then when I decide on what area I'd like to do I'll search for the relevant stuff.

Whats EAI?

^Lesson no.1

Google




Seriously, if you're not a self-starter, don't try studying by yourself. Enroll in a course, and not online.

Originally Posted by FlyFree

^Lesson no.1

Google




Seriously, if you're not a self-starter, don't try studying by yourself. Enroll in a course, and not online.

I only asked that to get Butterfly Googling for me, he's a lazy bugger.

Hurry up ButterFly. That EAI ain't gonna google itself!

Originally Posted by melvbot

I only asked that to get Butterfly Googling for me, he's a lazy bugger.

You mean lazy buggerer?

what has this got to do with hamburger ?

Wiki is your friend, they have a nice section about it