Congratulate yourself that you’re on the right track! A fraction of the population enjoy their work and find it stimulating, but the majority complain to each other and take no action. By looking for this we can guess that you’re finding out about training, so you’ve already stood out from the crowd. Now you just need to research and follow-through.

We’d strongly advise that before you start a training course, you discuss your plans with a person who is familiar with the working environment and can point you in the right direction. Such a person will go through personality profiling with you and assist in finding the right role for you:

* Is having company at work important to you? Are you better with new people or those you know well? Or you may prefer task-orientated work that you can complete alone?

* Building and Banking are none too stable at the moment, so it’s important to look very carefully at what sector would suit you best?

* Having completed your retraining, would you like this skill to get you jobs for the rest of your working life?

* Do you have the assurance that retraining in your chosen sector will offer you employment opportunities, and provide the facility to be employed up to retirement age?

We would strongly recommend that one of your key sectors is IT – it’s no secret that it is one of the few growth sectors. IT isn’t all techie people gazing at their PC’s constantly – it’s true those roles do exist, but the majority of roles are carried out by ordinary men and women who get on very well.

It’s clear nowadays: There really is no such thing as individual job security anymore; there can only be market or sector security – any company is likely to let anyone go if it suits the company’s trade interests. We could however locate security at market-level, by looking for areas in high demand, together with work-skill shortages.

Taking a look at the computing market, the recent e-Skills investigation highlighted an over 26 percent skills deficit. Alternatively, you could say, this clearly demonstrates that the country can only locate 3 trained people for each 4 job positions that are available at the moment. Gaining the appropriate commercial computing accreditation is accordingly a quick route to succeed in a continuing as well as pleasing line of work. Quite simply, acquiring professional IT skills throughout the next year or two is almost definitely the best career direction you could choose.

How are we supposed to go about making the right decisions then? With all this potential, it’s essential to be guided as to where to look – and what we should be searching for.

Of course: the actual training or the accreditation is not the ultimate goal; a job that you want is. Many trainers unfortunately completely prioritise the course or the qualification. It’s an awful thing, but a great many students commence training that sounds fabulous from the syllabus guide, but which provides a job that doesn’t satisfy. Talk to many university graduates for examples.

Stay tuned-in to where you want to get to, and then build your training requirements around that – don’t do it the other way round. Stay focused on the end-goal – making sure you’re training for a job you’ll enjoy for years to come. Speak to an industry professional who knows about the sector you’re looking at, and is able to give you a detailed description of the kind of things you’ll be doing on a daily basis. Getting all these things right before starting out on a study programme will prevent a lot of wasted time and effort.

It’s so important to understand this key point: You absolutely must have proper 24×7 professional support from mentors and instructors. Later, you’ll kick yourself if you let this one slide. Avoid, like the plague, any organisations who use call-centres ‘out-of-hours’ – where an advisor will call back during standard office hours. It’s no use when you’re stuck on a problem and need help now.

Be on the lookout for training schools that use several support centres active in different time-zones. All of them should be combined to offer a simple interface as well as 24×7 access, when it’s convenient for you, with no hassle. Never make the mistake of compromise with the quality of your support. Most students that fall by the wayside, are in that situation because of a lack of support.

If you’re like many of the students we talk to then you’ve always enjoyed practical work – the ‘hands-on’ individual. If you’re anything like us, the world of book-reading and classrooms is something you’ll make yourself do if you have to, but it’s not ideal. Check out video-based multimedia instruction if book-based learning really isn’t your style. Research over recent years has consistently shown that becoming involved with our studies, to utilise all our senses, will more likely produce memories that are deeper and longer-lasting.

Interactive full motion video involving demonstration and virtual lab’s will forever turn you away from traditional book study. And you’ll actually enjoy doing them. It’s very important to see examples of the study materials provided by each company you’re contemplating. Be sure that they contain video demo’s and interactive elements such as practice lab’s.

It is generally unwise to select online only courseware. Because of the variable quality and reliability of all internet service providers, make sure you get CD or DVD ROM based materials.

We’re often asked why traditional degrees are now falling behind more qualifications from the commercial sector? With fees and living expenses for university students spiralling out of control, alongside the industry’s general opinion that accreditation-based training most often has much more commercial relevance, we have seen a dramatic increase in Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe based training courses that educate students for much less time and money. Typically, students are simply taught the necessary specifics in depth. It’s not quite as straightforward as that, but the most important function is always to focus on the exact skills required (along with a certain amount of crucial background) – without overdoing the detail in all sorts of other things (as degree courses are known to do).

In simple terms: Commercial IT certifications let employers know exactly what you’re capable of – it says what you do in the title: i.e. I am a ‘Microsoft Certified Professional’ in ‘Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network’. So employers can identify exactly what they need and which qualifications are required to fulfil that.

A subtle way that course providers make more money is by charging for exams up-front and then including an ‘Exam Guarantee’. It looks like a good deal, but is it really:

We all know that we’re still footing the bill for it – it’s quite obvious to see that it’s already in the overall figure from the course provider. It’s definitely not free – and it’s insulting that we’re supposed to think it is! Evidence shows that when students fund each examination, at the time of taking them, they will be much more likely to pass every time – since they are conscious of what they’ve paid and so will prepare more thoroughly.

Isn’t it outrageous to have to pay a training company early for examination fees? Find the best exam deal or offer at the time, rather than pay marked up fees – and do it locally – instead of miles away at the college’s beck and call. A lot of questionable training colleges secure huge profits through getting in the money for examinations upfront then banking on the fact that many won’t be taken. Also, you should consider what an ‘exam guarantee’ really means. The majority of organisations will not pay for you to re-take until you have demonstrated conclusively that you won’t fail again.

Exams taken at VUE and Prometric centres are around 112 pounds in the United Kingdom today. Why pay exorbitant fees for ‘exam guarantees’ (often covertly rolled into the cost of the course) – when the best course materials, the right level of support and consistent and systematic learning, coupled with quality exam simulation software is what will really see you through.

Be careful that the accreditations you’re considering doing will be recognised by employers and are up-to-date. The ‘in-house’ certifications provided by many companies are often meaningless. All the major commercial players such as Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA or Cisco have nationally recognised proficiency programs. Major-league companies like these will give some sparkle to your CV.