Advice concerning training providers.

Discussion in 'Training & Development' started by Bert82, Jul 5, 2013.

  1. Bert82

    Bert82 New Member

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    Hi, I'm currently in the army and have been given redundancy so will be out December this year. I want to get into networking and have been looking at some of the providers offering courses. I have no experience in networking so will need to start at the most basic of levels.

    Can someone please give me some idea of who to avoid and if there are any genuine training providers out there, they all seem to be promising the moon.

    Any help will be hugely appreciated and I thank you in advance.
     
  2. SimonD
    Honorary Member

    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    Hi Bert,

    First of all I would have a chat with someone about the training providers you're allowed to use, when I left the Army (way too many years ago now) I could only use specific training providers because they were on the PSL (Preferred Suppliers List).

    Secondly and please don't take this the wrong way, networking is usually something that people move into after spending time in a different role within IT, it's generally expected that you will spend time as a service-desk engineer gaining insight on how support functions actually work and gaining experience on the roles and responsibilities of the various teams (learning about ITIL and Change Management for example).

    It's also very rare for someone with no experience in networking technologies to walk into a job actually working on networking equipment, after all would you expect to let someone loose on a piece of gear that they didn't have experience on (consider that network engineers are the same level as jnco's, they have a little more experience than the normal crow and can be relied on to be more sensible).

    I wouldn't hire someone and let them loose on my network if all they have done is attended a course five months previously and nothing since.

    If I were you I would look to getting some exposure to general IT infrastructure, call logging then desktop support for a couple of months, moving towards infrastructure support roles after you have some experience so you know what you are doing.

    That's not to say that 12 - 18 months after walking in to IT you're not on the ladder to a great career in networking, I just don't think that with time served in the forces and no real world experience you're going to succeed in the networking field straight away.

    Just to add that I like to think I can offer this advice based on 10 years Army service and 15 years IT service.
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA
  3. Bert82

    Bert82 New Member

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    Thanks for that information the networking is my overall aim, I fully understand I will be starting from the bottom and have to work my way up. The army does like you say only allow you to go with certain providers I just want to make sure I choose the right one. Thanks again for the help.
     

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