Finding the Right Cisco Training Provider

Introduction

If you are in the market for a Cisco training course then I do feel for you. A few years ago you had a choice of perhaps four or five companies. Nowadays, it appears that everywhere you look you will see another IT training company promising you either instant success or the path to IT riches if you train with them.

You could phone them for a chat I suppose but can you really get a straight answer out of any of us because at the end of the day, we all want to sell you our course?

In this article I hope to help you get clear on what it is you want to get from your Cisco course and more importantly to work out the best way for you to learn to give yourself the best chances of exam success and then a successful career as a Cisco engineer.

Choices

I need to be up front with you from the start and make it clear that I run my own Cisco training company as well as an online Cisco training site so I can only be biased of course. This doesn't mean that I am going to ram my courses down your throat because, since we have never met or spoken I have no idea if my courses are going to be a good match for your needs. Yes, we actually turn customers away sometimes if we don't feel we can give them what they are looking for.

You have three main options when considering taking your Cisco exams. I will talk mostly about the CCNA but this article applies equally to the CCNA, CCENT, CCNP or any other Cisco qualification.

1. Self Study

This is actually how I passed my CCNA. I was desperately broke so all I could afford was a used CCNA study guide from ebay. This was back when the CCNA had no hands on element so I just studied from a well known CCNA study manual from the USA and failed the exam! I took it again two weeks later and passed.

Self study usually involves you buying some sort of CCNA study guide, some second hand routers and switches from Ebay and teaching yourself. You can usually find some online forums where people will help you with areas you are stuck on.

This is just my point of view but I will share what I see as the pros and cons of this method of studying.

Pros	Cons
Very inexpensive	Nobody to ask for help
Study at your own pace	Can learn bad habits or make mistakes
Good if you are highly motivated	Can take a very long time to pass
Can top up with online training	Hard to know how to structure learning

A few points I would like to make about the self study route.

First is that I have seen questions asked by novice Cisco engineers asked on various forums and the answers are clearly wrong. I have also seen people ask what appears to me to be a valid question only to be abused and insulted by other forum members who often consist of sad IT geeks who gain significance in life by criticising other people from the safety of their basement and giving very poor career or study advice.

If you are highly motivated and can commit to a daily study schedule then there is no reason why you can't teach yourself and use a good quality forum if you want to ask for advice. The flip side is that you studies may take longer than usual, you won't have a trainer to ask for help and you may get into bad habits with your router configs.

2. Online Training

Up until recently, the online IT study system was basically death by power point. You had to listen to a trainer drone on in the background while you stared at the screen until you fell asleep.

You have far more choices now. Companies are offering practise exams, videos, router simulators, online theory. I only know of one company in the world to offer the whole package for the CCNA covering practise exams, theory, hands on labs, discussion forum, streaming videos and access to live Cisco equipment and that is (my other company) www.howtonetwork.net which will set you back $9.97 per month or just under a fiver if you are in the UK.

My advice about online training is to research your options very carefully. I have been out there and I can say hand on heart that most online IT training packages are absolutely terrible. By this I mean boring content, out of date information (one is still teaching IPX for the CCNA which went out four years ago). Some only offer access to router simulators, the trainers are teaching everything from Microsoft Office to Linux to Cisco. Surely they can't be an expert in everything can they?

I would also avoid training libraries like the plague. These are companies who will sell you access to a training package which covers every certification you could ever take in IT. You may get a small sample of the content but have to pay a large sum to get the entire package. I have ever come across a quality IT training library in my life.

3. Classroom Training

This is another training option with an overwhelming amount of choices.

Your two broad options are Cisco approved companies and non-Cisco approved.

1. Cisco approved training providers

They have signed up to work with Cisco and have to abide by their rules and regulations. The good thing is that Cisco regulate these companies so they must be at a certain standard. They use Cisco approved training materials and the latest version of Cisco routers and switches.

For this level of service you are going to have to pay a lot of money but if budget isn't an issue then it may be a good option. This is the preferred choice for most blue chip companies who have money to burn.

The disadvantage of this type of training (apart from the price) is that you will have to attend for the full two weeks to learn the CCNA syllabus. You have to learn from the Cisco manuals which may be a bit too wordy for most people and you will have to sit through all the various lectures even if you may already know that part of the subject matter.

2. Non-Cisco Approved

This is what Cisco refer to as grey training (but I have been called worse). There are now literally hundreds of companies offering Cisco training now. You can fly over to India and have a one to one training for a month for the price of a curry or attend weekend boot camp or something in between offering anything from four to ten days training.

This isn't the problem of course. The problem is spotting the rip off merchants or if they are not a rip off merchant then perhaps they are not offering a good quality course or good value for money.

I wish I could offer you some sort of magic formula which would spit out the right choice for you so you could avoid the cost and disappointment of attending a poor quality course but the best I can do is offer you some general guidelines and advice.

First is to work out the best options for you. Can you please tick which of the below are important to you for your Cisco training course:

Own Cisco rack to work on	Good quality study materials
Free e-mail support from the tutor	Free practise exams
Money back guarantee	Small class sizes
CCNP or higher qualified trainer	Convenient location
Weekend training dates	Pay in instalments
Low cost	Course run in a hotel
One on one time with the instructor	Easy to understand course manual

I have left a few blank spaces for you to write in other things which are important to you about the course you choose.

Looking at Google today I can see companies offering Cisco CCNA courses (for example). One I know has a CCNA doing the teaching but he also teaches the MCSE and I know for a fact he barely scraped through the CCNA because I have met him. Another only uses router simulators to teach with. Another makes you share equipment with other students. Another makes out he is a Cisco network consultant but all he does is teach courses every day of the week. One company makes you sign up for a large loan and you can't attend their course until you do their entrance exams which they make sure you can't pass because they are so hard.

I can see a few guys who have been on a Cisco course and decided to set up their own training courses on the side. You can only reach them via a mobile phone or a 'contact us' form which is a sure sign of a company who can disappear at any time.

Here are a few of the danger signs:

	Mobile numbers only
	Nobody picks up the phone
	No registered address or VAT numbers
	Trainer trains all week and never consults
	Trainer teaches Cisco, Microsoft, Linux etc
	Exam success guarantees or offers of high paying jobs when you pass
	Newly formed companies or sole traders
	Pushy sales people masquerading as course advisors
	Training packages offering a large amount of IT certifications
	Companies using sales people pushing you to take out loans

I could go on but I think you get the message. My point is that until you sit down and consider what is important to you about the course you attend and the background of the company offering you the course you cannot make an informed decision.

Fears

Here are the two biggest fears of anybody considering booking a course (not just Cisco). First, that they will waste their money i.e the course will be rubbish or even worse, the company will take their money and disappear overnight. This is the danger when booking with any company who do not clearly advertise their registered address, contact land line, VAT number and name of the company directors etc. Even large name brands can go under in the current economic climate (so please pay with a credit card if possible).

Second, that they will attend the course and feel stupid. What I mean by this is that the content will be so advanced that you will sit there and struggle for the entire course. You will be the slowest person in the class and not be able to keep up with everyone else. Not only that but if they have exams during the course you will not be able to answer any of the questions and then look a fool in front of everybody else.

Generally speaking the the UK, we prefer not to complain so we would get to the end of the above course having learned nothing, have wasted our time and money and be in the same position as we were before we attended the course. Not good!

Selecting the Right Path for You

I don't know you or how much you already know. You may be a novice to IT and looking to make a career break or may be an experienced network engineer just looking to polish your skills so you can pass the exam. Both of those students may be looking for different things out of their course and my advice would be different for each scenario.

The first step is to compile a list of the things that are important to you about the course you attend or if you are self studying, the books and materials you want to invest in. Look at your budget and what you expect to get out of the course. Would you like to attend a course where every subject is explained to you in painstaking detail or does the thought of 20 hours of power point lectures send you into a coma?

Do you want to be trained using a traditional study guide or would you like your company to have made their own notes which they feel will help explain things to you in a better way than the traditional 'geeky' IT manuals? Would you like to spend most of your course playing with routers and switches and have a trainer on hand if you get stuck and need some advice?

When you have a good idea of what you want out of your course then compile a list of training providers. Getting referrals from friends or IT people is often good. Beware that many companies are very naughty and pretend to be students on forums and they will say they went on a course with Company X and thought it was brilliant. Check out the companies web site and look for:

	A reasonably long trading history (more than a few years)
	A registered office, company number and VAT number
	Trainers qualified to a level above your course level (CCNP teaching CCNA)
	A land line and not a pay-as-you go mobile
	Testimonials from other students which you can verify
	Money back guarantees if offered
	Terms and conditions (in case you need to move dates or cancel)
	What equipment do you learn on and is it shared

When you have narrowed down you list check on prices and locations. Not much point in getting a cheap course if you need to catch a plane to get there. Are you looking for any guarantees? No company can guarantee you will pass the exam (not ethically anyway) but they should be able to offer you free retraining if you want to come back and refresh your knowledge.

When you have your list make a few phone calls. Speak to the trainers or the company owners and ask them about the course and what is involved if it isn't clear on their web site. Are the trainers experienced, can you see the study manuals or visit the classroom? If they are legitimate they won't mind you doing that.

Watch out for the larger companies who employ pushy sales people. Once they get your mobile number they will plague you for weeks on end, leaving messages and pushing you into getting your credit card out and booking now for a special discount. Worse still are those companies who say that they will send a course consultant to your house for a free assessment. What happens is that they have a local commission only sales person who gets paid more money for selling your more courses. They learn special psychological techniques which mean you may end up signing a loan agreement for a series of courses you neither want or need.

Making the Choice

At some point you are going to want to make a choice. Having come from the police where you have to make very important decisions very quickly into IT where people tend to want lots of detail and information I sometimes get a little frustrated when people want to take weeks to make a choice. But then again, for most people who are self funding they have to be very careful when deciding where to spend their money because they don't have a lot to spare.

Next Steps

I wish I had a cut and dried method to help you choose the right training course. If I have helped you narrow your choice, avoid getting ripped off or wasting your money then I am happy. If you want a chat on the phone then our freephone number is 0800 083 6277 or land line 01908 263335. I can only help people in the UK at the moment I'm afraid due to time constraints. Networks Inc. Ltd only offers weekend Cisco training and this is our niche.

We are looking for students who don't mind doing a little bit of self study before coming one a weekend which is 95% practical. I think our exam results of over 95% first time pass speaks for itself though.

About Paul Browning

Paul Browning owns Networks Inc. Ltd who have been teaching Cisco courses in the UK since 2002. Customers include BT, Shell, British Army, Jaguar, Ford and many many more. Paul also owns the worlds only complete end-to-end CCNA training site www.howtonetwork.net which is one of the fastest growing training sites in the world. Paul believes that anybody can pass their Cisco exams if they are prepared to put the work in and follow a proven successful study method. He is the only person in the UK to have authored his own Cisco CCNA study guide - CCNA Simplified.