Lifelong learning is a must those days. However, it is not always easy to find the right course for oneself. We, at the ECo-C, would like to share an interesting and successful experience and perspective one candidate as well as customer of the AMS had.

“On my first day at the AMS, they took all my data, asked me what type of job I wanted, and what plans I had for hunting. They put a database at my service, and helped me with my search. Because I was under 25 years old, I had access to a special councilor for people my age. I knew I wanted to work in software development, but most of the courses offered by training institutes in that field cost more than 4,000 EUR, not counting the life subsidy, and as the crisis had just started to hit Austria, my advisor regretfully informed me that he could not recommend that the AMS sponsor the course. However, he said, there was a reasonably priced generic course that would enable me to take a swath of qualifying certificates (the ECDL, the EBCL, the ECo-C), and that I really SHOULD take it.

At first I did not understand why. As an aspiring software developer, what did I need with an introductory-level course? I wasn't even sure I needed the professional course, except that it would prove that I was competent. However, in retrospect my advisor was very, very smart to send me there. What I did need was to know more about interacting with computers in German, and how to put the knowledge I had into words a recruiter would understand: not only am I not a native speaker of German, with little contact to German operating systems, but I am also painfully shy. Combined, this was making it difficult for me to shine at job interviews.

I never finished the course the AMS sponsored. This because I found a job, in the exact field I wanted, halfway through it. Did the AMS councilor act in a slightly presumptuous way in assigning me to a course I had no idea I needed or wanted to take? Well, maybe. But he was right about it: I did not need someone to confirm that I knew how to program, I needed to express that knowledge properly. I told him so in person when I went back to see him, to shake his hand and thank him for his efforts.

At the end of the day, when I tally the work of the AMS on my behalf, I took a cheaper course, which was the one I really needed, learned something about my field and my self, and found the job of my dreams, all because their one expert had the good sense to look beyond the obvious desire and saw the real need”.

Can it be said more eloquently than that?