Good for you! As you're reading this article it's likely you're thinking about retraining for a new career - so already you've made a start. Very few of us are satisfied with our careers, but no action is ever taken. You could be a member of the few who make a difference in their lives.
When considering retraining, it's important to first define what you want and don't want from the career you would like to get. Ensure that things would be a lot better before much time and effort is spent re-directing your life. So much better to look at the end goal first, to make the right judgements:
* Do you like to work collaborating with people? Would you prefer to work with a small team or with many new people? Possibly operating on your own with your own methodology would be more your thing?
* Banking and building are a little shaky at the moment, so it's important to look very carefully at what sector will be best for you?
* Once your training has been completed, would you like your skills to take you through to retirement?
* Would it be useful for your training course to be in an area where you know you'll have a job until your pension kicks in?
It's important that you don't overlook IT - everyone knows that it's on the grow. It's not all nerdy people gazing at their PC's the whole time - we know some IT jobs demand that, but the majority of roles are filled with people like you and me who get on very well.
Have you recently questioned the security of your job? Normally, this only rears its head when something goes wrong. However, the reality is that true job security is a thing of the past, for nearly everyone now.
Of course, a marketplace with high growth, with a constant demand for staff (as there is a growing shortage of properly qualified professionals), enables the possibility of proper job security.
Looking at the computer business, the 2006 e-Skills analysis highlighted a more than 26 percent shortfall of skilled workers. To explain it in a different way, this highlights that the UK only has three qualified staff for each four job positions existing now.
This single truth alone underpins why the country urgently requires considerably more new trainees to join the IT industry.
We can't imagine if a better time or market conditions could exist for getting trained into this hugely emerging and blossoming business.
Students often end up having issues because of one area of their training usually not even thought about: The breakdown of the course materials before being physically delivered to you.
Delivery by courier of each element one stage at a time, according to your exam schedule is how things will normally arrive. This sounds logical, but you must understand the following:
What happens when you don't complete every exam? And what if the order provided doesn't meet your requirements? Without any fault on your part, you mightn't complete everything fast enough and therefore not end up with all the modules.
Put simply, the best option is to get an idea of what they recommend as an ideal study order, but get all the study materials at the start. Everything is then in your possession if you don't manage to finish within their ideal time-table.
An all too common mistake that many potential students make is to look for the actual course to take, and take their eye off the end result they want to achieve. Colleges are brimming over with direction-less students that chose an 'interesting' course - in place of something that could gain them an enjoyable career or job.
It's possible, for instance, to get a great deal of enjoyment from a year of study but end up spending 10 or 20 years in something completely unrewarding, as a consequence of not performing some decent due-diligence at the beginning.
Make sure you investigate your feelings on career development, earning potential, and how ambitious you are. You need to know what industry expects from you, what particular qualifications are required and how you'll gain real-world experience.
Seek out help from a professional advisor that 'gets' the commercial realities of the area you're interested in, and will be able to provide 'A typical day in the life of' synopsis of what you'll actually be doing during your working week. It's good sense to understand whether or not this is right for you long before your course begins. What's the point in kicking off your training and then find you've taken the wrong route.
A competent and professional advisor (vs a salesman) will want to thoroughly discuss your current experience level and abilities. This is vital for understanding your study start-point.
Remember, if in the past you've acquired any accreditation or direct-experience, then you may be able to pick-up at a different starting-point to a trainee with no history to speak of.
Consider starting with some basic user skills first. This can set the scene for your on-going studies and make the slope up to the higher-levels a a little easier. - 29852
When considering retraining, it's important to first define what you want and don't want from the career you would like to get. Ensure that things would be a lot better before much time and effort is spent re-directing your life. So much better to look at the end goal first, to make the right judgements:
* Do you like to work collaborating with people? Would you prefer to work with a small team or with many new people? Possibly operating on your own with your own methodology would be more your thing?
* Banking and building are a little shaky at the moment, so it's important to look very carefully at what sector will be best for you?
* Once your training has been completed, would you like your skills to take you through to retirement?
* Would it be useful for your training course to be in an area where you know you'll have a job until your pension kicks in?
It's important that you don't overlook IT - everyone knows that it's on the grow. It's not all nerdy people gazing at their PC's the whole time - we know some IT jobs demand that, but the majority of roles are filled with people like you and me who get on very well.
Have you recently questioned the security of your job? Normally, this only rears its head when something goes wrong. However, the reality is that true job security is a thing of the past, for nearly everyone now.
Of course, a marketplace with high growth, with a constant demand for staff (as there is a growing shortage of properly qualified professionals), enables the possibility of proper job security.
Looking at the computer business, the 2006 e-Skills analysis highlighted a more than 26 percent shortfall of skilled workers. To explain it in a different way, this highlights that the UK only has three qualified staff for each four job positions existing now.
This single truth alone underpins why the country urgently requires considerably more new trainees to join the IT industry.
We can't imagine if a better time or market conditions could exist for getting trained into this hugely emerging and blossoming business.
Students often end up having issues because of one area of their training usually not even thought about: The breakdown of the course materials before being physically delivered to you.
Delivery by courier of each element one stage at a time, according to your exam schedule is how things will normally arrive. This sounds logical, but you must understand the following:
What happens when you don't complete every exam? And what if the order provided doesn't meet your requirements? Without any fault on your part, you mightn't complete everything fast enough and therefore not end up with all the modules.
Put simply, the best option is to get an idea of what they recommend as an ideal study order, but get all the study materials at the start. Everything is then in your possession if you don't manage to finish within their ideal time-table.
An all too common mistake that many potential students make is to look for the actual course to take, and take their eye off the end result they want to achieve. Colleges are brimming over with direction-less students that chose an 'interesting' course - in place of something that could gain them an enjoyable career or job.
It's possible, for instance, to get a great deal of enjoyment from a year of study but end up spending 10 or 20 years in something completely unrewarding, as a consequence of not performing some decent due-diligence at the beginning.
Make sure you investigate your feelings on career development, earning potential, and how ambitious you are. You need to know what industry expects from you, what particular qualifications are required and how you'll gain real-world experience.
Seek out help from a professional advisor that 'gets' the commercial realities of the area you're interested in, and will be able to provide 'A typical day in the life of' synopsis of what you'll actually be doing during your working week. It's good sense to understand whether or not this is right for you long before your course begins. What's the point in kicking off your training and then find you've taken the wrong route.
A competent and professional advisor (vs a salesman) will want to thoroughly discuss your current experience level and abilities. This is vital for understanding your study start-point.
Remember, if in the past you've acquired any accreditation or direct-experience, then you may be able to pick-up at a different starting-point to a trainee with no history to speak of.
Consider starting with some basic user skills first. This can set the scene for your on-going studies and make the slope up to the higher-levels a a little easier. - 29852
About the Author:
(C) Jason Kendall. Pop to LearningLolly.com for excellent information. CLICK HERE or Click Here.
