Choosing the right career

With so many challenges in today's business environment, it doesn't make any sense to invest hundreds of thousands of rands in a career that cannot guarantee a future. The only career that has future guarantees is ICT; there is a huge demand for software developers and forecasts predict a growth in demand, especially for web developers.

Cloud computing an evolving concept

Gartner maintains that cloud computing is very much an evolving concept that will take many years to fully mature. It also underlined the fact that the cloud-computing model is not simply the next generation of the Internet.

Furthermore, the move towards cloud computing and virtualisation has brought about innovative ideas and has become one of the most prominent trends in IT today. What does cloud computing and virtualisation mean for the future of IT skills?

Cloud computing is driving discontinuity that introduces exciting opportunities and costly challenges. Organisations need to understand these changes and develop realistic cloud-sourcing strategies and contracts that can reduce risk.

Impending skills shortages a major concern

The impending skills shortages in the ICT sector are a major concern for many high-level executives worldwide. The same concerns are being echoed in South Africa and, hopefully, the thousands of school graduates will capitalise on this opportunity.

Employers are not only impressed by course certificates, they also want to see that you can solve a business problem with your skills - and they want to see how you do it.

GetCertified offers a weekly open support evening, at no extra cost to its students, at which they can ask questions about their specific course and project. Furthermore, GetCertified is part of a group of companies that also owns a recruitment agency, Compuways. Unlike other training companies, GetCertified strives to find a job for all its unemployed students.

International certification

We encourage students to follow our methodology, which results in an international certification and a proper project to show to potential employers. Our mission is to assist students to pass their international exams. We achieve this by delivering our courses with a strong practical flair, instead of focusing only on exam questions and answers.

The benefit of practicality is twofold: the student can immediately use these practical skills in the workplace and, secondly, he can prepare more easily for exams. Many unemployed people come to us to better themselves for the job market and we have successfully placed many at our clients from our recruitment company Compuways.

Building blocks

First of all, a programmer needs to know his tools. If you know the building blocks and tools, you can proceed to build the house. We teach you the theory and how to apply it during our courses. We also teach you how to approach and solve a business problem using these tools and skills.

GetCertified recommends that complete beginners should start at the Complete Introduction To Programming, which can be done over five days, full time. Alternatively, you can do part-time training courses, which run over five Saturdays (six-hour sessions) or two nights per week for five weeks (three-hour evening classes) because there is more time to take the knowledge in and process it with exercises.

The budget to do at least four courses to get to the international certificate level is about R8000 per course, but five or six courses are even better and recommended. The duration is five to six weeks per course.

A bare necessity is a Matric certificate with at least a pass in mathematics. We always recommend you should do an aptitude test, like the one on www.3smartcubes.com, and send us the results.

For more information, go to www.compuways.com or www.getcertified.co.za.