by Jason Kendall
If your dream is to become a great web designer and have the most recognised qualification for the job market today, you’ll need to study Adobe Dreamweaver. We also advise that you learn all about the complete Adobe Web Creative Suite, which incorporates Flash and Action Script, to be able to use Dreamweaver as a commercial web-designer. These skills can result in you subsequently becoming an ACP (Adobe Certified Professional) or an ACE (Adobe Certified Expert).
Understanding how to design a website just gets you started. Traffic creation, maintaining content and some programming skills are also required. Look for training with bolt-ons to cover these skills maybe PHP, HTML
, and MySQL, in addition to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and E-Commerce skills.
Huge changes are coming via technology in the near future - and it becomes more and more thrilling each day. We’re barely beginning to understand how this will truly impact our way of life. How we interrelate with the rest of the world will be massively affected by computers and the web.
Should receiving a good salary be around the top on your wish list, you will be pleasantly surprised to hear that the income on average for IT employees in general is considerably higher than salaries in much of the rest of industry. Excitingly, there is a lot more room for IT sector development throughout this country. The industry continues to develop hugely, and we don’t have anywhere near enough qualified skilled IT professionals to fill current job vacancies, so it’s highly unlikely that things will be any different for decades to come.
How can we make an educated choice then? With all these possibilities, it’s essential to be guided as to where to dig - and of course, what to actually be digging for.
Don’t get hung-up, as can often be the case, on the certification itself. You’re not training for the sake of training; you should be geared towards the actual job at the end of it. You need to remain focused on where you want to go. Imagine training for just one year and then end up doing the job for 20 years. Avoid the mistake of opting for what may seem to be an ‘interesting’ training program and then put 10-20 years into a job you hate!
You’ll want to understand what industry will expect from you. Which certifications they will want you to have and how you’ll build your experience level. You should also spend a little time assessing how far you think you’ll want to build your skill-set as often it can present a very specific set of exams. Look for help from a skilled professional that has commercial knowledge of your chosen market-place, and who can offer ‘A typical day in the life of’ synopsis of what kinds of tasks you’ll be undertaking with each working day. It’s good sense to know if this change is right for you long before you start on any retraining programme. After all, what is the point in starting to train only to find you’ve gone the wrong way entirely.
The classroom style of learning we remember from school, utilising reference manuals and books, is an up-hill struggle for the majority of us. If all this is ringing some familiar bells, look for learning programmes that are multimedia based. We see a huge improvement in memory retention when we use multiple senses - learning experts have been saying this for years now.
Programs are now found in disc format, where your computer
becomes the centre of your learning. Utilising the latest video technology, you can sit back and watch the teachers showing you precisely how to perform the required skill, and then have a go at it yourself - in an interactive lab. It’s very important to see some example materials from your chosen company. Be sure that they contain full motion videos of instructors demonstrating the topic with lab’s to practice the skills in.
Purely on-line training should be avoided. Ideally, you should opt for CD and DVD ROM courseware where offered, so that you have access at all times - it’s not wise to be held hostage to a quality and continuous internet connection.
A lot of training companies only provide support available from 9-6 (office hours) and sometimes later on specific days; most won’t answer after 8-9pm at the latest and frequently never at the weekends. some companies only provide email support (slow), and telephone
support is usually to a call-centre that will chat nicely with you for 5 minutes to ask what the issue is and then simply send an email to an instructor - who’ll call back sometime over the next 1-3 days, at a time suitable for them. This isn’t a lot of good if you’re sitting there confused over an issue and can only study at specific times.
If you look properly, you’ll find professional companies that offer online direct access support all the time - including evenings, nights and weekends. Don’t compromise where support is concerned. Many trainees who fall by the wayside, are in that situation because of a lack of support.
Commercial qualifications are now, without a doubt, taking over from the traditional routes into IT - but why has this come about? With 3 and 4 year academic degree costs increasing year on year, and the industry’s increasing awareness that key company training often has more relevance in the commercial field, we’ve seen a great increase in CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft
and CompTIA authorised training paths that educate students at a fraction of the cost and time involved. Vendor training works by concentrating on the skill-sets required (along with a relevant amount of associated knowledge,) instead of trawling through all the background ‘padding’ that computer Science Degrees can get bogged down in - to pad out the syllabus.
Put yourself in the employer’s position - and you required somebody who had very specific skills. Which is the most straightforward: Trawl through a mass of different academic qualifications from various applicants, asking for course details and which commercial skills have been attained, or select a specialised number of commercial certifications that perfectly fit your needs, and then choose your interviewees based around that. The interview is then more about the person and how they’ll fit in - instead of having to work out if they can do the job.
It’s not uncommon for companies to offer inclusive exam guarantees - this always means exams have to be paid for upfront, at the very beginning of your studies. However, prior to embracing the chance of a guarantee, think about this:
In this day and age, we tend to be a little more ‘marketing-savvy’ - and most of us realise that of course we’re actually paying for it - they’re not just being charitable and doling out freebies! Those who go in for their examinations when it’s appropriate, paying for them just before taking them are much more likely to pass. They’re mindful of what they’ve paid and so are more inclined to ensure they are ready.
Take your exams at a local pro-metric testing centre and find the best deal for you at the time. A surprising number of questionable training course providers net a great deal of profit through asking for examinations upfront and banking on the fact that many won’t be taken. It’s worth noting, in the majority of cases of ‘exam guarantees’ - the company decides when you can do your re-takes. They’ll only allow a re-take once completely satisfied.
On average, exams cost about 112 pounds last year via Prometric or VUE centres around the United Kingdom. So what’s the point of paying maybe a thousand pounds extra to have ‘an Exam Guarantee’, when common sense dictates that the responsible approach is consistent and systematic learning, coupled with quality exam simulation software
.
The perhaps intimidating chore of securing your first role in IT is often eased because some trainers offer a Job Placement Assistance service. The fact of the matter is it isn’t a complex operation to secure your first job - as long as you’ve got the necessary skills and qualifications; because there’s still a great need for IT skills in the UK today.
CV and Interview advice and support is sometimes offered (if it isn’t, consult one of our sites). Be sure to you bring your CV right up to date immediately - don’t leave it till you pass the exams! It’s not unusual to find that you will get your first job whilst you’re still studying (even when you’ve just left first base). If you haven’t updated your CV to say what you’re studying (and it isn’t in the hands of someone with jobs to offer) then you’re not even going to be known about! If you’d like to keep travelling time and costs to a minimum, then you’ll often find that a local IT focused recruitment consultancy may be more appropriate than a centralised service, for they’re going to have insider knowledge of what’s available near you.
To bottom line it, as long as you put the same commitment into finding a job as into training, you won’t find it too challenging. Some people inexplicably put hundreds of hours into their learning program and do nothing more once they’ve passed their exams and seem to expect employers to find them.
About the Author:
The author: Jason Kendall life has been in IT for 2 Decades. He now consults around training and accreditation. For advice on
Web Design Courses, visit LearningLolly
Dreamweaver Training.