A Word of Warning re: TV Ads

[Phoenix]

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)

[Bluerinse]

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.

[wizard]

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.

[michael78]

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...

[MrNice]

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.

[michael78]

Originally Posted by MrNice

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.

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

[zxspectrum]

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

[wagnerk]

Hi Phoenix,

I couldn't agree with you more. They make out that getting into IT only takes a few weeks. No wonder everyone thinks that we in the IT industry have it cushy, after all according to the comericals it's easy and quick to get in and earn money!!!

-Ken

[Phil]

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.

[BelfastNeil]

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.

[randomstu]

Originally Posted by zxspectrum

Well ive had some of these salesmen round my house, promising me everything ,

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

[Bluerinse]

HEADLINE "The salesman murdered my fuschia"

LOL - I think the above deserves further explanation

[randomstu]

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!!!!

[Bluerinse]

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

[Baba O'Riley]

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!