- I want to upgrade and take Cisco CCNA courses, then I will be able to rebuild the network, make it cheaper and more reliable, and maintain it at a new level. Can you help with payment? - the system administrator, who has worked for 7 years, looks at the director.
"I'll train you, and you'll leave." What am I, a fool? Go to work, is the expected answer.
The system administrator goes to the place, opens a forum, Toster, Habr and reads how to set up routing on a network of shit and sticks of almost museum equipment. Hands dropped a little, but oh well - you can set aside money for training and pay for it yourself. Or maybe just leave? They brought a new Tsiska from the neighbors ...
Have you been in such a situation? On-the-job training organized by the company or at the initiative of the employee is, in my opinion, one of the most productive forms: the employee already knows exactly what he wants from the course, how to evaluate the information and how to use it. This is the case when a six-month course can bring more benefits than the entire university put together. Today we will talk about courses, corporate universities, mentoring and the most useless form of training. Pour hot tea, sit down in front of the monitor, let's choose the form and / or format of training together.
Tease your reflexes - keep learning!
This is the fourth part of the cycle "Live and Learn":
Part 4. Education inside the work
Part 5. Self-education
Share your experience in the comments - maybe, thanks to the efforts of the RUVDS team and Habr readers, someone's education will turn out to be a little more conscious, correct and fruitful.
So, university, magistracy and, maybe, postgraduate studies are behind you, you are at work. The work routine has already dragged on, approaches to tasks have been formed, salaries are twice a month, and the immediate prospects are more or less obvious. What motives might there be to get back into teaching in a serious way? There are enough motives.
- The desire to change the field of activity in order to move to a better job, earn more money, learn a new profession, etc.
- The need to upgrade skills for the current job in order to grow vertically or shift horizontally; change jobs.
- The need to gain new knowledge, to try another area - for example, when the wrong university is graduated, the wrong job is chosen, there are feelings of career and intellectual stagnation, etc.
- Emotional reasons (for the company, for the sake of interest, out of boredom, etc.). The most controversial motivation, because in this case the eternal student has no goal and no specific planning. In defense of this group of students, it can be said that often during their studies they penetrate and with no less enthusiasm go into work in a new specialty.
Мы , now we will discuss alternative options that save time (but not money) and allow you to learn something new in the shortest possible time.
Job-related training, but not within it
▍ Part-time, evening courses
The form of education that is most similar to the usual university: in the evenings you attend 3-3,5 hours of lectures and practice, where teachers help you master new material. At the same time, there are no unnecessary non-core subjects in the courses, the students are the same working people as you are, that is, in addition to learning, you can make new and sometimes useful acquaintances.
pros
- As a rule, teachers at such courses are practitioners, which means that they provide material to the extent that it is useful to you in real work. Some skills can be applied from the first days.
- Classes are held in the evening 2-3 times a week and do not interfere with work (if you have traffic jams, agree that on school days you will come to work a little earlier and leave, respectively, too).
- You solve practical problems in the company of professionals equal to you and thus, additionally perceive patterns of thinking, apply teamwork skills and receive additional information from classmates.
- Groups in courses are often small in number, and each student receives significant attention from the teacher both in terms of answering questions and in terms of practical work.
- If the courses have some kind of corporate link, at the end you can get a job offer in the specialty you have received - and if you are just stepping into IT, this is a very cool opportunity (for example, from our group of 9 people, one received an offer immediately, three agreed to transfer to the company at the end of the training, three more offers were received, but rejected).
Cons
- The courses are quite expensive.
- University courses can be “stuffed” with non-core subjects and be taught by theorists who earn extra money after regular lectures.
- You may drastically lack an educational background (for example, in the process of studying at the Software Development program, I lacked knowledge of mathematics, and I had to first analyze the problem mathematically, and then solve it programmatically).
- You may be faced with an outdated material base (how do you, for example, master Windows Server 2008 and an XP PC in 2018?), so a laptop, money for licenses, or the ability to find something a little pirated for learning purposes can be very useful, but fresh 🙂
What to look for
- Carefully study the course program and the number of hours, find out what is included in the training and what form of final certification awaits you at the end (ranging from nothing to defending a full-fledged diploma project in English).
- Ask the methodologist who your teacher is, what experience he has, whether he practices.
- Find out about the possibilities of installment payments or splitting the payment by periods - as a rule, this form of payment is less burdensome.
- If there is an entrance exam or an entrance interview, do not try to bypass it, be sure to pass it - this way you will assess your level of preparation and be able to ask questions that are important to you.
- If there is English as part of the course, do not try to deduct its cost from the cost of studying (because you already know it). It is in foreign classes that a close acquaintance with the group takes place, and this is very important - often fellow students call each other to work.
- Find out if a course completion certificate is given and in what format (you need any paper with a seal and signature).
▍Corporate Universities
An interesting training format available to both employees within the company and external listeners. You study at the company itself, its authorized training center or at a partner department of a base university (for example, the Higher School of Economics or your state university), you also receive part-time or evening education within the chosen narrow specialization (information security, communication systems, software development, project management, 1C programming, etc.).
pros
- This is a great way to get to know the company, with teachers (who, as a rule, are not lower than middle), try to get a job in it. Moreover, sometimes this is the only easy way to get into the company by showing yourself during training.
- 90% of corporate university lecturers are practitioners. You are not just learning, but solving real combat tasks that a teacher had to solve as a manager or a techie.
- Comfortable learning environment - in fact, you are on an equal footing with the teacher, since both are managers, but from different companies.
Cons
- In your company, executives may not appreciate the prospects of learning inside someone else's corporate university.
- Teachers can provide information tailored to the patterns and problems of their company; perhaps something for you will be irrelevant or inapplicable.
If, however, an employee of the company to which the course belongs is studying at a corporate university, then there are more pluses (benefits during training, next to the desktop, attention of colleagues and management, easily applicable knowledge, a clear model of career advancement/movement), and minus one is sometimes very difficult treat your colleagues as teachers.
▍Distance courses and online learning
You get access to educational resources (videos, lectures, abstracts, books, sometimes entire libraries, code repositories, etc.) and study either at a convenient time or at an agreed time without leaving your workplace (well, or from your personal PC). You have a “cool” job, the opportunity to communicate with a teacher (chat or Skype), homework, but you most often do not know how many of you are on the course, who is with you, and communication with “fellow students” can turn into an outright flood.
pros
- Saving time and energy on the road and fees.
- Convenient and familiar learning format.
- You can study right at work or right after it in the office (if there are no brutal systems for monitoring working hours, actions, logging, fierce security service and fellow informers. You can’t, karoch.)
- You can choose a comfortable pace of work and deal with incomprehensible moments right there, on the Internet, on Toster, on Habré, on StackOverflow, etc.
Cons
- High motivation and self-organization is required, because it is rather self-education than training with a classical mentor.
- There is no live communication within the learning process.
- It is very difficult to check the teacher and clarify whether it is the one announced in the course description.
- The risk of making a mistake with the choice of the course - there are so many of them now that it is very difficult not to miss and get into a really high-quality online school (even corporations can fail).
- Minimal employment opportunities - if you do not show outstanding abilities (and how do you do it online?), the only thing you should count on is getting your resume into the HR database of partner companies, which, if necessary, can call.
What to look for
- On the certification form and the conditions for obtaining a paper signed certificate with a seal (often you need to pay extra for it).
- Terms of payment and urgency of access to course materials (ideally, this should be perpetual access).
- Listener reviews on social networks and on independent sites (they are usually moderated on the site).
- On the format of interaction with the teacher (ideally, this should be a chat + analysis of homework with students, preferably with the preliminary sending of homework).
Since at the beginning of the “Live and Learn” series we agreed on some subjectivity of our reviews, I will say that I am wary of online forms of education. It is scary to pay sometimes very big money for unknown content. There are so many cool and really intelligible courses on the Internet in all areas of IT knowledge that it seems to me the best choice is to give preference and time to just such knowledge. In addition, most employers didn’t give a damn about the papers of online schools with a great deal of skepticism, but real skills and theoretical skills have not bothered anyone yet. For example, thanks to my exceptional theoretical knowledge of the OSI network model, I once managed to get my first job in IT - to become a test engineer (at 27, without a technological background). Of course, it's up to you to decide, but I'm more of a supporter of 0,5-1-1,5-year courses with an offline presence.
▍Trainings and workshops
A good training format, unless, of course, we are talking about trainings for personal growth and other business youth. These are short, intensive courses in which the teacher helps to deepen your knowledge in a field familiar to you and take a short course of practice.
Last from 3 hours to several days. I will not talk about the pros and cons - the main thing is that this is not an advertisement for some next product. See sponsors, check organizers and speaker reviews and go. Sometimes it is very interesting to go to a training or workshop that is not in your field - for example, you can understand your colleagues a little better.
Forms of learning within the workflow
This is a very important block that cannot be bypassed. I had a multidirectional experience of training within the company and, I think, it is worth talking about it, because the companies themselves position this as their competitive advantage in HR PR, and employees hope for results.
▍Mentoring and mentoring
How do newcomers feel in your company on their first working days? Sitting at an empty table and nervously fiddling with a welcome package while waiting for a working PC? Poke into the phone, just not to look at colleagues? Or are they relaxed and comfortable reading information about their work? Alas, my experience suggests that the latter are at least. Meanwhile, in Russian IT there are many companies (and even very small ones) that are worth learning from: a new employee is assigned a mentor who, within the framework of his working time, trains the newcomer in the main tasks, showing the infrastructure along the way (accesses, servers, equipment, bugtracker, helpdesk, project management system, etc.), introducing colleagues, and so on. Thus, a new employee immediately joins the team together with a mentor, knows who to contact and quickly learns the working material. Sometimes mentoring is accompanied by a modular or final exam in the field of activity, and although this is a little stress, it is some kind of guarantee for both the employee and the company.
There are a few things to know/understand when organizing mentoring at work.
- The work of mentors should be paid - in the form of bonuses or KPIs. Payment should not depend on the term of work of a beginner, but according to the results of the probationary period, you can reward a little more, which means that you trained and captivated with high quality.
- Mentors should be experienced and communicative - alas, if the super-genius of DevOps throws manuals on the table and gives a link to the internal Wiki, it will not do any good. The new employee and mentor should have a communication mode and dialogue.
- The mentor should be responsible for the jambs in the work of the ward during the training period - and, for example, if an inexperienced tester distributes 127.0.0.0. based on real events, we were taught, we were taught - in general, we did not get bored).
- The mentor should act as a guide around the company, provide access, communicate with the system administrator, introduce colleagues from other departments, etc.
- In the event of personal hostility or conflict situations, the mentor should be replaced immediately.
- The mentor's workload during training should be reduced and redistributed to other colleagues within reasonable limits.
- Every newcomer should have a mentor, from a trainee to a senior, the difference is only in the approach, timing and amount of information provided. The personnel service must take care of the normal passage of the adaptation process for each employee, otherwise problems in the workflow are inevitable, because each company has its own working characteristics.
In any case, if you have not tried the institution of mentoring within the company, set yourself a task for the next month - you will be surprised by the result of working with new employees.
▍Meetups, lectures, meetings
Perhaps one of the most productive forms of training within the framework of work: employees tell each other about achievements, share skills, hold product meetings and presentations, invite colleagues from other companies to exchange experiences (sometimes for hunting along the way). Such meetings have many advantages:
- employees learn to understand each other and work in a well-coordinated team;
- developers communicate in the same language and exchange solutions that can be safely taken and applied;
- you can get acquainted with the culture of another company and show your advantages;
- meetups are free.
The key to a great meetup is preparation: work with speakers, prepare presentations, prepare a hall, be attentive to the topic. The result will be pleasant and useful.
How to study on the job?
When you work, your most valuable resource is time. This is a difficult period of life when you need to work, build a career and not miss opportunities, create a family, help your parents, realize your aspirations in hobbies and hobbies. So, the biggest problem is to find time for training so that it turns out to be dense and effective.
- Stop wasting your work breaks on tea, coffee, or chatting with colleagues on extraneous topics - take this time to study and analyze the questions that have arisen during your studies.
- Initiate working discussions with colleagues at lunchtime and in the smoking room - it is often pleasant for a person to share his knowledge in a relaxed atmosphere.
- Read and listen to lectures in traffic jams and transport, if there are any on your way.
- Be sure to outline the lecture and practice in a notebook, do not rely on memory. If during the lecture you do not understand something, put notes in the margins. For example, NB for what needs to be repeated and deepened and "?" what you need to clarify, ask, study on your own.
- Never study or study at night - firstly, you will fall asleep for a long time, and secondly, everything will be forgotten by morning.
- Study in a quiet environment. If company policy allows (and almost everywhere in IT), stay an extra hour and a half in the office to do study tasks.
- Do not study at the expense of work - such a conscious deception will not benefit anyone.
- If you are learning programming or system administration, it’s not enough to memorize theory and read Habr, you need to go through everything in practice: write and test code, work with the operating system, try everything with “handles”.
And, probably, the main advice: do not treat your studies as in student time. By ignoring the study that you pay for and which is aimed at practice, you are deceiving yourself.
How to negotiate with management?
If we are talking about paid training, it is optimal to pay for it yourself - this way you will maintain independence from the employer. If the company pays, you will most likely have to either work out some mandatory period or return part of the money upon dismissal. If you have no plans to quit, be sure to talk with your manager about partial or full payment, explain how your training will be useful.
Before training (and not after the fact!) Discuss changing the schedule or switching to a flexible schedule - as a rule, in the IT field, they most often meet halfway.
Well, the main thing is that if you understand that you are not ready to devote proper time to studying and will be doing work, skipping classes because of, etc., it’s better not to start. Perhaps you have already taken place as a cool specialist and you just do not have enough food for thought. It's up to you to decide.
▍Greedy Postscript
And if you have already grown up and you lack something for development, for example, a good powerful go to - We have a lot of interesting things.
Source: habr.com