For those ready to get certified at the MCSA (Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator) study level, the best devices on sale are based on CD and DVD ROM’s using study with interactive components. So if you have a certain amount of knowledge but are hoping to formalise your skills with certification, or are new to the industry, there are interactive MCSA courses to fit your requirements. For a person with no knowledge of IT, it will be crucial to pick up some skills before getting involved in your 1st of 4 Microsoft Certified Professional exams (MCP’s) needed to gain MCSA certification. Identify a training company that can create a bespoke package to cater for your needs – one who will work with you to make sure that you’ve selected your options carefully.

How are we supposed to arrive at an educated choice then? With all these possibilities, it’s essential to be guided as to where to dig – and what to be digging for.

Ignore any salesperson that offers any particular course without an in-depth conversation to gain understanding of your current abilities as well as level of experience. Ensure that they have a large product range from which they could solve your training issues. With a little live experience or certification, you may find that your starting point is not the same as someone new to the industry. If this is going to be your first crack at studying to take an IT exam then it may be wise to start with a user-skills course first.

Make sure that all your accreditations are current and what employers are looking for – forget studies which provide certificates that are worthless because they’re ‘in-house’. All the major IT organisations like Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco all have widely renowned proficiency courses. Huge conglomerates such as these will give some sparkle to your CV.

The age-old way of teaching, using textbooks and whiteboards, can be pretty hard going sometimes. If all this is ringing some familiar bells, check out study materials that are on-screen and interactive. Research over recent years has always confirmed that becoming involved with our studies, to utilise all our senses, is much more conducive to long-term memory.

Study programs now come on CD and DVD discs, so everything is learned directly from your own PC. Through video streaming, you can watch instructors demonstrating how something is done, with some practice time to follow – via the interactive virtual lab’s. Make sure to obtain a look at some courseware examples from the school that you’re considering. The materials should incorporate slide-shows, instructor-led videos and interactive labs where you get to practice.

Often, companies will only use just online versions of their training packages; sometimes you can get away with this – but, consider what happens when you don’t have access to the internet or you get intermittent problems and speed issues. A safer solution is the provision of physical CD or DVD discs which will not have these problems.

Students often end up having issues because of a single training area usually not even thought about: How the training is broken down and couriered to your address. Training companies will normally offer a program spread over 1-3 years, and deliver each piece one-by-one as you get to the end of each exam. On the surface this seems reasonable – until you consider the following: Maybe the order of study prescribed by the provider doesn’t suit you. And what if you don’t finish every element at the speed required?

In a perfect world, you’d ask for every single material to be delivered immediately – so you’ll have them all for the future to come back to – irrespective of any schedule. Variations can then be made to the order that you move through the program as and when something more intuitive seems right for you.

It’s so important to understand this key point: Always get full 24×7 instructor and mentor support. We can tell you that you’ll strongly regret it if you don’t. Many only provide email support (too slow), and phone support is often to a call-centre who will make some notes and then email an advisor – who will call back over the next day or so (assuming you’re there), when it suits them. This is no use if you’re sitting there confused over an issue and only have certain times available in which to do your studies.

Top training companies utilise several support facilities from around the world. They use an online interactive interface to seamlessly link them all together, irrespective of the time you login, help is just a click away, with no hassle or contact issues. Don’t ever make the mistake of taking second best with the quality of your support. The vast majority of would-be IT professionals who drop-out or fail, would have had a different experience if they’d got the right support package in the first place.

A sneaky way that training providers make more money is via an ‘exam inclusive’ package and presenting it as a guarantee for your exams. It looks like a good deal, but let’s just examine it more closely:

Of course it isn’t free – you’re still footing the bill for it – it’s just been included in your package price. Students who go in for their examinations when it’s appropriate, paying for them just before taking them are in a much stronger position to qualify at the first attempt. They are thoughtful of their investment and so are more inclined to be up to the task.

Why should you pay the training course provider at the start of the course for exam fees? Hold on to your money and pay for the exam when you’re ready, instead of paying any mark-up – and sit exams more locally – not at somewhere of their bidding. Buying a course that includes payments for examinations (and interest charges if you’re borrowing money) is a false economy. Why fill a company’s coffers with your hard-earned cash only to please their Bank Manager! Many will hope you don’t even take them all – but they won’t refund the cash. Pay heed to the fact that, with most ‘Exam Guarantees’ – they control when and how often you are allowed to have another go. They’ll only allow a re-take once completely satisfied.

Prometric and VUE exams are currently clocking in at an average of 112 pounds in the United Kingdom today. Students should be very wary of forking out hundreds of pounds extra in charges for ‘Exam Guarantees’ (most often hidden in the package) – when the best course materials, the right level of support and study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will really guarantee success.

Finding job security nowadays is problematic. Companies will drop us out of the workplace with very little notice – whenever it suits. Where there are escalating skills shortfalls together with rising demand of course, we always hit upon a new kind of security in the marketplace; driven by conditions of continuous growth, organisations find it hard to locate the influx of staff needed.

The computer industry skills shortfall in the UK currently stands at approx 26 percent, as reported by the latest e-Skills analysis. To put it another way, this shows that Great Britain only has three properly accredited workers for every four jobs that exist currently. This fundamental notion reveals the requirement for more properly trained IT professionals throughout the country. Surely, it really is a fabulous time to join the IT industry.