All of us are short of time, and most often should we decide to advance our future prospects, taking a course in addition to a 40 hour week is the only option open to us. Microsoft authorised training can be the way to do it. Maybe you'd choose to talk about career options with a training advisor - and if you're not sure, then take counsel on what kind of IT job would work for you, dependent on your personality. When you've chosen your career path, you'll need a relevant course tailored to your needs. Your study program should leave no room for complaints.
'In-Centre' days can be portrayed as an important element by many training academies. After talking to many computer industry students that have tried them out, you'll discover that they're really a major negative due to many reasons:
* Loads of travelling - frequent trips and sometimes hundreds of miles a time.
* Getting time out of work - typical colleges can only give availability during weekdays and often group days together in a clump. If you're working then this can be difficult, even more so when you add the travel time on.
* I think you'd agree that we usually discover twenty days annual leave isn't enough by far. Take away a good 50 percent of that for training classes and you'll experience even more problems.
* Training events sometimes reach their maximum intake very quickly, so we end up having to take something that we don't really want.
* Workshop pace - classes often have trainees of mixed skill, so there is often tension between those that want to go quickly as opposed to those who prefer a more relaxed pace.
* And don't forget the increased financial outlay of travelling or several days accommodation either. This can run to a lot of money - from hundreds to thousands. Sit down and add it up - it'll shock and surprise you.
* Is it worth even a small chance of getting passed-over for potential advancement or salary hikes because of your studies.
* It's very common for trainees not to put a question forward that they would like answered - purely because they're in front of other people.
* For those who have work away from home, it's apparent that workshops sometimes become difficult to get to - unfortunately however, they've been paid for in advance.
It obviously makes much more sense to be taught when it's convenient for you - not the company - and make use of videos of instructors with interactive virtual-lab's. Any time you get a problem, get onto the live 24x7 support (that we hope you'll insist on with any technical courses.) Don't forget, if you have a notebook PC, you could study in breaks at work. Simply do the learning modules whenever you need to revise. There's also no need to write any notes because the class is available whenever you want it. Whilst there's no way this can stop every little difficulty, it undeniably reduces stress and eases things. And you've reduced travel, hassle and costs.
Ensure all your certifications are current and what employers are looking for - you're wasting your time with programs which end up with an useless in-house certificate or plaque. If the accreditation doesn't feature a company like Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA or Cisco, then you'll probably find it will be commercially useless - as it'll be an unknown commodity.