Free online IT tutoring materials

Congratulate yourself that you’ve already got this far! Only one in ten folks are happy and satisfied by their jobs, but the majority simply moan about it and that’s it. Because you’ve done research we have a hunch that you’re giving retraining some thought, which means you’re already ahead of the pack. What comes next is discover where you want to go and get going.

Before we even think about specific training programs, find an expert who can help you sort out the right type of training for you. Someone who can ask questions about your likes and dislikes, and discover what job role you’ll be most comfortable with:

* Do you like to work collaborating with people? Would that be with a small ‘tightly-knit’ team or with a lot of new people? It could be working by yourself in isolation could suit you better?

* What thoughts are fundamental with regard to the industry you’ll work in?

* Having completed your retraining, would you like this skill to serve you till you retire?

* Is it important for the course you’re re-training in to be in an area where you believe you’ll remain employable until retirement?

Pay attention to the IT industry, it will be well worth your time – it’s one of the only growing market sectors throughout Europe. Salaries are also more generous than most.

It would be wonderful to believe that our careers are safe and our future is protected, but the growing reality for most sectors in the UK at the moment is that security may be a thing of the past.

Of course, a marketplace with high growth, where there just aren’t enough staff to go round (because of a big shortage of properly qualified workers), enables the possibility of proper job security.

The Information Technology (IT) skills deficit throughout the country falls in at approx 26 percent, as noted by a recent e-Skills analysis. It follows then that for each 4 job positions in existence throughout computing, companies can only source trained staff for 3 of the 4.

Properly taught and commercially educated new employees are correspondingly at a total premium, and it’s estimated to remain so for many years to come.

As the Information Technology market is growing at the speed it is, there really isn’t any other area of industry worth considering for retraining.

Commercial certification is now, undoubtedly, starting to replace the traditional routes into the IT sector – so why should this be?

With the costs of academic degree’s increasing year on year, alongside the industry’s growing opinion that key company training is often far more commercially relevant, we’ve seen a great increase in Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA authorised training paths that educate students at a fraction of the cost and time involved.

Obviously, a certain amount of background detail needs to be learned, but core specialisation in the required areas gives a commercially educated person a massive advantage.

It’s rather like the advert: ‘It does what it says on the tin’. Employers simply need to know what they’re looking for, and then match up the appropriate exam numbers as a requirement. They’ll know then that all applicants can do what they need.

Looking around, we find a myriad of employment in Information Technology. Picking the right one out of this complexity is generally problematic.

Since without any solid background in Information Technology, how could any of us be expected to understand what a particular job actually consists of?

Reflection on these factors is imperative if you want to reveal a solution that suits you:

* Your personality can play a major role – what kind of areas spark your interest, and what are the things that put a frown on your face.

* Is your focus to re-train because of a precise reason – e.g. are you looking at working based at home (maybe self-employment?)?

* Is the money you make further up on your priority-list than other requirements.

* Often, trainees don’t consider the level of commitment expected to gain all the necessary accreditation.

* Our advice is to think deeply about the level of commitment that you will set aside for your training.

For most people, considering each of these concepts tends to require the help of someone who can investigate each area with you. And not just the qualifications – you also need to understand the commercial needs and expectations also.

The way a programme is physically sent to you is usually ignored by most students. How many stages do they break the program into? And in what sequence and at what speed is it delivered?

Often, you’ll join a programme staged over 2 or 3 years and receive a module at a time. While this may sound logical on one level, consider this:

What if you don’t finish all the sections or exams? Maybe the prescribed order won’t suit you? Through no fault of your own, you mightn’t complete everything fast enough and not get all the study materials as a result.

Ideally, you want ALL the study materials up-front – meaning you’ll have all of them for the future to come back to – as and when you want. You can also vary the order in which you complete each objective as and when something more intuitive seems right for you.