Congratulations! As you’re reading this article you’re probably toying with the idea of re-training to work in a different industry – so already you’ve made a start. Less of us than you’d think are content with our jobs, but it’s rare anyone does more than moan. Why not be one of a small number who take responsibility for their future.<\/p>\n
We’d politely request that in advance of taking any individual training program, you discuss your plans with a person who has knowledge of the industry and can point you in the right direction. Such a person will go through personality profiling with you and assist in finding the right role for you:<\/p>\n
* Do you want to interact with other people? If the answer’s yes, would you enjoy being part of a team or is meeting new people important to you? Or would you rather work alone with a task?<\/p>\n
* The building trade and the banking industry are facing difficulties at the moment, so it’s important to look very carefully at what sector will answer your needs?<\/p>\n
* How long a career do you hope to have once retrained, and will the industry offer you the chance to do that?<\/p>\n
* Are you concerned with regard to your chances of getting new work, and being in demand in the employment market all the way until retirement?<\/p>\n
The most significant market sector in Great Britain that can satisfy a trainee’s demands is the IT industry. There’s a shortage of skilled workers in this market, just check out any job site and you’ll see for yourself. Don’t let people tell you it’s all nerdy people staring at theirscreens all day – it’s much more diverse than that. The majority of staff in IT are just like you and me, with well paid and stimulating jobs.<\/p>\n
Getting your first commercial position can feel more straightforward with the help of a Job Placement Assistance facility. However sometimes people are too impressed with this facility, for it is genuinely quite straightforward for well qualified and focused men and women to find a job in IT – as employers are keen to find appropriately well trained people.<\/p>\n
You would ideally have help with your CV and interview techniques though; and we’d encourage all students to bring their CV up to date right at the beginning of their training – don’t wait until you’ve graduated or passed any exams.<\/p>\n
You may not have got to the stage where you’ve qualified when you will be offered your first junior support job; yet this can’t and won’t happen unless your CV is with employers.<\/p>\n
If you’d like to keep travelling time and costs to a minimum, then it’s quite likely that an independent and specialised local employment service could serve you better than a centralised service, due to the fact that they’re far more likely to be familiar with the local job scene.<\/p>\n
Fundamentally, if you put as much hard work into getting a position as into training, you’re not likely to experience problems. Some people strangely put hundreds of hours into their learning program and just give up once they’ve passed their exams and appear to be under the impression that jobs will come to them.<\/p>\n
If your advisor doesn’t dig around with lots of question – it’s more than likely they’re actually nothing more than a salesman. If they wade straight in with a specific product before learning about your history and current experience level, then you know it’s true.<\/p>\n
Remember, if you’ve had any relevant accreditation or direct-experience, then you will often be able to begin at a different level to a trainee with no history to speak of.<\/p>\n
Starting with a user skills course first may be the ideal way to start into your computer studies, but depends on your skill level.<\/p>\n
It only makes sense to consider training courses that’ll grow into commercially approved certifications. There are loads of small companies suggesting unknown ‘in-house’ certificates which will prove unusable in today’s commercial market.<\/p>\n
Only fully recognised qualifications from companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA and Adobe will open the doors to employers.<\/p>\n
Think about the points below carefully if you believe that old marketing ploy of examination guarantees seems like a good idea:<\/p>\n
Everyone knows they’re still paying for it – it’s obviously been inserted into the full cost of the package supplied by the training company. Certainly, it’s not a freebie – and it’s insulting that we’re supposed to think it is!<\/p>\n
If it’s important to you to get a first time pass, then you should pay for each exam as you go, give it the priority it deserves and apply yourself as required.<\/p>\n
Find the best exam deal or offer available when you’re ready, and save having to find the money early. You also get more choice of where you do the examinations – so you can find somewhere local.<\/p>\n
Paying upfront for exam fees (and if you’re financing your study there’ll be interest on that) is bad financial management. Don’t line companies bank accounts with your hard-earned cash just to give them a good cash-flow! A lot bank on the fact that you don’t even take them all – but they won’t refund the cash.<\/p>\n
It’s also worth noting that many exam guarantees are worthless. The majority of companies won’t be prepared to pay for you to re-take until you’ve completely satisfied them that you’re ready this time.<\/p>\n
Exam fees averaged 112 pounds or thereabouts last year through Prometric or VUE centres around the United Kingdom. So don’t be talked into shelling out hundreds or thousands of pounds more for ‘Exam Guarantees’, when it’s obvious that the most successful method is consistent and systematic learning, coupled with quality exam simulation software.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2009 Scott Edwards. Pop over to CareerChangeOptions.co.uk\/ncco.html<\/a> or HR Career<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Congratulations! As you’re reading this article you’re probably toying with the idea of re-training to work in a different industry – so already you’ve made a start. Less of us than you’d think are content with our jobs, but it’s rare anyone does more than moan. Why not be one of a small number who take responsibility for their future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":985,"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions\/985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.grinwebbus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}