skillstrain questions

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well and any answers please.

my Brother in law is currently unable to work and was keen on spending some time retraining in the IT world he has been offered a skillstrain course although it is £50 deposit and 35 * £70 to follow. they are on income support and asked me whether this was worth the money. they have been promised £100,000 + annual salary which is a load of b*ll*cks if you parden my english. I would say an average of maybe 20-30K.. but I suggested that maybe he tries some local courses at college for a year or so instead. skillstrain have told him that these courses are not recognised and only the CCNA, NETPRO courses are used by employers.

I don't want to give him any bad advise and when searching for skillstrain this forum was near the top in the results.

does anyone have any experience of this training organisation, although my sister was shocked when I told her that I just went on a £1800 4 day overview of java at learning tree, when she was complaining about the cost...

thanks in advance for any replies. sorry for the newbie approach but my 510M battery is low

clartsonly


Admin edit (J): Moved to Training & Development

 

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Hi clartsonly,

Firstly, I moved your post to the relevant forum

Second - how could you even write that Thread with the smell of bu11$h1t coming from those claims ??? Take another bucket of salt (as I assume you have already ingested at least one) and ask them for a reality check. Even £20-30k is an optimistic hope for starting in IT nowadays.

Sorry to p1$$ on your parade (or maybe I'm not if it helps you) but that just ain't realistic information you've been given.

Hope that helps. btw, if you plan on hanging around, why not pop up to the New Members board and drop us a quick intro

 

Wow! Who do these liars think they are, making such outrageous claims.

 

It's obvious really, to get people to sign up for their great training programs!

When my "Rep" came round for my "interview" (Let's face it, it was more a sales pitch than a "See if he's got the ability to finish the course!"), he flashed all the funky wage figures "£35K if I qualify as a CCNA", "£25K as a PC Engineer". That was before he even talked about the actual courses!

Yes, I'm aware that I may make that after a few years of actually working in the field! It's the first job that's going to be hard nut to crack! Which of course they don't tell you unless you find a forum like this!

 

Well, nothing much more to be said here then!

 

I think I've mentioned this on another thread before.
The guy who came to see you was a salesman, and his income is going to be based on how many people he signs up.
He doesn't deal with the students and doesn't have to pick up the pieces afterwards. He probably doesn't know anything about the IT industry or the courses he's selling. Last week he was probably selling hoovers.

Just because he's an idiot, doesn't mean that the company is dodgy or the courses are bad, which is what you really need to worry about. If the material is good and the student support is good then you're getting what you paid for.

However, anything that the salesman promises you becomes part of the contract, written or not. The real problem is proving it when push comes to shove. By the time you realise it's all b@11@cks, he'll be back selling hoovers.

I would suggest that you phone the company and speak to someone in authority, a tutor or a manager. Put it in writing too, just for the record. They are going to be stuck with you for a while and are going to have to deal with this so they can't ignore it. They'll be interested to know that they have a rogue salesman (I hope) and it's best to bring this up while it's fresh in everyone's mind.

At the end of the day, you're not going to get what he promised you.

 

I had a huge post which got lost

but it went something like this..

hello sorry for the lack of introductions, I am Male 34, software developer in Oracle, and Microsoft products.

I would like to thank you all for your backup regarding this clown, I am glad my sister, although not mega brainy, has the common sense to smell a load of shite when she hears it. she informed the sales guy that her brother (me) was writing computer games on the Commodore64 when he was 13, and was told that I would be a millionaire by now then. did I miss something.

I will inform them not to chase this type of training.

although he is still in the situation that he thinks IT is the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, I suggested that maybe he takes some ms office evening classes to see if he wants to continue, then try a few other of the "cheap" eg £18 for 6 classes - to make sure that is what he wants to concentrate on. as I said he has a year off work due to a shoulder and head injury / operation. and could change his career if he works hard. although I don't know how his shoulder would put up with the RSI from typing all day long.

has anyone got any advise regarding stepping into the IT market for someone still quite young, I have already told him that a load of people just end up in "helpdesk" jobs.

I think he reckons he would like to go into the networking area. personnally I told him I would prefer to be in charge of a building site, wearing a yellow hat and jacket with a clipboard telling people to smash down walls, sounds far more rewarding.

anyway thanks again for your input at least now I havn't told him to waste his money. and that is a great comparison for the £800 hoover salesmen from back in 1991.

 

This post has been very informative as today I had a guy from skillstrain who talked a lot of rubbish including that if i do not get a job 8 weeks after finishing the course I will get my £ back.

I will fax their office tomorrow asking them to confirm this in writing

However I has anyone got experience with the company and the level off training they give, after paying out nearly £3000 I really need a job afterwards!

 

That's good advice. I met a guy the other week on my course - MCSE,CCNA etc - who said that until he started the course, he'd hardly even switched a PC on. I couldn't believe that he was doing such a high-level cert that he was paying 3 or 4 £k for and for all he knew, he had no aptitude for, or interest in, computers. It beggars belief that people still see IT as a huge money maker. Especially as, in my experience, IT departments are looked down upon by every other department in most companies - even by the guy who cleans the lavs (not having a go at toilet cleaners there, I've cleaned my fair share of pans).

 

Thanks for your advice nut I have a degree in IT and have worked as a multimedia programmer some years ago, but in recent years I found it hard to get work both in iT and logistics (which is my other area). A blip in my health has not helped neither is the fact that i am now 43.

While their might not be millions to be earned in IT their are sill a good living that can be made, most of my younger friends who left uni at the same time as me are doing OK (one of my friends who does sales earns over 100k)

Paying for the Skillstrain course will be a effort and I just trying to find out if their might be a light at the end off the course or just wasting time and £

 

I have no first hand experience with skillstrain, but I do know that there are others here that have. Some good, some bad.

What I will say is that you will get out of the course what you put into it. By this I mean that if you go in expecting it to be an easy ride you will be sadly mistaken. Approach it with the right attitide and you will get your moneys worth out of the training provider.

 

Totally agree mate I feel that some people think that if you pay out for a course then you automatically get awarded a cert at the end work or no work, guaranteed.

 

I had a skilstrain "advisor" over a few months back. Got all the spiel about how much I'd earn with a ccna etc. Then from out of no where he says" Well, I've got my MSCE and I was earning X amount of pounds"..... Then why the hell are you drinking my coffee, getting paid commission to get me to sign up?

When I politlye said I'd talk to my partner and parents about any decision I got "well, it's your life you know, it's your decision" That decided it for me and I'm now self-teaching! I don't care how good the course is after that load of drivel I'd rather burn the contents of my bank account than give it to them....

 

Got MCSE?
Chose Salesman!
Think: SkillsTrain...

 

Choose a career in IT, Choose working hard, Choose getting a Cert, Choose an entry level position, choose wroking even harder, choose eventually getting that dream job....

I chose not to do these things and I'm a SkillTrain advisor with an MCSE...apparently.

 

dear me, will you guys do some research b4 you post your opinions, people out there need your help but it needs to be good advice!!!!!!
people who have done little college courses or cheap courses struggle to get a job in B&Q never mind I.T.
All you have to do is look on any jobs search to find the majority of good jobs are in IT. dont listen to a course advisor or salesman do your homework b4 they turn up. It is hardly likely you will start off on any more than 20-25k with a cisco (ccna and ccnp) certificate but the wages are plain to see if you bother to look, you can end up earning more than 100k
i have cisco cert but found it best to do an A+ OR N+ first. cisco is difficult but do-able if your prepared to stick at it. My flat mate started with me and whinged how crap the training was but never bothered doing the work. It took me nearly 18months with skills train and i found them ok. course work was decent tutors were always on hand. nothing flash but ok. i did not get help to find a job from skills train. there was some help offered but i did not need their help, if you get the certification you will get a job****have a look yourself there are hundreds of cisco jobs. i tried computeach to do c# but they are poop. i would recommend skillstrain 3.5k but i didnt have to pay for anything else even my exams and resits were paid which is important cos i recon no one passes cisco first time. hope his helps

 

I think you'll find most people are giving the benefit of their experience with ST. You've had a good experience with them which is fair enough but it would seem a lot of people aren't too pleased with some aspects of the company.

My PERSONAL experience with the ST advisor is completly legit, he really did say he was mcse trained. He also did try to purt the thumbscrews on me to sign up there and then. If you think this is an acceptable buisness practice then that is your OPINION but you'll find yourself in the vast minority.

So before you come here and tell us to do our reaserach maybe think that we already have......

 

hmm im on a skills train course at the moment, hoping im going to get to do my A+ exam before i start the N+. Fingers crossed.

However i have been job searching in the mean time and i have been getting some interesting results regarding salaries for CCNA and CCNP and they are all around £30k - £60k. That doesnt sound too bad to me. However Salaries for Bench PC and laptop engineers are falling well short of the promised £18k - £25k PA

the salaries i have been finding for those types of jobs have ranged from £10k upto 16k with the odd employer offering around £18k+ PA. Doesnt look so promising, however it is more than i am currently earning doing floor laying so i cant complain if i manage to land one of those jobs while still training.

 

don't let the ccnp salaries blind you. it takes a looong time (including quality time you'd rather spend otherwise), a huge dose of dedication, and sometimes a fair amount of money to get there. you can't be an expert in a wink of an eye.