There are four A+ exams and areas of study, but you only have to get your exams in 2 of them for qualification purposes. This is why many educational establishments only offer 2 paths. However, training you in all four will equip you with a far deeper level of understanding of your subject, which you’ll come to realise is a Godsend in the working environment.
Passing the A+ exam without additional courses will mean that you’re able to mend and maintain stand alone Macs, computers and laptops; ones that are most often not part of a network – which is for the most part the home market.
If you’re considering being the person who is a member of a large organisation – in network support, you’ll need to add CompTIA Network+, or alternatively look at doing an MCSA or MCSE with Microsoft as you’ll need a wider knowledge of how networks work.
An advisor that doesn’t question you thoroughly – the likelihood is they’re just trying to sell you something. If they’re pushing towards a particular product before learning about your history and current experience level, then you know you’re being sold to.
Sometimes, the starting point of study for a person experienced in some areas can be massively different to someone without.
If this is your initial effort at an IT exam then you may want to start with a user-skills course first.
You should remember: a training itself or the accreditation isn’t what this is about; the particular job that you’re getting the training for is. Many trainers unfortunately put too much weight in the qualification itself.
Avoid becoming one of those unfortunate people that choose a course that on the surface appears interesting – and get to the final hurdle of an accreditation for a job they hate.
It’s well worth a long chat to see what industry will expect from you. Which particular exams they will want you to have and how you’ll build your experience level. It’s definitely worth spending time setting guidelines as to how far you wish to go as often it can affect your choice of qualifications.
Have a conversation with an experienced advisor who knows about the sector you’re looking at, and is able to give you detailed descriptions of the kind of things you’ll be doing on a daily basis. Establishing this well before you start on any retraining course will prevent a lot of wasted time and effort.
Watch out that all accreditations you’re considering doing will be recognised by employers and are current. The ‘in-house’ certifications provided by many companies are generally useless.
If your certification doesn’t come from a conglomerate such as Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA or Adobe, then you may discover it will be commercially useless – because it won’t give an employer any directly-useable skills.
Looking around, we find a plethora of jobs and positions available in IT. Finding the particular one in this uncertainty can be very difficult.
As without any commercial background in IT, how could any of us be expected to understand what someone in a particular job does?
Consideration of many points is essential when you want to get to the right answer for you:
* Your personality type and what you’re interested in – what kind of work-related things you love or hate.
* Is your focus to re-train due to a particular reason – for example, do you aim to work based at home (working for yourself?)?
* What priority do you place on job satisfaction vs salary?
* Getting to grips with what typical Information technology areas and sectors are – including what sets them apart.
* How much time you’re prepared to commit your training.
To be honest, you’ll find the only real way to research these issues is via a conversation with an advisor or professional who understands computing (and more importantly it’s commercial requirements.)
(C) 2010 S. Edwards. Browse around Web Design Training or www.ComptiaNetworkPlus2U.co.uk.
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