thank you so much for joining us today to talk about building a successful career in the Microsoft space this is a webinar that's designed for people who are not yet in the Microsoft ecosystem and who are considering a career change so that you can explore the opportunity and you can start building your career development strategy right now we're going through a bit of a crisis worldwide and many people are struggling or feeling uncertain and as Warren Buffett says in times of uncertainty the best investment you can make is in yourself so it's a really good idea that you're here to look into new areas for potential training and professional development if you're currently unfulfilled in your role or you're feeling like you're not making quite enough money you're not given enough opportunities or you're worried about the security of your job then Microsoft Technologies might be a great area for you for example if you're an accountant or a business analyst or anybody with a deep experience of a specific industry you already have skills that likely can transfer very well into the Microsoft world and will be valued by employers there so the goal of today is to support you to determine if Microsoft Technologies and Microsoft careers can be the right Next Step for you you're going to walk away with an idea of what's possible in the space for you and clear next steps if you decide that you wish to build a career plan and start training into this new area if you have any questions as I speak please pop them into the chat and my colleagues will be answering those for you we have quite a packed agenda today so um I'll be doing my best to give you as much information as possible we're going to start by talking to you about the Microsoft ecosystem opportunity from a career point of view and what makes it attractive to professionals right now then we're going to give you a few essential pieces of information to support you uh finding out if it's right for you as a career choice we're going to give you a couple of examples of roles that you could be taking on if you decide to join the Microsoft ecosystem then we're going to talk a little bit about career expansion prospects so that you know as well beyond the first role what are the opportunities and the possibilities and finally we're going to give you the next steps for getting trained and hired in the Microsoft ecosystem if you decide that that's something that excites you and that you want to explore further foreign I've been in the Microsoft ecosystem for over eight years I'm the leader of the Microsoft Learning Partner practice at 365 Salon portal and I've been specializing in learning and career development forever so I've been supporting Employers in the Microsoft ecosystem to finance larger talents and then I've been supporting talent to find the right training Solutions and then just a few words about 365 Talent portal so as mentioned just now we're a Microsoft Learning Partner we also a hiring solution with both candidates to find jobs we support employers to find candidates we have a Microsoft partner practice building service and so overall we kind of have for Microsoft Technology success and because of that we're very well positioned in the industry in terms of network in terms of opportunities and in terms of uh overall product knowledge as well now I'd like to pause just for a quick moment uh because I'm very curious about what brings you here so I'll give you 30 seconds I would love it if you could pop in the chat a few words about what brings you to the webinar and where you are in your career change so that we know a little bit about you just quickly someone's just nosy I love this pizza all right I'll move on but you can keep typing if you're still typing uh I would love to know what brings people here all right now why should you or why might you want to consider a Microsoft career so first and foremost the software Market as a whole has been growing for some time and it's still projected to grow um quite a bit over the next few years and more specifically Cloud Solutions are very successful right now and projected the market the cloud markets projected to more than double in size between 2002 and 2000 2022 and 2026 in Europe and within the cloud Solutions Microsoft Technologies are very well positioned and also growing a lot at the moment so you've got this bubble of opportunity where um the market is growing and also the stock is growing because uh Microsoft's quite an Innovative company and they keep coming up with new Solutions new technologies or new Evolutions to their technology so it's a very active space and as a result the opportunities on this phase are growing much faster than the talent pool and so for years ever since I've been in the space it's been a constant challenge that there are not enough people to implement Microsoft Solutions so most of the partners that we work with in the Microsoft ecosystem tell us that their main obstacle for growth is that they do not have enough people on their teams to deliver on their clients demand that means that getting trained and certified into this space gives you a really good chance to find jobs that are going to be exciting and you know give you a lot of opportunities for further development as well and then in terms of choice uh you also get to work with a wide range of Technologies or choose from a wide range of Technologies because Microsoft and we'll talk about it a little bit later has a variety of solutions a variety of roles across business roles and Technical roles and even sales training so that's it's not just for developers there's this misconception that it's you have to be a technical person to work as a Microsoft consultant and that is just not true so there's varied roles there's varied employer types and there's also a great community of uh people who uh Network together support each other you've got peer support you've got um events as well very exciting events and there's a lot happening and overall it's it's quite active and supportive as an area to work in now we're going to talk a little bit about ideal backgrounds because the goal of a career change is for it to be successful for you and as the work that we've been doing over the past many years we've identified that there's a number of backgrounds that drastically increase your chances of getting hired after you're trained and certified so it's roles like accountants business analysts system Engineers or systems administrators Consultants from other Cloud Solutions other Erp Solutions other CRM Solutions or anybody with a very deep and specific industry knowledge in an area that can be then translated into Microsoft space so if you've got one of those backgrounds you very likely have skills that will transfer very well into Microsoft Technologies and make you quite attractive to employers if you do not have one of these backgrounds and you're interested in a Microsoft career don't give up we're going to give you contact details further down the line and feel free to reach out to us and we'll be happy to talk to you about your uh your professional project and see if there's areas for you to to grow into this space now I want to give you a quick overview of what you would be doing as a Microsoft consultant understanding that of course there's a wide range of roles like I said so uh I can't be too specific but I can give you some of some kind of an idea of the spirit behind Microsoft careers and basically whatever your role is your goal will be to support employers support businesses to leverage Microsoft Technologies so that they can achieve more so that's the goal you're going to be working with businesses they're going to be having a challenge with their systems their data the business processes something's going to not be working quite the way they want and you're going to be here to bring a technology solution to the problem make them more effective Empower them and make them more successful to do this you're going to be working very likely as a part of a team that is a combination of Business Consultants sales people uh technical consultants and you're very likely as well to be working on a project basis uh in many cases there's exceptions um one thing that's also important to know about the Microsoft space is that it's going to require you to learn regularly and give you many opportunities to learn as well because the Technologies evolve New Opportunities come through and there's always going to be new things for you to to know about now to be a little bit more specific about the types of opportunities that you can get so like I said there's a variety of Technologies roles employers employment types and career growth opportunities some of it I'll dive into later on but for now I just want to walk you very quickly to the five different solution areas in the technology space to give you an idea of the different ways you could direct yourself so first you've got Azure which is the Microsoft Cloud solution growing a lot right now uh you've got modern workplace which is about employee productivity so it's your Microsoft Office office office tool Microsoft teams those sorts of tools you've got Microsoft security which is about protecting systems from external attacks and then you've got Microsoft Dynamics 365 which is Microsoft's Erp and CRM set of solutions for companies and finally Microsoft Power Platform which is the Microsoft low code solution that enables companies to automate processes and then within each of these Technologies you have a wide range of roles including an engineers and administrators the functional Consultants who are more on the business side the developers that are more on the technical side sales and pre-sales people lets you post customers to make the right choices in Technologies and then you can evolve into being a trainer solution architect a program lead um and then types of employers so I just want to quickly run through the fact that that you can work for potentially Microsoft Partners potentially Microsoft end users potentially large isvs and within each of these employer types you can work from the smallest startup companies to large International conglomerates so that still gives you you know a very open world to get into and then even when you start you can always redirect yourself uh in slightly different directions while still staying in the Microsoft ecosystem now a quick set of questions so first in order to support you to assess yourself I would like to invite you to think about what is missing from your career right now and I'll give you again 30 seconds just to start and you may need to continue this after this because we've got a lot of content to cover but what's missing from your career right now that's bringing you here and based on what you've heard so far what do you think becoming a Microsoft consultant would bring to you so giving you just a moment to to start this you are very welcome to share this on the chat as well if you would like but at least write it down for yourself the third question I will be sharing with you when we send you the recording so that again that's something I invite you to think about what can what can you leverage for your from your existing experience but right now we're short on time so let's focus on the first two all right so now uh I will continue uh feel free to keep taking some notes if you need to but um okay I wanted to give you a couple of examples of roles that are available in the Microsoft ecosystem so that you have a bit more of an idea of what's possible so the first rule I want to talk about is finance functional consultant and in a few words I'm going to talk to you about so Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance it's part of the Microsoft Erp solution and it's an application which empowers businesses to enhance their Financial Health through analytics and data and manage and automate their Finance business processes and in turn that reduces their Financial Risk so as a functional consultant in Dynamics 365 Finance you would analyze your clients Financial tools and processes you would compare this with a current goals and challenges and you would work with them to plan and design a solution that leverages the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics to solve their challenges and Empower them to maximize what they're doing and just work better as a whole reduce risk reduce their fears the typical salary range in the UK for this role is starts at around 65k per year for a junior resource so that would be where you are when you start and then can go all the way up to 150k for Senior Resource to give you an idea of the opportunity now Power Platform functional functional consultant so the salary salary rate is similar and in terms of the tasks uh functional consultant that would also be very similar where you're supporting uh customers to improve their business processes through Microsoft solution here the difference is that instead of Dynamics 365 Finance you will be working with Power Platform which is a group of solutions that is all about automating business processes in a local way and then they can so through a Power Platform they can develop their app experiences so they can develop internal apps that makes it easier for them to work together they can connect with customers better they can gather and display data in ways that Empower them and it's a solution to our platform that growing a lot right now it is very successful and businesses are really loving it so as a tip good area to get into okay a few words about possible career development prospects so say you get into your first role for example as a functional consultant where could that take you next so you would be able to develop yourself horizontally and an example of that is if you start as a finance functional consultant you would be able once you know you you're comfortable with Finance you could say okay well now I want to learn how to implement the HR module of Microsoft Dynamics so you could train yourself horizontally into another area of Dynamics and then start working on more projects or help your customers with more areas of their own projects there's the vertical progression so to move to a solution architect which is a more strategic role and then eventually potentially to practice lead where you're actually leading other Dynamics Consultants strategically you could also develop and become a Microsoft certified trainer supporting other Consultants to get trained and certified the way that you have done already and even you can get into business ownership and actually a number of the Microsoft Consultants we work with have their own businesses are growing their practices they're hiring other Consultants to work with them so that's something that's very possible in this space if you've got an entrepreneurial spirit now this is a slide that's for you uh to say to work on later so again we'll send this to you and it's a couple of questions to encourage you to think about your longer term career growth because if you've got those established it'll be much easier for you to finalize your decision about the Microsoft space see if it's really the right area for you so I invite you in your own time to answer these two questions for yourself and then compare them to what we've talked about about the Microsoft growth options and see if this is something that's a match now if you like what you've had so far and you think okay that sounds interesting that sounds exciting what do you do next um because obviously you're at the very beginning so there's a number of things that you need to do in order to find your path and build your career plan in the Microsoft space and so your first step is to pick your Microsoft Technology of choice if you don't already have it we're gonna send you this so This these are the five technology areas that we have talked to you about and if you're not certain we're going to send you these links that will allow you to find out more about about each technology and determine based on your background your goals the type of customers you want to support which one is the right one for you so that's your first step pick your technology if you don't have it already if you have your technology you might actually also want to think about specific areas of the technology that are important to you for example with Azure you can specialize in data management you can specialize in AI with Dynamics there's different areas you can specialize in as well so export all of that and find out your technology your area of of starting points and then within this technology you need to choose your role so we've got this list of role that we discussed are you more of a business type of consultant are you more of a developer and if you need something more specific we've got this resource that's called Microsoft learn career connected where Microsoft have begun to put together descriptions of the different roles that are available in the space now if you still need help because we understand it's a lot of information to go through and it can be a little confusing if you're new so if you feel like you could benefit from support in refining your career project there's a link here you can click to book a free Skilling consultation with me and we'll go over your your background your goals your aspirations and we'll make sure that you build a plan that's right for you so we'll help you pick your technology will help you pick your role will help you make sure that it's aligned with your backgrounds and uh and your aspirations um now once you have your uh your technology and your role you're gonna need to get trade and certified and so here I want to give you some tips for picking your training Solutions and uh some info about the um options that are available to you so first of all when you get trained into the Microsoft ecosystem you need to Target official Microsoft content and certification courses certifications are very important especially if you're new because they prove that you have acquired a certain set of skills so those two elements make sure they're there whatever training solution you choose if you are in career transition you're also going to want a solution that's adapted to you as a career changer something that allows you to transition state safely by staying in your role while you're training and then while you're looking for uh job yes absolutely I will be sending these slides I see this is being asked yes 100 you will receive by email in the slides as a solution that allows you to stay in your role a solution that is Affordable one of the challenges with Microsoft trading is that very often it can be expensive and if your company is paying for it and training you is great but if you're paying for it as an individual it can be a little steep in a time of crisis and also very importantly if you're not coming from a Microsoft background you're going to want some solution that prepares you for the Microsoft job market and supports you to be attractive to employers especially when you go after your very first role without the prior industry experience your traditional options are Microsoft learn which is an official Microsoft website that gives you free self-paced resources and it's great it's a really good website however it can be complex to navigate and you are left alone with your learning so it can be tough to find your way you don't have a lot of Hands-On practice and well it has hits its websites and then it has its drawbacks your other option is instructed instructed at training which is great because then you are in a room or in a virtual call with a Microsoft certified trainer who walks you through all the concepts does labs with you answers all your questions now the challenge with instructor-led training is it's a little expensive and also it requires taking time off to train because very often it's going to be over a full week and also neither of the solutions actually prepare you for the Microsoft job market so they do not cover things like um how to customize your CV how to optimize your profiles uh what are the skills you already have that you know will help employers see you value so that's something that's missing from traditional training and that's important to be aware of so that's where we come in we've built a solution designed for career Changers to address all of these challenges uh so it's our career changer Academy for people who come from professional backgrounds and want to get into the Microsoft space and the way we've done this is we've built it as a guided self-paced experience where you're doing it in your own time outside of your work hours and at the same time you are being guided in terms of the knowledge that you need to go for you know what you need to study every week we check in with you once a week as well so there's an hour a week that is a live hour where we ensure you're on track we give you further advice and guidance you get access to a Microsoft certified trainer as well to support you to prepare for your certification and we guarantee that we work with you until you get your certification even if you don't get it from the beginning so uh for example yes say you you try it once you fail we'll keep working with you so long as obviously you follow our advice and you go through the training we'll make sure that you actually get that and then we support you to optimize your job search um so so those are all the elements that we've identified you need to be successful and to make it affordable we've made it from a cost that ranges from 1000 to 1 500 pounds per person for the whole path uh which is much much more affordable than something you would get by purchasing instructor-led training we have two cohorts that are starting in March and um I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about them but they're about the two roles that we talked about earlier uh Dynamics 365 Finance functional consultant and then Dynamic 365 Power Platform sorry functional consultant so uh you can go and have a look we'll send the slides uh you can click the link and see learn a little bit more about the program and see if this is something that could support you to transition so uh more specifically how we support you as a company and how we can help you with this so our unique approach here is that we provide you with a lot of career advice and coaching so we're gonna first make sure you've got the right career project the right career goals and we're going to help you to refine it as you go we share we've got a lot of experience with the Microsoft ecosystem so we're we've designed the training solution with that in mind using our expertise the trainers that will come in are amazing trainers we've been working with for years with a lot of knowledge to guide you to uh to be successful with the network we have we also can open some doors for you and um we have over 10 years of experience supporting employers and candidates in the Microsoft ecosystem so that means we've got a lot that we can share about being attractive for an employer building your candidate profile preparing for interviews and all of that is packed into the program to ensure you're successful in your career transition now a few more questions uh so first of all based on what you've heard I'm curious to to know at this stage do you think that the Microsoft opportunity matches your career aspirations how close are you to making a decision about moving into the space and what are you missing right now how can we support you from this point where we are now at the end of this webinar to make the right career choice so again I'll give you some time I would love to see your answers in the chat and I see there's been a lot of interesting comments in the chat as well I see Elena's been responding a little bit um so if there's any unanswered questions and discussions I will be following up with you so that um well we can be sure that your your concerns are addressed and um and you get everything that you need all right so I see a question here about lots of advertised rules for Dynamics does the Dynamics 365 Finance functional consultant program require a finance background it does not require it the finance background will make you uh will give you a big Edge if you're getting in because it's a big part of working with the system but that's something you can pick up as you go that's something you can learn and if you've got other strengths and other professional background for example working with different Erp Solutions then you might still be able to transition so if you need personalized advice I would invite you to to come and speak to us a little more and we can support you to build your your project foreign questions but let me just finish here with this last slide um so if you have some degree of an interest in the two roles we've presented or even in some others you can come and apply now to the March cohorts now when you apply what happens is um it's not a commitment just yet we are going to contact you when we're going to come and talk to you about your professional project we've got limiting limited spaces in the cohorts because of the pricing obviously it is it is quite um attractive so we want to make sure that the people who get in are people who have well the best chances of success the right motivation and the right career plan so if you want to come and apply we'll call you we'll talk to you we'll make sure your project is aligned with the role that you're applying for and if you decide to commit and go ahead we'll give you a 10 discount if you if you apply by the end of the week so if you're close to a decision and interested uh follow one of these links apply and talk to our team and if you need help making your decision again uh there was that link that I gave about uh Skilling consultation so so we'll have that discussion and we're happy to support you and if you're looking for a path that is not yet on our website so something other than these two email us at this email address here and let us know what path you want because we will be putting together more path and if we know what are the priorities that people want the most then we can uh well we can make these come first so um let us know yes what you're looking for what you need from us and we'll do our best to put the solution together uh and support you to be successful in this space now we've already overrun a little bit let me see if there's any unanswered questions in the chat um all right it looks like Ellen has been answering everything so we're gonna be in touch with the recording the slides and if you've got any follow-up questions or comments you'll be able to respond to our email and start a discussion with you so um I look forward to further discussions thank you so much for being here and for listening to this webinar I hope uh that you got some value out of it and some clarity about the Microsoft space opportunities um and yes I hope to hear more about what else we can do to support you have a lovely lovely day and we'll be in touch very soon with follow-up documents
2023-02-17