A very small number of men and women in Great Britain are enjoying job satisfaction. Naturally most will take no action. You’ve reached this paragraph, which if nothing else indicates that you’re considering or may be ready for a change.
It’s advisable to get some help before you start – find someone who knows the industry; someone who’ll give you career advice based on what works best for you, and then show you the learning programs which are appropriate for you:
* Is collaborating with others important to you? Would that be with the same people or with a lot of new people? Perhaps working alone with your own methodology would be more your thing?
* Are you thinking carefully about which area you maybe could work in? (With the economic downturn, it’s essential to choose carefully.)
* Is this the last time you envisage re-training, and based on that, will your chosen career path allow you to do that?
* Do you have niggles about the possibility of getting another job, and staying employable to the end of your working life?
We ask you to really explore the IT sector – there are a larger number of jobs than people to do them, and it’s a rare career choice where the sector is on the grow. Despite what some people believe, it isn’t just geeks staring at their computers the whole day (if you like the sound of that though, they do exist.) The vast majority of roles are occupied by ordinary people who want to earn a very good living.
IT has become one of the more exciting and ground-breaking industries you could be involved with. To be dealing with leading-edge technology is to be a part of the massive changes that will affect us all over the next generation. We’re barely beginning to get to grips with how all this change will affect us. How we communicate and interact with everyone around us will be profoundly affected by technology and the internet.
Should lifestyle be high on your scale of wants, you will be pleasantly surprised to hear that the income on average for a typical IT worker is noticeably greater than with much of the rest of industry. The good news is there is no easing up for IT industry increases in Great Britain as a whole. The market continues to develop enormously, and as we have a skills gap that means we only typically have three IT workers for every four jobs it’s not likely that there’ll be any kind of easing off for years to come.
For the most part, the typical student has no idea what way to go about starting in the IT industry, let alone what market to focus their retraining program on. How can we possibly grasp the day-to-day realities of any IT job if we’ve never been there? Maybe we haven’t met someone who performs the role either. Deliberation over these different factors is required when you want to reveal the right answers:
* Personalities play a starring part – what gives you a ‘kick’, and what are the activities that you really dislike.
* What sort of time-frame do you want for the training process?
* Where do you stand on travelling time and locality vs salary?
* Some students don’t fully understand the amount of work needed to achieve their goals.
* You need to understand what differentiates each individual training area.
In actuality, it’s obvious that the only real way to investigate these areas will be via a meeting with an experienced advisor who understands IT (and chiefly it’s commercial needs and requirements.)
The somewhat scary thought of landing your first IT job is often eased because some trainers offer a Job Placement Assistance service. The need for this feature can be bigged up out of proportion though – it’s quite easy for training companies to overplay it. At the end of the day, the massive skills shortage in the United Kingdom is why employers will be interested in you.
You would ideally have advice and support about your CV and interviews though; additionally, we would recommend any student to work on polishing up their CV the day they start training – don’t delay till you’ve finished your exams. It’s possible that you won’t have even taken your exams when you will be offered your first junior support job; yet this is not possible if interviewers don’t get sight of your CV. The most efficient companies to get you a new position are most often independent and specialised local recruitment services. As they’re keen to place you to receive their commission, they’ll work that much harder to get a result.
Do make sure you don’t put hundreds of hours of effort into your studies, just to give up and expect somebody else to secure your first position. Take responsibility for yourself and get on with the job. Channel the same resource into finding a good job as it took to get qualified.
It’s quite a normal occurrence for students not to check on a vitally important element – how their training provider actually breaks down and delivers the training materials, and into how many parts. Many think it logical (when study may take one to three years for a full commercial certification,) for your typical trainer to courier one module at a time, as you pass each element. However: What would their reaction be if you find it difficult to do all the exams at the speed they required? Sometimes their preference of study order won’t be as easy as another different route may.
To be straight, the best solution is to obtain their recommendation on the best possible order of study, but make sure you have all of your learning modules right from the beginning. Meaning you’ve got it all in the event you don’t complete everything within their ideal time-table.
A so-called advisor who doesn’t ask many questions – chances are they’re really a salesperson. If they push a particular product before learning about your history and whether you have any commercial experience, then you know you’re being sold to. With some work-based experience or some accreditation, you could discover that your appropriate starting-point is very different to someone completely new. Commencing with a user skills module first may be the ideal way to start into your IT programme, depending on your skill level at the moment.
