Just IT Training : NPP Course

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Hi Everyone,


I've recently started the NPP Training course with JustIT and have been asked by the MD of the company (Simon Perriton) to provide a blog of my experiences, similar to the "MCITP @ Firebrand Training Blog" thread on this board. This includes the training, career support, work placements and job at the end of it all!


I've been asked to give a completely honest, gloves off review and I fully intend to!


About me: I actually worked for Just IT very briefly this year selling corporate training as I come from a Business Development and Sales background. However, after looking at the course in more depth from “behind the scenes”, talking to the recruitment team (without them knowing my intentions. Honest opinions that way!) I decided it seemed like a great team and a good way of starting my IT career, much to the shock James McAdam and Simon. This was something I looked at doing about 4 years ago but didn't have the money for qualifications (a BND in photography doesn't go very far in the IT world..... or many others for that matter).


As I said, I'm going to try and be as honest as I can with this review so I'll admit that I'm probably one of the stronger candidates that Just IT sees from what I've heard. This will no doubt play a part over the course of these blogs. I don't mean for this to sound arrogant, I'm VERY far from being an all knowledgeable IT geek (yet). I'm just an extremely keen hobbyist and gamer that builds systems in his spare time and fixes family and friends PCs. Hopefully for many of you looking at this course, this is a familiar story. The most important part of my experience and confidence however comes from my commercial background and interpersonal / professional skills.


I've paid in full for the course, including the exams, which came to the sum of £4570, so I’m not doing this for a laugh people! 0.o. The reason I went for this approach rather than the Home Study however is just because it seems like the fastest and best (in terms of basic qualifications and a CCNA) way of getting into my first job in IT.


My group and I started the course on Monday (28th February) and will be finishing the A+ one 5 day instructor led training tomorrow. As this post is getting a bit longer than I had intended I'll wrap it up now and give a full summary of the week tomorrow evening.


Andrew Swetman

 

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For the record the Firebrand student blog was not requested by Firebrand.

SimonD did that off his own back. We didn't know about it until it started happening. We are of course grateful he did it I won't deny.

Secondly SimonD has never (and still doesn't) worked for Firebrand.

Robert Chapman
Director/Co-Founder Firebrand Training.

 

Am I still me?



Looking forward to reading the review!

 

How long is the course to learn the CCNA?

 

Meanwhile, at JustIT Towers... "Ka-Ching!" I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the forum being used as an advertising mechanism by JustIT. Fair enough people posting their experiences (good or bad) off their own back, but to do it because they have been asked to by the company is just free advertising. Is Simon paying CF for the priviledge?

So you are biased then. You have a conflict of interest here in that you worked for the company being reviewed. That relegates your validity as a source down to around the same level as Gadaffi on Libyan Protests.

Congratulations, you have been duped by your own (former) employer. The CCNA is not a certificate anyone should be obtaining unless you have commercial experience with the hardware.

 

I agree with Fergal that the CCNA isn't to be taken lightly. I think it's perfectly acceptable to learn a CCNA or MCSE as a newbie but over a long period of time 6 months to 2 years. Learning a CCNA in 5 days is just pointless. I have worked in IT for 7+ years and if I learned the CCNA I wouldn't do it in 5 days as I would learn over an extended period of time. I'm going to be doing my VCP at the end of this year and plan on doing 5-6 months prep on it before the course. I bought 3 servers and other equipment mainly for this reason. This is why I asked how long is the course I just hope it's over months rather than days/weeks.

 

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'll expand a bit on my first post to hopefully clear up some questions you've raised.

I worked for Just IT from late January this year and started the course on the 28th of Feb. I have my P45 and am no longer employed by them. Also, I've given them a considerable chunk of my own money so I now expect them to work for me! I'm writing these reviews as Simon has asked me to and we agreed that I should be up front about my brief employment with JustIT to avoid any form of deception. However I owe him nothing in way of favours.

For example, although the location of the facilities is good (near Liverpool Street Station) and the hardware (Training PC's, materials etc) are perfectly fine, the building itself is very dated. The toilets, I've been informed, flooded a few times over the past weeks (lovely), but have now been resolved we're assured. Overall to be fair this is a minor gripe as the Trainers themselves and the course content so far has been very good.

One observation though: This is a very fast paced course! The classroom based environment is there for you to ask as many questions to the trainers as you can and learn different methods for studying and what areas to focus your attention on. If you're not confident in your own ability to study for the 3 weeks after the A+ 10 days instructor led (5 for one and 5 for two) then seriously think hard before parting with your money. Rest assured though that so far every relevant question that's been asked has been answered, either by the trainers or another student (another benefit of the 10 days in the classroom together. Talk to each other!!!!). As well as this, we've all got their mobile numbers and business cards to contact them with any questions during “study leave”.

With regards to the CCNA, I couldn't agree with you more! I literally sit next to a guy on the course at the moment who has several Cisco qualifications and hasn't been able to find a job as he's lacking basic help desk experience and basic qualifications. This has become quite apparent with his small knowledge of Windows OS and PC hardware. But of course, this is the exact reason why he's on the course. As am I.

The CCNA is available to take up to 12 months after the start of your course. I'm planing to take mine therefore late November or in December. This should allow me to obtain about 6 months experience before attempting it. The CCNA is the same 5 – 6 day “Fast-Track” course that you find with other providers. 5 Days class / lab based and then a few weeks of home study before the exam. You can however of course book this exam whenever you like so I'll probably sit that Jan / Feb 2012. This was explained to me both when asking about the NPP and by the recruitment team moaning about over qualified students coming to them and having no practical experience. Basically non placeable candidates.


I've been following the Libyan situation btw and “That relegates your validity as a source down to around the same level as Gadaffi on Libyan Protests.” genuinely made me LOL for the record .

One rather important aspect of the course that I haven’t mentioned yet is the career support. The first day of this week was complete dedicated to them learning more about us and our backgrounds so that they can best help us. Not really much to say about this at this point as coming from a sales background I've sat in plenty of training rooms / meetings and had lots of things promised and not delivered, so I'd rather write more about them and that side of things when I see some results from working with them. For now it's mainly about the technical training.

So, I'm going to relax for the week-end and write up my notes so far ready to start the more technical side next week. I may upload another post when I'm doing this just to give you an idea of the topics covered so far.

I hope this helps clear up any misconceptions as to why I'm writing this.

Andrew Swetman

 

I think the best way to find out how good JustIT really is by nominating one of us for a free course with JustIT (If Simon agrees) and that person can write a blog to give Simon negative/positive publicity

 

Yep it's not just JustIT that are guilty of these 5 day fast track but I believe that these courses are probably for people who have experience and want to get through a fast track course to get their certification to back their experience up. I don't believe these courses are for people who have never touched CISCO kit. I am planning on doing my CCENT/CCNA possibly next year but even having 7+ years experience in IT if I do a fast track course I would still do about 6 months prep beforehand. It's crazy to think you can learn a topic like the CCNA in 5 days.

 

Sorry mate, you may well be genuine. The main fact though you have been asked by the company rules your contribution out for me as nothing more than an attempt to spam the forum.

 

What you're failing to understand is that this is exactly why others on this forum are warning people to stay away from training centers like Just IT. Their sales reps have sold this poor guy - and you as well - a course that neither of you should be taking, because the CCNA isn't designed for people without IT experience. If you've bought the course with the promise of taking the CCNA in a year, you've been sold something inappropriate for your skill level.

How long someone has been in a course should have nothing to do with whether one should be taking the CCNA in the first place. Just because someone has been taking courses for a year doesn't automagically make him/her a good candidate for the CCNA.

6 months experience doing what? Administering routers in a real-world environment? Playing around with routers in a classroom lab environment? Doing entry-level IT work? What?

And a course gives people "practical experience" how? Classroom experience isn't considered experience by employers...