Should you be aspiring to become Cisco accredited, but you’ve not yet worked with switches and routers, initially you should go for the CCNA training. This educates you in the knowledge you need to understand routers. The world wide web is built up of many routers, and large commercial ventures with several different sites also use them to connect their computer networks.
The kind of jobs requiring this type of qualification mean the chances are you’ll work for large commercial ventures that have several different sites but still need contact. On the other hand, you might end up being employed by an internet service provider. Either way, you’ll be in demand and can expect a high salary.
Get on a tailored route that takes you on a progressive path to make sure that you’ve mastered the necessary skills and knowledge before starting your training in Cisco skills.
We can’t make a big enough deal out of this point: You absolutely must have proper 24×7 support from professional instructors. You’ll severely regret it if you don’t.
Look for training where you can access help at any time of day or night (even 1am on Sunday morning!) Make sure it’s always direct-access to qualified mentors and tutors, and not simply some messaging service that means you’re consistently being held in a queue for a call-back during office hours.
The best training colleges provide an internet-based 24 hours-a-day system combining multiple support operations over many time-zones. You will be provided with a simple environment that accesses the most appropriate office no matter what time of day it is: Support when you need it.
You can’t afford to accept a lower level of service. Direct-access round-the-clock support is the only kind to make the grade when it comes to technical courses. Maybe late-evening study is not your thing; often though, we’re working when traditional support if offered.
Most trainers typically provide a shelf full of reference manuals. Learning like this is dull and repetitive and not really conducive to achieving retention.
If we can involve all our senses in the learning process, then the results are usually dramatically better.
You can now study via interactive CD and DVD ROM’s. Instructor-led tutorials will mean you’ll take everything in via the demonstrations and explanations. Then you test your knowledge by interacting with the software and practicing yourself.
It’s wise to view a small selection of training examples before you purchase a course. What you want are instructor demonstrations, video tutorials and interactive audio-visual sections with practice modules.
Opt for actual CD or DVD ROM’s whenever you can. You can then avoid all the difficulties of broadband outages, failure and signal quality issues etc.
You have to make sure that all your exams are current and commercially required – forget programmes which provide certificates that are worthless because they’re ‘in-house’.
Unless the accreditation comes from a company like Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA or Adobe, then chances are it won’t be commercially viable – as no-one will have heard of it.
A question; why should we consider commercial qualifications rather than traditional academic qualifications obtained from the state educational establishments?
With a growing demand for specific technological expertise, the IT sector has been required to move to specific, honed-in training only available through the vendors themselves – for example companies like Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe. Frequently this is at a far reduced cost both money and time wise.
Academic courses, for example, clog up the training with a lot of loosely associated study – and much too wide a syllabus. This holds a student back from getting enough core and in-depth understanding on a specific area.
It’s a bit like the TV advert: ‘It does what it says on the tin’. All an employer has to do is know what they need doing, and then request applicants with the correct exam numbers. They’ll know then that all applicants can do what they need.
(C) 2010 – S. Edwards. Try MCSE 2008 or www.CiscoCCNA4IT.co.uk.
