18-25K IT job (or your money back)

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For those more in the know, are these training organisations that promise employment really so bad to get your foot in the door and build some experience?

General consensus here seems to be towards self-study for the A+ and Network + and then entry-level IT roles. I'm all for self-study. Have done it before and quite like learning that route. However, there seems to be really fierce competition for those entry-level roles with many good applicants not managing to get in. As such, is signing up to one of these training companies such a bad move?

Some feedback on the pros and cons and personal experiences would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

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Don't do it.
One way or another, you end up out of pocket.

The 'get you a job' thing is just a hook to sell you training.
The job either never exists, exists and is sh1t, or is out of your reach unless you fill all the T&Cs.

No, no, no and no.

You made the point yourself, competition is fierce - so if everyone could just sign up for one of these schemes and be guaranteed a job at the end of it, surely there would be zero unemployment?

 

You know, my initial reaction was the same but now I'm not so sure. If they're so terrible and it's all a con then why on earth does the company making this particular offer (JustIT) have such excellent reviews on reviewcentre.com. With tons of positive comments.

207 reviews. 4.5/5. With tons of positive comments. If it was just a couple of reviews I wouldn't pay attention as the company could have posted it themselves, but to have so much positive feedback makes me wonder.

 

All kinds of reasons I guess.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they don't deliver good training or aren't helpful - they may well be.
What I'm saying is that you need to be aware that you are signing up for training - not a job.

Personally, if I was running the operation, I'd give all my students a £10 gift voucher if they submitted a positive review. Or £20, or £25 - it's still a fraction of the cost of conventional advertising...

 

Wouldn't be too hard for the company to post the reviews themselves IMO, 207 isn't much. I never trust reviews, they can be faked. I would rather see proof of someone passing one of these courses with a mugshot holding the paper, stating job etc...

See if you can find someone whom has done this course and ask for there experiences if your that set on it, if you can't find any-one ask yourself why...

No-one can guarantee a job...

 

jaydimitri,

Those reviews are to fool you to believing to look genuine and good when actually the reviews are made up, it so easy to create and make these reviews into their websites. How do you know these peoples have given these their approvals. It all too good to be true.

 

Need to be a bit careful here.

You aren't allowed to 'make up' customer reviews, especially if you use them on your website or as part of an advertising campaign. The ASA would have a field day.

But what you can do is provide incentives to those who offer testimonials, or quote people out of context, or select the bits you want out of an otherwise average review...

 

Incidentally, if you do a search, you'll find many threads on here relating to JustIT.

We even had the owner on here with his two cents.

For what it's worth, in my opinion he came across as a credible guy who genuinely wanted to offer a quality service to customers. He made numerous offers to take phone calls or personal visits from anyone interested in finding out more - but there was very little uptake on that.

Having said that, I'm not defending the marketing practices of the business...

 

So... reviews may not be 'accurate' that's good enough for myself to never trust reviews ;) Hearing people's own experience posted on a forum etc (a genuine member and a respected forum) for me is a lot better then reading some crappy review system... meh!

 

I could guarantee you a job at the other end of the country and would therefore kept to my agreement. Is £18k the going rate for an IT job in London?

 

In my experience it all depends n the company and the tactics.

I studied with Computeach who also claimed a "job guarantee" - though I asked the salesperson that at the time of signing up and he admitted that is a bit misleading! They do have a lifetime careers service though and the support is really good. They don't advertise the jobs themselves.

The ones to really avoid are people like Careerjobs UK who look like an employment agency and have jobs avaliable, however this is misleading as they are a training firm and actually sell you the courses (whether the job exists is another matter). There are threads on this forum about them.

My advice is if you want to home-study, check out what people on this forum say. Most of us have done training through them and can offer our experience with them.

 

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Much appreciated. Glad I discovered this site..

I'm more than willing to get started on my certs and seek out an entry level job, it's just that there seems to be so many people fighting for every opening (based on what I'm reading on these forums) that I'm concerned about the prospects. If I was 21 say I wouldn't be too concerned, but being in my late 20's with a background totally unrelated to IT I can't really afford to spend the next few months training for an A+/Network+ only to find out that there's just not enough work to go round. You understand where I'm coming from? That's the only reason I was asking about these job guarantee training companies.

Anyhow, I've decided against it. Their course is about 5K! Way too much. I'm either going to continue teaching whilst pursuing self-study or take up one the cheaper training providers - seems to be others around the 1K mark. The thing is, my teaching job would be abroad, in which case it might be tough to get some hands-on practical experience in my free time (language issues and all).

 

There are probably people with 3-4 years of college in computer science or engineering out of work, there are people fighting for a break that maybe have 10+ years hobbyist computer use. If you can't justify a few months training for a new career then I would absolutely recommend you do not apply.

Would you like your doctor, lawyer, plumber or mechanic to have got their job through a 'job guarantee' scheme and a dodgy training company ?

You can't 'buy a job', because you won't have the skills to do the job ! In any job worth having the potential liabilities of having someone unqualified around are going to far exceed any fee you could pay, if you pay a training provider 5k to get a job then do 10k damage on the first day then its no good is it ?

You will need training and investment if its for an entry level position, I wouldn't get a look in as an RAF pilot because I'm too old and my vision is not 20/20. They won't waste millions on training me and good job too as we need qualified pilots and its taxpayers money!

If a company is going to spend money training someone up, they want to spend it where it makes most sense, on a skilled person with some smarts and some initiative. Giving a training provider 1K in the idea of a 'job bribe' pales into insignificance, of all the hours of supervision and training required.

The 5k is for training. Any recruiter worth their salt will help you sort your CV and get you a job if you have anything to offer. They will be getting healthy commission off the deal from the employer, they don't need extra sweeteners from the candidate.

 

.

I think you misunderstood. I am definitely up for the training if there's work available. This is what I'm not sure about - the market. For example, I know in Law that the market is terrible for your average student with a 2:2 Law degree. A large percentage of Law graduates cannot and will not find work as lawyers/trainees and eventually turn their attentions to something else. I'm just trying to establish what the IT market at entry level is like.

I think you misunderstood how it works. The company that is 'guaranteeing a job' doesn't just give you one after you pay up. You have to complete their training course which includes certification in A+, Network + (and several others), hands-on practical work, & a voluntary 4-8 week job placement. Only AFTER these are successfully completed will your job guarantee come in to play.

I don't think it's very responsible to make random comments about these schemes if you're just guessing what it's about. It's misleading to people like me looking for genuine feedback. Your comments above give the impression that you thought the scheme didn't involve serious training. Obviously, if that were the case, that would be a stupid thing to sign up for.

 

IT is not like Law, there is no bar exam, anyone can practice, unfortunately. There is a healthy demand for skilled people, unfortunately employers have a hard time determining who is genuinely skilled and who is a blagger.

These schemes generally server two purposes :-

1. They let dubious training companies make lots of money off the hopes and dreams of the unfortunate.

2. They churn out a lot of braindump blaggers that should not be in the industry.

You may be one of the lucky ones that has found a genuine IT apprenticeship or similar, in such cases there would rarely be a 5k fee however.

You cannot and should not attempt to 'buy a job' this is bad thinking on your part and bad marketing on their part. If you think the training alone is worth 5k, well its your money isn't it ? I've never spent 5k on the type of training you are outlining, and nor would I if I were in your position today.

Read around the forums, TP's have a bad name for a reason in most cases...

 

Hi jaydimitri,

Just thought I'd tell you about my experience with a similar sort of training/job guarantee company.

About 12 years ago I signed up with a training provider that offered a 'guaranteed job' at the end of the training courses, providing the relevant certs were achieved. If they couldn't place you in a job, then you would work for them in the training centres. They only allowed you 12 months to complete all the courses and get the certs. The total cost of the 'training package' was circa 5k. 5 months into my training they went bust. I never saw the money again.

Fortunately, in the 5 months I'd been with them, I'd realised that the training was crap, and if you struggled to pass the exams, they recommended the use of brain dumps to help you achieve a pass. What they did teach me though was that I didn't need a TP to learn and pass the exams, I could achieve the same results (and save a heap of cash) by buying the books and self studying.

That's not to say that if you sign up with a TP they will go bust the following week, but is worth bearing in mind. Especially since Advent went bust last year also.

Anyway, whichever route you decide to go down - good luck.

NB

 

JayDimitri,

It really up to you if you want to take the risk then go ahead and you successful fair enough but if they fooled you, failing to land you the dream IT job then it your own fault.

My advised would a defintely no.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I've decided against it. Been researching other options - regular training providers that don't come with this job guarantee nonsense. Still quite steep costs wise. About £800 just for A+, and another £800 for the Network +. This doesn't include the cost of exams.

Perhaps I should just try it alone with the books and the online resources. Nothing to lose. But how would that look to prospective employers? Someone getting A+/Network+ certified through self-study with no hands-on practical training in a real lab environment. Surely you'd be the last person considered for a job up against others who have gone with training providers and had real practice. No?

 

Employers only look at the certifications, not how they were attained, they won't ask which training provider you went to.

For subjects such as the N+ or A+ exams there is no reason what so ever that you can't use the self study route, it's all pretty much common sense.

Personally speaking (as someone who has been in the industry a while now) I wouldn't use a scheme like the one mentioned, there are a lot of get out clauses for the company but little to nothing for the student.

On the other hand I am a big advocate of training providers, I do most of my training through them these days (I commute 5 hours a day and am a family man, the last thing I really want to do is study at night so a class room environment works great for me).

Would I advocate coming into IT now? I don't think I would, there are too many people thinking that IT is the quick way to get rich but that's not the case. It takes a long time and a lot of study to get to the point where the money is good so if you're after a career that's all 9 - 5 and easy money then you're probably looking at the wrong career.