Can any of you esteemed IT bods tell me the score with these IT training firms advertised on TV?

Computeach and Cerco are a couple of them?

I finish my current job on Oct 2nd, so I'm looking around at all kinds of jobs at the minute.

Cheers

Spreadie

You mean you want to work with them or train with them? I've never done either to be honest so couldnt say. But with the job market as it is a job is a job!

I personally wouldnt spend a penny training with them. I find their adverts laughable. "Do you want to earn £35k in IT........". Better to buy yourself a few MS books, learn at home and pay for the exams.

Lots of people get conned into distance learning based training courses for MS and Cisco. From what I hear, you spend a few grand to get a couple of hundred pounds worth of MS books, some largely unhelpful powerpoint slides, and occasional access to an instructor who probably knows less than you do, and usually couldn't care less anyway.

You might also get time share access to a test lab that you could easily put together for yourself with a copy of VMware Workstation ($100), or a handful of old spare PCs.

Some of these guys promise to find you a job afterwards or give you a Full Refund. They can meet this requirement by getting you a few weeks of low paid pc and printer maintenance work via an agency. Or they can get out of it by saying you live in an area with few available jobs, and they will only honour their pledge if you are willing to move to London for it.

I have no idea if the training partners you specify are any better than that, but the standards of the industry they are in are very low.

It's different if you are looking at classroom training in something like Redhat, VMware, or more advanced MS stuff like ISA server etc. There you get more or less what you pay for as a rule.

Skill Solve in Oxford are very good but not the cheapest but you do get proper classroom training.
I've got the full MSCE 2003 on CBT if you need it (easier to follow than the books)

What does CBT stand for again?

Computer Based Training

or....

Compulsary Basic Training
Cognitive Behavoural Therapy

I did a course with Cerco about ten years ago - although the cost was pretty eyewatering (about £4k IIRC), it was worth it for a seven week intensive course. The stuff I learnt was relevant and useful professionally, and yes, I got a job at the end of it (although it was for PC World ).

Like I say though, that was ten years ago and a lot has probably changed.

Distance learning, as mentioned above, I probably wouldn't bother. You're better off doing it yourself for a fraction of the cost.

I did an evening course at Leeds Met uni.

That got me a helpdesk job and I have moved up from there to programming.

I looked into this as I wasn't sure that I would always want to remain in my current job. If I ended up physically injured in any way- back injury being one of the most common, not surprisingly- I wouldn't be able to carry on either. Both companies wanted £5K up front for three years and there was no payment scheme or anything.

I'm glad it was so expensive up front, because it forced me to look for an alternative and I found Cert Forums. http://www.certforums.co.uk/ a site dedicated to getting you through your exams. There are people there who have lists of IT qualifications as long as your arm and they've never paid an agency for any of it.

The best part- accessing the equipment- is well covered. Buy yourself a server and a few PCs with your £5K and work on those. It's up to you whether you keep them or sell them on again when you've finished/

I have to be honest, I'm still working my way through the basic (in professional IT terms) Comp TIA A+ and I suspect that if I ever do the exams, I am going to have to get up to date text books covering Vista and maybe even Windows 7, but I've enjoyed the learning that has taken place so far, apart from the Windows OS part that was really heavy going.

pm sent.

You need 1x PC the VMWARE or Virtual PC the rest.

4K for seven weeks? That's pretty good.

The courses I did for DEC Performance Tuning and System Administration, plus some 4D training and programming language training workshops were about 2K for 3 to 5 days!

I'd go with self training and CBT, there are plenty of courses out on the net which are either free or cheap.

For my last job, I needed PHP. I found a couple of free turorials on the net, the day before my interview and crammed for it. Got the job!

Can I borrow it when /if Spreadie is finished with it .Pretty please.