Cisco Support Training – Options
If it’s Cisco training you’re after, but you’ve not yet worked with routers or switches, you should first attempt a CCNA course. This teaches you the necessary skills to set up and maintain routers. The world wide web is built up of many routers, and large companies with several different sites also need routers to allow their networks to keep in touch.
The kind of jobs requiring this kind of skill mean it’s likely you’ll end up working for big organisations who have many locations but need their computer networks to talk to each other. Or, you may move on to joining an internet service provider. Jobs requiring these skills are plentiful and well remunerated.
Getting your Cisco CCNA is where you need to be aiming – you’re not ready for your CCNP for now. Once you’ve got a few years experience behind you, you can decide if it’s relevant for you to have this next level up. If it is, you’ll be in a better position to pass then – because you’ll have so much more experience.
Getting your first commercial position can be a little easier with a Job Placement Assistance facility. But don’t place too much emphasis on it – it isn’t unusual for eager sales people to make too much of it. The fact of the matter is, the massive skills shortage in Britain is what will make you attractive to employers.
Ideally you should have help with your CV and interview techniques though; and we’d recommend everyone to work on polishing up their CV the day they start training – don’t put it off until you’ve graduated or passed any exams.
It’s possible that you won’t have even passed your first exam when you will be offered your first junior support role; however this won’t be the case unless your CV is with employers.
Normally you’ll get better results from a specialised and independent local recruitment service than you will through a course provider’s employment division, as they’ll know the area better.
A big aggravation of many course providers is how hard people are prepared to work to become certified, but how un-prepared they are to work on getting the position they have trained for. Don’t give up when the best is yet to come.
Now, why is it better to gain qualifications from the commercial sector rather than more traditional academic qualifications gained through schools and Further Education colleges?
The IT sector is of the opinion that for an understanding of the relevant skills, the right accreditation supplied for example by Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA most often has much more specialised relevance – for much less time and money.
Of course, an appropriate portion of relevant additional detail must be learned, but focused specialisation in the required areas gives a commercially trained student a distinct advantage.
Put yourself in the employer’s position – and you wanted someone who could provide a specific set of skills. What should you do: Wade your way through a mass of different academic qualifications from hopeful applicants, having to ask what each has covered and which commercial skills they have, or choose a specific set of accreditations that specifically match what you’re looking for, and make your short-list from that. Your interviews are then about personal suitability – rather than establishing whether they can do a specific task.
An effective training program will also offer fully authorised exam simulation and preparation packages.
Ensure that the practice exams aren’t just asking you the right questions on the right subjects, but ask them in the same way that the proper exam will ask them. It can really throw some people if the questions are phrased in unfamiliar formats.
As you can imagine, it is really important to know that you are completely prepared for the real exam prior to doing it. Going over simulated tests logs the information in your brain and saves you time and money on failed exams.
An important area that is sometimes not even considered by potential students considering a training program is that of ‘training segmentation’. This is essentially how the program is broken down into parts for delivery to you, which can make a dramatic difference to where you end up.
Usually, you will join a program staged over 2 or 3 years and get posted one section at a time – from one exam to the next. This sounds logical on one level, until you consider this:
What if for some reason you don’t get to the end of every single section? What if you don’t find their order of learning is ideal for you? Because of nothing that’s your fault, you may go a little slower and consequently not get all your materials.
For future safety and flexibility, it’s normal for most trainees to make sure that every element of their training is sent immediately, and not in a piecemeal fashion. You can then decide how fast or slow and in what order you want to finish things.
(C) 2009 S. Edwards. Hop over to Click Here or www.CCNATraining4U.co.uk.