Desired courses

[LTurner3692]

Hello All,

 

After starting a new job recently i have been given the chance to take some training next year (once projects are out the way).

 

I'm unsure what root to take so my question is what training have people taken and actually found useful?

 

I like the idea of CCNA eventually looking at network architecture but at the same time i wouldn't mind find some Server courses to do.

 

TIA

[msi_school]

I have not found one but a one day intro to Powershell would be very useful for my apprentices and junior techs if anyone knows of one

[FishCustard]

I have not found one but a one day intro to Powershell would be very useful for my apprentices and junior techs if anyone knows of one

 

YES. I find those who know/can learn PowerShell are infinitely more useful.

[TechMonkey]

Depending on your experience, the Google IT Support Professional course was good. It really depends if you want a solid certificate you can wave around or want to just get some training under your belt. Cybrary has a wide range of courses now, they will get you ready for exams but not run the exam. Powershell is a good call, but getting the Month of Lunch times book will put you in good stead. Linked-in Learning (or Lynda which are essentially the same thing) is good as it is owned by MS, so lots of relevant courses on there.

 

CCNA is good and has great networking basics, but is very Cisco central (I know, surprise) so unless you are using them can be a bit unnecessary.

 

Personally, unless I need to learn a specific thing quickly, I prefer online courses and services that have a range so I can pick and choose.

 

But as I started, it really depends on your experience, what areas you enjoy and where you see yourself progressing.

[LTurner3692]

Depending on your experience, the Google IT Support Professional course was good. It really depends if you want a solid certificate you can wave around or want to just get some training under your belt. Cybrary has a wide range of courses now, they will get you ready for exams but not run the exam. Powershell is a good call, but getting the Month of Lunch times book will put you in good stead. Linked-in Learning (or Lynda which are essentially the same thing) is good as it is owned by MS, so lots of relevant courses on there.

 

CCNA is good and has great networking basics, but is very Cisco central (I know, surprise) so unless you are using them can be a bit unnecessary.

 

Personally, unless I need to learn a specific thing quickly, I prefer online courses and services that have a range so I can pick and choose.

 

But as I started, it really depends on your experience, what areas you enjoy and where you see yourself progressing.

 

As nice as it is to have a certificate is, it isn't something i care to much for, i would rather learn something useful and not get a cert than learn something pointless just to say oh look what i have!

 

Ill take a look at the Google stuff today and see what i can find on it

[msi_school]

Thanks for the recommendation I am going to have a look.

 

I would still like to send staff on a one day course because I always find the same issue with learning at work. It is too hard to ring fence time for this in the day whilst working in a support environment whereas a day on a course is insulated from the helpdesk ticket queue and people just wanting a minute of your time.

[FishCustard]

As nice as it is to have a certificate is, it isn't something i care to much for, i would rather learn something useful and not get a cert than learn something pointless just to say oh look what i have!

 

You've got the right mindset there I think. Certs are nice, but demonstrable knowledge is the way to go.

 

(Ssssh - don't tell anyone, but I've been in IT for oooh.... 10 years now, not one formal qualification in it beyond an A-Level in Computer Science. )

[bald_pig]

Have a look at MTA's, I did a procom 2 course a few years back which led to me getting a handful of MTA qualifications

[Kitkatninja]

As nice as it is to have a certificate is, it isn't something i care to much for, i would rather learn something useful and not get a cert than learn something pointless just to say oh look what i have!

 

Ill take a look at the Google stuff today and see what i can find on it

 

You've got the right mindset there I think. Certs are nice, but demonstrable knowledge is the way to go.

 

(Ssssh - don't tell anyone, but I've been in IT for oooh.... 10 years now, not one formal qualification in it beyond an A-Level in Computer Science. )

 

However playing devils advocate, if you study the material and can do what is required, then the next step would be certification... While you may not need it in your current job, when you go for your next one, the question to ask yourself... Will your CV get passed the CV shift?

[TechMonkey]

However playing devils advocate, if you study the material and can do what is required, then the next step would be certification... While you may not need it in your current job, when you go for your next one, the question to ask yourself... Will your CV get passed the CV shift?

 

Playing devil's advocate, advocate my experience is that employers are looking for applied experience as they (and I) have become jaded by bootcamps, guaranteed passes, fast tracks and intensive camps. I am in a similar situation as FishCustard, I ended up getting a part uni degree while doing the job. I prefer to do the training and apply it.

 

This may be from past experiences so let me take you back, let's have a story time

 

When I was first getting into IT during College holidays I was helping out in an IT department of a train company, through a family connection, and they were starting a new hardware refresh project with the rollout of NT. I was asked to prep the new PCs and image them, but don't worry there would be a new employee to help me, a fully qualified MS engineer!

 

This young guy turns up, but a good few years older than me still, and he is giving it large. How he aced his exams, he is going to be the next big thing in IT, all this. Firstly, he was a bit crestfallen that he was basically working with (technically) the work experience guy and that secondly, that his first task was unpacking boxes. So we get all of them unboxed, nice shiny piles of PCs, monitors and cables and we set up setting up a bit of a lab to get them prepped.

 

Let's get some boot disks made so we can do a few at a time, I suggest.

Guy pauses.

I walk him through making a boot disk.

A few times.

 

Next, let's boot from the disk.

Guy pauses.

I walk him through it.

A few times.

 

This was the format for just about every task.

 

I come back next holiday and oddly the guy wasn't there anymore. When I asked I think he lasted about a month.

 

Next candidate was a lady that was really nice and willing to learn but lacked any confidence about the knowledge she had picked up. She just got on one of those "Start a Career in IT" courses after having kids and got the certs. I think with some proper mentoring she would have been great (and she may have done that outside of this story) but again, gone after a short while.

 

There another few techs that came and went in between these ones and after that had similar results and I know the guy I worked with was exasperated about the constant churn and lack of stability. This probably led me to my overarching impression of people who have certs above anything else, either having no clue but thought they did or were wildly under confident and afraid to experiment.

 

Now I'm not saying all people with certs are like these or that certs are useless and no one should go for them, but it does water down the credibility of them in my eyes and I would look at the whole CV and base it on that and the interview.

 

Sorry, that ended up longer than I intended!

[Kitkatninja]

But then you can flip it around again, I've been turned down because I didn't have XYZ cert or qualification, even though I did have the experience and met the other requirements. Even before I entered the IT Profession, I was turned down from IT jobs because I didn't have a certain cert or qualification. Over the course of 16 odd years working in IT, people that I have known haven't even gotten a reply from an advert because they didn't have XYZ qualification or gone for a promotion (for example... two people that I use to work with applied for the same job, the one with the certification got invited for an interview, the one that didn't didn't)...

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a person has to go for the certification, but I'm not saying don't go for certification. However my experience is that it's better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it...

 

But that's the thing about the IT Profession... The IT Profession is a non-profession profession... There is no one right way of entry, of doing things, of ways of working, of code of conducts, of monitoring and performance, haha... I mean both our opinions can be right, wrong, mixed all at the same time haha

[fredbayker]

I agree with wagnerk. The way I see it, if a recruiter has to choose between 2 candidates both with experience but one is also certified, who do you think they would pick. So why not be the person with the certificate? If you are very competent in a product or field - then surely it doesn’t hurt to have this added advantage?

[mikeprice]

There is a problem witha lot of jobs applications because they are initially filtered by HR or by a recruitment firm

 

Hence, if the requirements say CCNA then if you don't have those letters then your cv goes in the bin - they don't understand it - it is a simple matching exercise

Hence extensive network experience on Cisco networks gets rejected for someone who got CCNA last week via a bootcamp

 

One school where I worked on a short term contract said they would have loved to keep me on permanently but they 'needed' someone with Microsoft certs

Whereas all I have is about a million years working on/with lots of different systems, networks and programmes (or apps for the younger ones out there)

and about 4 months experience of the school during which time I have reconfigured the wifi to actually work, sorting out the laptops to actually be useable, reconfiguring the server so the Internet could be used consistently - and a few other things

but I don't have any certs - except for one for assembler on GCOS6 MOD400 (don't ask!)

[LTurner3692]

This is where i am lucky, the company aren't to bothered about us having the cert, they would rather we can actually do the job and prove it instead of having a bit of paper that says we can.

 

Dont get me wrong i will eventually get the certs and decide a route, but while i work here i plan to take advantage of the little perks i can pick up that will help me later down the line.

 

I have seen and worked with people who have the certs who don't have a clue what they are doing, i dont want to be one of those!

[Kitkatninja]

...I have seen and worked with people who have the certs who don't have a clue what they are doing, i dont want to be one of those!

 

Yeah, I've seen many of them as well... In the past we've had MCSEs that couldn't set a static IP address on a PC and couldn't even set a proxy in IE. It kind of starts ringing alarm bells when they have the MCSE and less than 6 months experience... Hence why professional certifications should go hand in hand with the experiences of the IT Pro...

[LTurner3692]

Yeah, I've seen many of them as well... In the past we've had MCSEs that couldn't set a static IP address on a PC and couldn't even set a proxy in IE. It kind of starts ringing alarm bells when they have the MCSE and less than 6 months experience... Hence why professional certifications should go hand in hand with the experiences of the IT Pro...

 

 

Which is why i would rather get the skills and use them before getting the cert!

[mikeprice]

Company I used to work for didn't like sending people on courses that give out industry qualifications - because it ends up with them having more mobility so they have to be paid more or they will go somewhere else

 

It was suspected that they opted to use Honeywell Main-Frames partly because it meant that the IT staff struggled to find another job on the same hardware.

People who worked on IBM systems could move around easily.

 

That stopped after a while because they were forced to move to more common hardware to get the advanced software that could run on it - but teh concept still stands