Hi Everyone. Hope you all are doing great. Today I am back with one of the most interesting topic and indeed most important one. Nowadays, everything is changing and so is the IT Industry and other segments and technologies as well and due to ever changing technology, it is most important to keep yourself updated and relevant. All old technologies will become stale and extinct and if we adapt new technologies faster than there is highest possibility of having competitive advantage over others along with career and financial advancement as well.

Hence it is always advisable to keep yourself relevant if you really want to have an edge over others. If I talk about IT (Information Technology) then it is tremendously important to have pace because nowadays tecnology is changing like changing packets of a high speed internet. So, now that we understand that because we need to have career advancement, an edge over others, financial growth and self improvement then we need to go for relevant IT Certification (Internal/ external)

So, Let’s talk about how can you prepare and successfully clear IT Certifications. I really want to thank one of my best friend and actially first friend in my career who asked me to talk about this. 

1) “Career Me” time: I understand that these days we all are keeping extremely busy due to loads of pressures from current job role and tight deadlines and we are really left with almost little or No time because we are working ahead of 9 hours job role. I can well understand that most of us have to give time to office even during Weekends and also during off business hours becasue of a concept called “On Call Support” in IT segment. But I would still say to take out some time (even if that’s half an hour) to understand what you are doing currently, Do you wish to continue with same domain, Or may be do you want some change in your profile, where do you really want to be in next 1 year? What upcoming technologies is your organization and your current project adapting to? All these questions are really important to answer because once you have answers to these questions, trust me, you will be in action. For me, this time is known as “Career Me Time” where I try to answer questions like above with utmost sincerity which automatically helps me steer my career. Based on these questions, you would be able to understand as to which skill sets are missing and which skillsets you really want to acquire with help of IT Certifications. Remember this golden rule- If you fail to understand which skill sets do you really want to acquire based on your current role and on futuristic role you want to play ahead, then you will lose your interest pretty early and chances are that you may not feel like pursuing already enrolled IT Certification

2) 9 Hour Office premise Learning: Most people really don’t talk about this topic. As per normal mindset, people ignore this 9 hours office timings where they have huge opportunity to learn during office hours. This kind of Learning is known as ” On Job Learning”. I am sure people are familiar about this term but really don’t make much use of this. I can relate on this because it happens with me as well. We get so laid back by doing same mundane job duties every day and really feel bored which actually impact our motivation levels which in turn hit our learning capability as well. And at this time, when we don’t feel motivated or do something new, we are in our complete shell.

Here, I would suggest to utilize this time and keep yourself on high alert mode to understand the siklls that you really feel may uplift your career. Not only this, please keep on learning from people around you in these 9 hours. Please believe me that knowledge can never be wasted and you never know when this information will become important in your career. So, always pay attention to learn and absorb something new. Pleae understand that you are working only on your domain but when you interact with people around you with respect to handling some technical issues then you really learn a lot from each other and you never know which information can give you a kick. 

Apart from Learning from each other, there are several internal IT certifications which I am sure your organization is arranging for you on their internal Learning Platform. These are extremely important. There are few of us who negate the importance of these internal IT certifications considering that they are just internal and may not be valid outside of your organization. Logic might be correct but believe me you are going to gain loads of information and experience from doing these internal certifications and you can immediately apply them in your working role and by this way you would feel confident of that technology before actuaally you enrolling in them. Please understand that you cannot do everything and alone you cannot run any company or drive any profits. You would require help from others and hence you need not to do mastery on all the relevant technlogies but a working and relevant knowledge will give an edge to you over others. And that’s what internal certifications help you with. For example- If I am someone who handles issues related to “Servers” but I do not have even a working and relevant knowledge of networks and Routers. Now think about an issue which came up which involved both server and Networking knowledge? There is another person who works as a domain expert for “servers” but also has a working knowledge of networking as well. Whom do you think would have an edge on resolving the issue? Only resolving the issue does not matter. It also matters as to how quickly did you resolved it. I hope you related well with my example. 

3) Optimum Time Utilization: While you are juggling between your professional and personal golals, most of the time it becomes absolutely impossible to get yourself enrolled in IT certifications/ study for them and clear them finally. See, time crunch will always be there. Something or the other stuffs will gain importance and preference over others. But its your responsibility, ownership and dedication which will play a role to choose what you want over those which are not that important. Again, priority plays a key role and this priority is different for different people. So you need to know this that this is common with everyone and you are not alone. But if you really want an edge over others then you have to do something different. It is a common mind set that if you study for at least 2 hours or more then only you are preparing for your IT certificate else you are not. Believe me this is not true. As per my view, whenever you get time, just start preparing. No matter at one time you get just 15 minutes or at other time, you may get an hour as well. Key point here is “Focus and Attention”. The more focussed approach, quickly you will learn (With focus you can come half way learning but without focus, you can really do nothing even in an hour). So, don’t wait for perfect time to arrive because it is never going to. You need to invent time

4) Role Applicable IT Certifications: Most of us gets highly overwhelmed with what others are doing or what others are pursuing or with highly paid job profiles. I completely understand your point here and we want to learn everything what others are trying to learn in an attempt to have career advancement with resultant financial growth as well. But we forget one thing here. Everyone is not made for everything. Birds can’t swim and fishes can’t fly. Key point is to choose for that IT Certification with which you are somewhat familiar with (make sure that there is no major deviation from which you are doing in your current job role because there is a difference between doing altogether something new and just simply giving an advance touch to your already booming job role. But if you are thinking of changing your job role completely then it is totally different thing), you have some technical pre-requisites, most important that you find it interesting to pursue in future and you know that this can really give a new dimension to your career. As I said above make sure to choose that IT Certification whose knowledge you can practically apply in your current job role and then observe if that is really helping you out and giving you an extra edge over others. As per my view point, if you will choose an IT Certification which is completely new to you and to your career or your current job role then you might feel some hiccups understanding or learning them and even applying them as well. If you fail to apply them practically in your career then you might loose interest in pursuing it and resultantly you will fail to clear IT Certification. Also remember when you choose to go to new job role where you are working for like 5 years or more and that too just based upon acquiring a new IT Certification then let me tell you it would get really difficult because in that new job role, you will be just like a fresher and starting everything from scratch. So, always ensure to steer your driving wheel little by little and not just abruptly steering either to extreme right or left. Take small small steps.

5) Prepare for IT Certification daily at regular intervals rather preparing them just a week before your exam: As I said above, whenever you get time, just start preparing even if that is for 15 minutes. Beauty of regular preparation is that you can immediately apply the same to your job role and get impressive results before you can even clear the certification which can boost your motivation. Even if you get time to learn and prepare during your travel time, please do prepare and this is how you will utilize your time.

I hope everyone liked this article. Please let ne know if you want me to share my experience on other topics as well.