Cisco CCNA Retraining Courses - Thoughts - By: Jason Kendall

Should you be looking for Cisco training and you're new to routers, then the qualification you require is CCNA. This training program has been put together to teach people who want a working knowledge of routers. Big organisations who have different locations use routers to connect their various different networks of computers to keep in contact with each other. The Internet also is based on huge numbers of routers.

Routers are linked to networks, therefore it is essential to know how networks work, or you will be out of your depth with the qualification and not be able to do the work. Look for a course that covers networking fundamentals (CompTIA is ideal) before you get going on CCNA.

Get on a tailored route that will systematically go through everything to make sure that you've mastered the necessary skills and knowledge prior to commencing your Cisco training.

Training support for students is an absolute must - look for a package providing 24x7 full access, as anything less will frustrate you and could put a damper on the speed you move through things. Look for training with proper support available at any time of day or night (even if it's early hours on Sunday morning!) You'll need 24x7 direct access to mentors and instructors, and not access to a call-in service which takes messages - so you're consistently being held in a queue for a call-back at a convenient time for them.

The best trainers have many support offices active in different time-zones. An online system provides an interactive interface to link them all seamlessly, no matter what time you login, help is just seconds away, avoiding all the delays and problems. Unless you insist on 24x7 support, you'll end up kicking yourself. It may be that you don't use it throughout the night, but consider weekends, early mornings or late evenings.

Commercial certification is now, undoubtedly, starting to replace the more academic tracks into IT - why then has this come about? Vendor-based training (in industry terminology) is far more specialised and product-specific. The IT sector has become aware that specialisation is essential to meet the requirements of a technically advancing workplace. CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA are the key players in this arena. Academic courses, for instance, clog up the training with a great deal of loosely associated study - and a syllabus that's too generalised. This prevents a student from getting enough core and in-depth understanding on a specific area.

What if you were an employer - and you wanted someone who could provide a specific set of skills. Which is the most straightforward: Pore through loads of academic qualifications from hopeful applicants, having to ask what each has covered and which commercial skills they have, or choose particular accreditations that exactly fulfil your criteria, and then select who you want to interview from that. The interview is then more about the person and how they'll fit in - rather than establishing whether they can do a specific task.

In most cases, the everyday student has no idea how they should get into IT, or even which sector they should be considering getting trained in. Reading a list of odd-sounding and meaningless job titles is a complete waste of time. The majority of us have no idea what our own family members do for a living - so we're in the dark as to the intricacies of a specific IT job. To come through this, a discussion is necessary, covering a number of unique issues:

* Your personality can play a significant part - what kind of areas spark your interest, and what are the things that get you down.

* What time-frame are you looking at for your training?

* What priority do you place on salary vs job satisfaction?

* With everything that Information Technology encompasses, it's a requirement that you can absorb how they differ.

* It's wise to spend some time thinking about what kind of effort and commitment you'll put into your education.

For the majority of us, sifting through these areas tends to require the help of someone who can explain things properly. Not only the accreditations - but the commercial requirements of the market as well.

A knowledgeable and specialised consultant (vs a salesman) will cover in some detail your current situation. There is no other way of working out the point at which you need to start your studies. Remember, if you've had any relevant work-experience or certification, then it's not unreasonable to expect to pick-up at a different starting-point to someone new to the industry. It's wise to consider some basic Microsoft package and Windows skills first. Beginning there can make the slope up to the higher-levels a a little easier.

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