Beginner

[busDriver]

Hi to you all.

I'm looking to get a foot in the IT door, but just don't know where to start...so I thought I'd start here!

I've been using PCs for a few years now, and so I'm quite comfortable playing around with them.

So, what would you think is the quickest way into some kind of IT work? I don't need to earn much money in the early stages, and just want to do a quick course and get into a job as soon as possible (I'm out of work at the moment and poor!).

Any help will be greatly appreciated. By the way, I'm in the U.K.

[deddard]

The UK like every other country has internationally recognised qualifications - CompTIA are a good starting place.
Many colleges throughout the UK run CompTIA courses, the most popular being the A+ which is the entry qualification for PC repair, maintenance and troubleshooting. The Network+, as it#s name implies is for networking, and the list goes on. You may be able to get on one of them for free if you are umeployed, but it depends on how comfortable you are with the technical side of things. Microsoft specific qualifications start at MCP, and many colleges offer MCSA - again you may be able to get on these for free.

If you're looking for less technical stuff, it depends which route you want to go. you could train as an MS office specialist if you are familiar with Microsoft office, or go for something such as Oracle (this can be very well paid!) or Linux ( not too many support techies around)

An A+ will generally get you into first level support desk work, so that's probably the way to go on the technical side. I'm in the UK and have gone down the A+ route, and am now prepping for Network+ and Cisco CCNA.

post back with a few details of where your interest lies, andwe'll be able to guide you better.

[busDriver]

Thanks for your reply deddard.

Well I like the sound of the A+ course. How long would it take to complete (roughly, I know everyone works at their own pace).

And what sort of jobs are there with that qualification; is there much work about and what kind of money can you earn with an A+?

[deddard]

The length of time to study A+ really depends on your current knowledge - there's everything from installing hdds and NICs to troubleshooting IRQ and DMA settings in the hardware part of the test, and everything from basic configuration of Win 98 through Me, NT, 2000 and XP. There still seems to be a lot of quesitons on NT (some of which are downright weird!), so whether you've used it or not, you'll need to study it.

Many colleges now offer A+ in one Semester (around 17 weeks) part - time (usually 1 evening per week) which is great if you already know most of the stuff and need to tie it all together. I consider this to be as much of a cramming session as anything else; my college originally offered the A+ in a full academic year part time, but they have also now introduced the 17 week course.

The exam is in two parts - the first is the core (hardware) and the second is the OS. Although the CompTIA courses are supposed to be vendor-neutral, the A+ appears to be MS/Intel/AMD all the way through.

A+ techies can often be found working in 1st line support on helpdesks, or in repair shops. Salaries vary considerably, but £14.000 seems to be an average starting place. (mind you, I've seen employers asking for CCIE, MCSE, and others at less than £18000!! :eek: )

Here's a link for CompTIA's A+ site - you can check the requirements etc there.

http://comptia.org/certification/a/default.aspx