A Word of Warning re: TV Ads

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I was at my parents for Christmas and I happened to see an ad for a certain namesless IT traning providor (although, how many have TV ads?)
I have to say it was the biggest load of rubbish I have seen

let me warn anyone here and now, doing a course will *not* make you an 'IT Consultant' overnight, nor will it make you a sucessful web designer after sitting infront of dreamweaver for a month in your spare time

nor is this an industry you should think you can get into in your 'spare time'

IT is a demanding and ruthless industry, requiring 110% from most of the staff who are continually asked to know more and more whilst keeping the same salary, generally not trained effectivly and where getting ahead generally requires you to live and breath this stuff in your allocated 'spare' time. Getting 30K, or a fancy position, or both, will not happen overnight, will not depend on a qualification more often than not, and is just not promisable by any company providing training

Please heed the warnings folks, if you read anything before signing a fair chunk of your savings away, read this, and the rest of the threads in these forums

Thanks

Sorry, after seeing that Ad I kinda had to get that off my chest, and all those new googlites might find it handy ;)





Edit: Just added the *not* to make the sentence read correctly - Blue

Thread pinned.(J)

 

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I haven't seen these ads on TV but I would like to state that the same applies here in Australia.

It strikes me that people are being mislead completely by TV ads, salesman, misinformed people and career advisor's that IT is the industry to get into, especially if you are young and keen.

In reality it is a very tough industry to get into and survive, all the desirable jobs are taken by experienced people that have been working in IT for years. There is no magic way to get into this industry. In truth, the bubble burst about five years ago when the dot.com companies started to fail. Since then highly paid jobs in IT are as rare as rocking horse manure.

The sheer amount of study necessary to qualify for a help desk position these days is astronomical. Help desks asking for MCSEs where the employer is only offering a pittance for all the hard work is indicative of the reality of the situation.

Then there are the cheats, the despicable dumpers that devalue our hard earned certs and undermine everything we have tried to achieve. Nobody these days trusts that you have got your certs legitimately and they are not going to offer the kind of salaries that I have heard banded around so often.

Please think very carefully before you switch careers into IT, it could well be out of the frying pan into the fire.

 

Also you can only get out what you put in, so if you put in a lot of effort the rewards can be great, not speaking from personal experience seen it happen to others, maybe time to get off my backside and make more of an effort.

 

Just seen this post, and I couldn't agree more with the comments. It is a personal gripe with me that these training providers both big and small are in most cases nothing more than con-men. IT is an exciting career if not bloody hard work to get into and progress in and it boils my yellow coloured water when you see adverts and tv ad's that promise £30k a year after installing a hard drive. I would like to see how many people have manged to get a job that pays this after 6 months training.

In my local paper on a Thursday it has a job suppliment and within that there are about 2-3 adverts stating want to be a IT/Network Engineer and earn upto £600 per week as there is a shortage or IT pro's. Utter crap whislt there probably is a shortage in specialised IT jobs there isn't a grass roots jobs in fact there is a big overspill of people wanting to get into IT at this level.

The goverment should stop these types of ad's as it encourages people to think they will be making vast sums of money by doing a short course. The only vast sums of money being paid is for the unlucky punter to the training provider...

 

I know the Ad your referring to. If you make the mistake of picking up the phone you get a real live salesman at the door who will lie even more.

These ad's in every paper printed at the moment are all the same, although it always amuses me there are never any IT jobs actually advertised with them. Every time you go to the IT section in a national or jobs paper and there are two or three of the training ad's and not a lot else.

The only people making serious money in IT at present are the endless training providers. Who with very little regulation to follow tend to do as they please.

 

LOL, I never really thought about that but your right.

 

Well ive had some of these salesmen round my house, promising me everything , from the best training to help with getting that dream job at the end of it . Thankfully i wasnt daft enough to go through with it. The saying goes if it seems to good to be true , then it probably is . I do want to work in IT and the only option i can think of at the moment is college, but would an employer favour that type of qualification over that of one of these so called crash courses etc . The feed back would be great here folks

 

Yup, I saw one of those ads over christmas at my parents too. I went into instant rant mode, these morons who advertse that the average salary in IT is 37k and that you too could retrain and be earning mega bucks in no time annoy me intensely.

 

Although I was kind of taken in by these kind of adverts a few years ago, I like to think that I am a little more cynical nowadays. I have heard rumours of one of these companies charging almost £6000 to get you through your MCSE and "get you set with a job" at the end of it all.

If it was true, it would be a small price to pay for a £30k p.a. job. But as somebody else said earlier, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I'm not doing things for instant riches (and most of you guys on here know that that is nonsense anyway), but to improve my overall knowledge and assist in getting that better position down the line.

 

Been there done that, had the guy round my house, "helping" me through my CDL application. if it hadn't been for a family emergency i would have signed there and then, and be £4.5K worse off. I'm still no nearer an IT job but at least im not bankrupt

I know that may be a cynical point of view, but i just cant imagine how anyone would employ someone on certificates alone without experience, especially the further up the certificate ladder you go

 

LOL - I think the above deserves further explanation

 

Whilst being an expert at filling in loan forms,he was clearly not accustomed to the ancient and noble art of "not stepping on a prospective customers garden". I call it a garden, it was really the most pathetic eyesore you could imagine, BUT IT WAS MY EYESORE DAMN IT!!!!

 

Whoops, reminds me of a time when I was fixing tellys. I was with a mate and he was wearing a sheepskin coat because it was winter. We were standing in the customers living room and he turned round and his coat flung open and knocked a rather daggy looking glass clown off the mantle piece. It fell to the floor and smashed to pieces.

The young lady owner of the house burst into tears and run up stairs crying her heart out. We just looked at each other in disbelief. Moments later she ran back down stairs flew into the living room and grabbed the good matching remaining clown off the mantle piece and ran back up stairs still sobbing her heart out.

We did our thing with the telly got out of there

 

My mate was a Telewest installer and he had this new guy who insisted he could drill a a hole for the cable from the outside of the house into a very exact spot inside the old girls living room, even though the other two guys on the job said it wasn't worth taking the chance and messing it up. "No problem," says new boy "I do any damage, I'll pay fo it myself". Famous last words! He did a beuatiful job drilling the hole, but right at the end, the curtain got caught round the drill and pulled the curtain rail, the pelmut and half the wall down with it. Caused about £3000 worth of damage!

 

Just to add my bit to this. I was told that entering this industry would not be easy. My training company (NITLC) told me no lies saying that i would have to study for at least 3 to 4 hours a day to keep up with the Time limit. Now I'm having problems with keeping up to this time table (bearing in mind that I have a Job which involves High speed driving for 9 hours a day and also a 9 month old daughter to keep track of). I don't want to put anybody off taking the self study route. But I have heard that the money at the and of the day is well worth the effort.

 

This is just a generic cautionary tale, not a direct response to damienj3. "The day" may be a very long "day". Once a person accumulates skills--and notice I did not say certifications--there is still the work of finding that first job in IT. I worked for a year and half at around 100 hours a week in an IT job before I started studying for my certifications. It has been more than 3 years since I started studying and it looks like I'll finally get my break here shortly--knock on wood because I've thought this several times before too.

I have sent out a "ton" of resume's, interviewed with at least 30 different employers, some of them several times, and I'm just now maybe going to get a job in IT. Even then, my Windows skills are not the main reason this job position is opening up for me. It's my Linux skills that have opened the most doors and impressed the most people. IT people know that if you can configure a Samba server you didn't braindump it. They know if you can configure an Exim mail server you didn't braindump it. They know if you can successfully install and configure a Linux server you didn't braindump it. If you have an MCSE they don't know you didn't braindump it.

I hate to say it, but feel it is true, but Windows people are a dime a dozen these days. There are literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of MCSE's out there and a large percentage of them are looking for work.

My advice is: don't look to get certified. Look to gain knowledge and understanding and accept your certs as a validation of your real goal. Find a niche to distinguish yourself, such as Linux where people know you must have real skills and understanding, and develop skills in that area.

All this isn't said to discourage, it's said to show the realities of breaking into IT. If you want a job in IT you're going to have study hard, work hard, and endure a long and sometimes very discouraging job search. It just depends on how much you want it. IT isn't a panacea, a place where you automatically make big money, where jobs grow on trees and the branches are all very low to the ground.

You have to love it. You have to live it, eat it, dream it, to succeed in it. If IT isn't your passion, it may not be worth the effort, for only a passion for this will get you past the long hard days, and the discouragement that comes to everyone I know of who has finally gotten that first job.

 

Anything is better than £5.05 per hour. And in response to FFreeloaders response. I can agree with you with what you say. Although I'm not working in I.T at the moment I know of several people with MCSE status who would give an arm and a leg just to get on The I.T ladder.