Those searching for education to get in the computer or IT industry will rapidly be overwhelmed by the huge amount of choices in existence. Prior to getting started, look for a training company with a team of advisors, so you can get information on the jobs your new knowledge will help you to get. It’s possible you’ll learn about career paths you hadn’t previously thought of. If you’re mulling over advancing your technological abilities, perhaps with a Microsoft Office Package, or even loftier ambitions, you have a choice of how to study.

State-of-the-art training techniques at last give trainees the facility to learn on an interactive course, that costs significantly less than old-style courses. The low overhead structure of the new courses puts them within everyone’s reach.

Wouldn’t it be great to know for sure that our jobs will always be secure and our work prospects are protected, but the likely scenario for most jobs around the UK right now appears to be that security just isn’t there anymore. Of course, a quickly growing market-place, with huge staffing demands (because of a massive shortage of trained workers), provides a market for proper job security.

Using the computing industry as an example, the most recent e-Skills survey brought to light massive skills shortages around the country of around 26 percent. Put simply, we can only fill three out of each four job positions in Information Technology (IT). Fully taught and commercially grounded new professionals are therefore at a complete premium, and it’s estimated to remain so for a long time to come. Quite simply, gaining new qualifications in IT over the next few years is most likely the safest career choice you could ever make.

So if the IT sector presents some unique job possibilities for us – then what are the questions we need to ask and which factors should we be considering?

For the most part, your average person doesn’t know how they should get into Information Technology, or even which area they should be considering getting trained in. As without any previous experience in Information Technology, how should we possibly be expected to understand what a particular job actually consists of? To work through this, a discussion is necessary, covering many unique issues:

* The kind of individual you reckon you are – what kind of jobs you get enjoyment from, plus of course – what makes you unhappy.

* What length of time can you allocate for the training process?

* Have you thought about salary vs job satisfaction?

* Many students don’t properly consider the level of commitment required to attain their desired level.

* How much time you’ll put into the training program.

For the majority of us, considering all these ideas needs a long talk with an advisor that knows what they’re talking about. Not only the accreditations – but also the commercial requirements and expectations of the market as well.

Proper support should never be taken lightly – look for a package providing 24×7 full access, as anything else will annoy you and definitely put a damper on the speed you move through things. Avoid those companies that use ‘out-of-hours’ call-centres – where you’ll get called back during the next ‘working’ day. It’s not a lot of help when you’ve got study issues and could do with an answer during your scheduled study period.

Top training companies utilise several support facilities around the globe in several time-zones. Online access provides the interactive interface to provide a seamless experience, any time of the day or night, there is always help at hand, avoiding all the delays and problems. If you fail to get yourself direct-access 24×7 support, you’ll quickly find yourself regretting it. You may not need it late in the night, but what about weekends, early mornings or late evenings.

It’s likely that you’ve always enjoyed practical work – a ‘hands-on’ personality type. Typically, the painful task of reading endless manuals would be considered as a last resort, but you really wouldn’t enjoy it. Check out video-based multimedia instruction if book-based learning really isn’t your style. Studies in learning psychology have shown that much more of what we learn in remembered when we receive multi-sensorial input, and we put into practice what we’ve been studying.

Study programs now come via DVD-ROM discs, so everything is learned directly from your own PC. Using video-streaming, you can sit back and watch the teachers showing you precisely how to do something, and then practice yourself – in an interactive lab. Each company you’re contemplating must be pushed to demo some samples of their training materials. Expect video tutorials, instructor led classes and many interactive sections.

Purely on-line training should be avoided. Ideally, you should opt for CD and DVD ROM courseware where offered, so that you have access at all times – you don’t want to be reliant on your broadband being ‘up’ 100 percent of the time.

Sometimes students are under the impression that the traditional school, college or university path is the right way even now. So why are commercially accredited qualifications becoming more in demand? As we require increasingly more effective technological know-how, industry has been required to move to the specialised training that the vendors themselves supply – for example companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA. This usually turns out to involve less time and financial outlay. In essence, only that which is required is learned. It’s slightly more broad than that, but the principle remains that students need to focus on the exact skills required (alongside some required background) – without overdoing the detail in every other area – in the way that academic establishments often do.

When an employer is aware what areas they need covered, then they simply need to advertise for a person with the appropriate exam numbers. Vendor-based syllabuses are all based on the same criteria and can’t change from one establishment to the next (in the way that degree courses can).

Exam ‘guarantees’ are sometimes offered as part of a training package – they always involve paying for the exam fees up-front, when you pay for the rest of your course. But before you get taken in by the chance of a guarantee, be aware of the facts:

You’ll pay for it ultimately. One thing’s for sure – it isn’t free – it’s just been rolled into the price of the whole package. If it’s important to you to pass in one, then you should fund each exam as you take it, give it the necessary attention and apply yourself as required.

Do the examinations somewhere local and find the best deal for you at the time. A great deal of money is secured by many training colleges that get money upfront for exam fees. Many students don’t take them for one reason or another but no refunds are given. Astoundingly enough, providers exist that depend on students not taking their exams – as that’s very profitable for them. The majority of companies will require you to do mock exams and prohibit you from re-taking an exam until you have proved to them you have a good chance of passing – which makes an ‘Exam Guarantee’ frankly useless.

Spending hundreds or even thousands extra on ‘Exam Guarantees’ is short-sighted – when 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 bang up to date. The ‘in-house’ certifications provided by many companies are usually worthless. Unless the accreditation comes from a conglomerate such as Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco or CompTIA, then you may discover it won’t be commercially viable – as no-one will have heard of it.

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