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Are you toying with the idea of doing an MCSE? If so, it’s probable that you’ll fall into one of the following categories: You’re currently an IT professional and you should formalise your skills with a qualification such as MCSE. In contrast you might be just about to enter commercial IT, but it’s apparent to you there’s a huge demand for those with appropriate certifications.

As you do your searches, you’ll come across training companies that reduce their costs by failing to use the most up-to-date Microsoft version. Steer clear of such training providers as it will create challenges for you at exam time. If you are studying an old version, it will make it very difficult to pass. The focus of a training company should primarily be on the absolute best they can for their trainees, and the whole company should care about what they do. Career study isn’t just about passing exams – the procedure must also be geared towards guiding you on the most valid way forward for you.

Your training program should always include the latest Microsoft (or relevant organisation’s) accredited exam simulation and preparation packages. Make sure that the practice exams haven’t just got questions from the right areas, but also asking them in the way that the actual final exam will formulate them. It really messes up trainees if they’re met with completely different formats and phraseologies. Always ask for testing modules in order to test your knowledge along the way. Practice exams help to build your confidence – then you won’t be quite so nervous at the actual exam.

A fatal Faux-Pas that students everywhere can make is to choose a career based on a course, rather than starting with where they want to get to. Training academies are brimming over with direction-less students that chose a program because it looked interesting – instead of what would yield the career they desired. Don’t let yourself become one of those unfortunate students who select a program that on the surface appears interesting – and end up with a plaque on the wall for a career they’ll never really get any satisfaction from.

It’s a good idea to understand what expectations industry may have of you. Which particular certifications you’ll be required to have and how you’ll build your experience level. It’s also worth spending time considering how far you’d like to get as it may force you to choose a particular set of certifications. It’s worth seeking guidance from a professional that can best explain the industry you’re hoping to qualify in, and who can offer ‘A typical day in the life of’ type of explanation of the job being considered. All of these things are very important as you’ll need to fully understand if you’re barking up the wrong tree.

You have to make sure that all your qualifications are commercially valid and current – you’re wasting your time with programmes that lead to in-house certificates. The main industry leaders like Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco all have widely acknowledged skills programs. These heavyweights can make sure you stand out at interview.

We need to make this very clear: You have to get round-the-clock 24×7 instructor support. We can tell you that you’ll strongly regret it if you don’t. You’ll be waiting ages for an answer with email based support, and telephone support is usually 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), at a time suitable for them. This is all next to useless if you’re sitting there confused over an issue and only have a specific time you can study.

Top training companies have many support offices across multiple time-zones. Online access provides the interactive interface to seamlessly link them all, no matter what time you login, help is just a click away, with no hassle or contact issues. Search out a company that is worth purchasing from. As only round-the-clock 24×7 support truly delivers for technical programs.

It’s usual for students to get confused with a single training area which doesn’t even occur to them: How the training is broken down and delivered to your home. Training companies will normally offer a 2 or 3 year study programme, and deliver each piece one-by-one as you finish each section. If you think this sound logical, then consider this: Maybe the order of study offered by the provider doesn’t suit. It may be difficult to get through every element within their timetable?

The ideal circumstances are to get all the learning modules packed off to you immediately; the complete package! This prevents any future issues from rising that will affect your ability to finish.

When you select any computer course or training it’s essential that the certification you’ll be working towards appropriates with industries needs. In addition, ensure that the course suits you, and your personal ability level. You can choose from office skills packages from Microsoft, or become a specialist IT professional. Plain speaking courses will set you on the right track to achieve your goals.

By taking advantage of the latest training methods and getting rid of wasteful procedures, there’s a new style of course provider supplying a better brand of teaching and assistance for very competitive prices.

Many training providers are still using a now out-dated method of training – classroom days. Often sold as a benefit, if you talk to a student who has had to attend a few, don’t be surprised to be lectured on several if not all of these:

* Many round journeys – quite often hundreds of miles at a time.

* Asking for frequent time off work – typical companies provide weekday availability and group several days in a chunk. This can be hard for a lot of working people, especially if travelling time is added into the mix.

* Lost holiday days – a lot of workers are given only twenty days of leave annually. If you give up at least half to your study classes, vacation time is going to be quite short for students and their families.

* Workshop days often end up over full.

* There is often tension in mixed classes as students want to progress at their own pace.

* The cost of travel – travelling backwards and forwards to the training college together with several days accommodation can really add up each time you attend. With only five to ten workshops at about thirty-five pounds for one over-night room, plus 40 pounds for petrol and food at 15 pounds, that equates to four to nine hundred pounds of hidden costs that we now have to fund.

* Most trainees want their studies to remain private to avoid any kind of repercussions whilst in their current job.

* Most of us feel awkward about asking questions in a room full of other trainees – because none of us wants to look like we don’t understand.

* Living away for part of your working week – many trainees find they have to work or live somewhere else for part of the program. Days in-centre are therefore problematic to attend, unfortunately the monies have already been handed over with your initial fees.

Why don’t you simply watch and be taught by tutors one-on-one from pre-filmed lessons, studying them when it suits you – not somebody else. Do them at home on your PC or why not in the garden on a laptop. If you’ve got questions, then logon to the 24×7 support facility (that we hope you’ll insist on with any technical courses.) No matter how often you have to re-cover a topic, filmed instructors will never get annoyed or frustrated! And remember, with this method, there’s no need to take notes. Everything’s laid out there for immediate use. Could it be simpler: No wasted time or money, travelling is avoided; and of course you get a much more stress-free learning environment.

Watch out that all exams you’re considering doing will be commercially viable and are 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, CompTIA or Cisco, then it’s likely it won’t be commercially viable – because it won’t give an employer any directly-useable skills.

The way a programme is physically sent to you is often missed by many students. How many stages do they break the program into? What is the specific order and how fast does each element come? Individual deliveries for each training module one piece at a time, as you pass each exam is the usual method of releasing your program. While sounding logical, you might like to consider this: What could you expect if you didn’t actually complete each section at the speed they required? Often the prescribed exam order won’t fit you as well as another different route may.

For the perfect solution, you want everything at the start – so you’ll have them all to come back to in the future – as and when you want. This allows a variation in the order that you complete your exams if another more intuitive route presents itself.

Network and computer support staff are ever more in demand in this country, as businesses have come to depend on their technical advice and skills. The nation’s requirement for increasing numbers of skilled and qualified individuals multiplies, as human beings become ever more dependent on PC’s in the modern world.

Usually, trainers will provide piles of reference manuals and workbooks. This isn’t very interesting and isn’t the best way to go about taking things in. If we can study while utilising as many senses as possible, then the results are usually dramatically better.

Locate a program where you’ll receive a selection of DVD-ROM’s – you’ll begin by watching videos of instructors demonstrating the skills, with the facility to use virtual lab’s to practice your new skills. Every company that you look at should willingly take you through a few samples of the materials provided for study. You’re looking for evidence of tutorial videos and demonstrations and interactive areas to practice in.

Often, companies will only use just online versions of their training packages; and while this is acceptable much of the time, imagine the problems when you don’t have access to the internet or you get intermittent problems and speed issues. It is usually safer to have CD and DVD ROM materials which will solve that problem.

A valuable training program will undoubtedly have fully authorised exam preparation packages. Avoid depending on non-official exam preparation questions. The type of questions asked is often somewhat different – and this could lead to potential problems in the actual examination. Be sure to ask for testing modules so you can test your knowledge at any point. Practice exams help to build your confidence – then you’re much more at ease with the real thing.

Don’t forget: the actual training or a certification is not what you’re looking for; a job that you want to end up in is. A lot of colleges seem to completely prioritise the certificate itself. Never let yourself become one of those unfortunate students who select a program which looks like it could be fun – only to end up with a qualification for a job they hate.

Make sure you investigate your leanings around earning potential and career progression, and whether you intend to be quite ambitious. It makes sense to understand what will be expected of you, which particular certifications are required and how you’ll gain real-world experience. We recommend that students seek advice from an experienced professional before making your final decision on some particular learning path, so you can be sure that the specific package will give the skill-set required for your career choice.

Looking at the myriad of choice out there, does it really shock us that a large percentage of trainees don’t really understand the best career path they could be successful with. Scanning a list of IT job-titles is a complete waste of time. The vast majority of us have no idea what our next-door neighbours do at work each day – so what chance do we have in understanding the subtleties of a new IT role. Often, the key to unlocking this question in the best manner stems from a thorough talk over some important points:

* Your hobbies and interests – often these point towards what possibilities will provide a happy working life.

* Do you hope to pull off a closely held dream – for instance, working from home someday?

* What scale of importance is the salary – is it of prime importance, or is job satisfaction a little higher on the priority-scale?

* Considering all that Information Technology encapsulates, it’s obvious you’ll need to be able to absorb how they differ.

* How much time you will spend on getting qualified.

For most people, getting to the bottom of all these ideas needs a long talk with a professional who can investigate each area with you. And we don’t just mean the certifications – but also the commercial expectations and needs besides.

We need to make this very clear: You have to get round-the-clock 24×7 instructor support. You will have so many problems later if you let this one slide. Many only provide email support (too slow), and telephone support is usually to a call-centre which will make some notes and then email an advisor – who will attempt to call you within 24-48 hrs, when it’s convenient to them. This is not a lot of use if you’re stuck with a particular problem and have a one hour time-slot in which to study.

Top training companies incorporate three or four individual support centres from around the world. An online system provides an interactive interface to join them all seamlessly, no matter what time you login, help is at hand, without any problems or delays. If you opt for less than online 24×7 support, you’ll regret it. It may be that you don’t use it late in the night, but consider weekends, late evenings or early mornings.

The CompTIA A+ course covers 4 different sectors – you’ll need exam certification in two of these areas to be considered A+ competent. For this reason, most colleges restrict their A+ to just two of the four in the syllabus. To us, this is selling you short – certainly you’ll have the qualification, but knowing about the others will set you apart in the workplace, where gaps in your knowledge will expose weaknesses. So that’s why you need education in everything.

As well as being taught how to build and fix computers, students on an A+ training course will be shown how to work in antistatic conditions, along with remote access, fault finding and diagnostics. If your ambition is taking care of computer networks, you’ll need to add CompTIA Network+ to your training package. This qualification will mean you can command a more senior job role. Other ones that might be interesting to you are the networking qualifications from Microsoft, i.e. MCP, MCSA MCSE.

Commencing from the viewpoint that it’s good to locate the market that sounds most inviting first and foremost, before we’re even able to chew over what educational program would meet that requirement, how can we choose the correct route? Since having no commercial skills in computing, how could any of us know what any job actually involves? Achieving the right answer only comes via a careful investigation of many changing areas:

* Our personalities play a starring role – what things get your juices flowing, and what are the things that put a frown on your face.

* For what reasons you’re moving into computing – it could be you’re looking to overcome a long-held goal such as working for yourself maybe.

* What priority do you place on job satisfaction vs salary?

* Looking at the many markets that the IT industry encompasses, you’ll need to be able to see what’s different.

* You’ll also need to think hard about what kind of effort and commitment that you will set aside for your training.

To be honest, your only option to investigate these matters is via a conversation with an advisor or professional that understands the IT industry (and chiefly the commercial requirements.)

One interesting way that training providers make more money is through up-front charges for exams and presenting it as a guarantee for your exams. It looks like a good deal, but let’s just examine it more closely:

It’s become essential these days that we have to be a little bit more aware of sales ploys – and most of us realise that of course it is actually an additional cost to us (it’s not a freebie because they like us so much!) Those who enter their exams one by one, funding them as they go are far more likely to pass first time. They are thoughtful of what they’ve paid and revise more thoroughly to ensure they are ready.

Look for the very best offer you can at the time, and keep hold of your own money. You’ll also be able to choose where to take your exam – so you can find somewhere local. Huge profits are made by some training companies who get money upfront for exam fees. For quite legitimate reasons, a number of students don’t get to do their exams but the company keeps the money. Amazingly, there are providers that depend on students not taking their exams – as that’s how they make a lot of their profit. Re-takes of any failed exams with organisations who offer an ‘Exam Guarantee’ are monitored with tight restrictions. You’ll be required to sit pre-tests until you’ve proven that you’re likely to pass.

Exam fees averaged approximately 112 pounds twelve months or so ago through Prometric or VUE centres around the United Kingdom. So don’t be talked into shelling out hundreds or thousands of pounds more to get ‘Exam Guarantees’, when common sense dictates that what’s really needed is a commitment to studying and the use of authorised exam preparation tools.

If you’re like many of the students we talk to then you probably enjoy fairly practical work – the ‘hands-on’ individual. If you’re like us, the world of book-reading and classrooms would be considered as a last resort, but it doesn’t suit your way of doing things. So look for on-screen interactive learning packages if books just don’t do it for you. Research has time and time again demonstrated that connecting physically with our study, is proven to produce longer-lasting and deeper memory retention.

Interactive audio-visual materials involving demonstration and virtual lab’s will beat books every time. And you’ll find them fun and interesting. It would be silly not to view some of the typical study materials provided before you hand over your cheque. You should expect instructor-led video demonstrations and a variety of audio-visual and interactive sections.

It doesn’t make sense to opt for on-line only training. Because of the variable quality and reliability of all internet service providers, ensure that you have access to CD or DVD ROM based materials.

When did you last consider your job security? Typically, this only rears its head when we experience a knock-back. But really, the lesson often learned too late is that job security simply doesn’t exist anymore, for most of us. It’s possible though to hit upon security at the market sector level, by looking for high demand areas, together with a shortage of skilled staff.

Investigating the Information Technology (IT) market, the recent e-Skills survey demonstrated a more than 26 percent shortfall of skilled workers. It follows then that for every 4 jobs that are available throughout IT, businesses are only able to locate properly accredited workers for three of them. Appropriately qualified and commercially accredited new workers are as a result at a total premium, and it looks like they will be for a long time. Surely, it really is a fabulous time for retraining into the computing industry.

Students will sometimes miss checking on a painfully important area – the way the company actually breaks down and delivers the courseware sections, and into what particular chunks. Delivery by courier of each element one stage at a time, as you pass each exam is the typical way that your program will arrive. While seeming sensible, you must understand the following: How would they react if you didn’t complete each and every exam at the proposed pace? Often the staged order doesn’t work as well as some other order of studying might.

In all honesty, the very best answer is to have a copy of their prescribed order of study, but get everything up-front. You then have everything in the event you don’t complete everything inside of their required time-scales.

Congratulations! Hitting upon this feature means you’re likely to be wondering about where you’re going, and if it’s new career training you’re deliberating over you’ve already done more than most. Are you aware that a small minority of us are fulfilled and satisfied with our jobs – but the majority will just put up with it. Why not liberate yourself and make a start – don’t you think you deserve it.

With regard to individual courses, seek out someone who will be able to guide you on which area will be right for you. An advisor who will take time to ask questions about your likes and dislikes, and discover what type of job will be right for you:

* Are you hoping to be involved with others in the workplace? Would you prefer to work with a small team or with many new people? Maybe working on your own with your own methodology would give you pleasure?

* Are you thinking carefully about which area you could be employed in? (With the economic downturn, it’s more important than ever to be selective.)

* When you’ve done all your re-training, would you like your skills to serve you till you retire?

* Do you have niggles about your chances of finding new employment, and staying employable until you plan to retire?

The largest sector in Great Britain to tick all of the above boxes is the IT industry. There’s a need for more knowledgeable staff in IT, simply have a look at a local job site and you will find them yourself. Don’t let people tell you it’s only geeky nerds sitting in front ofscreens the whole time – there are loads more jobs than that. Most of employees in the computer industry are just like you and me, with jobs they enjoy and better than average salaries.

Including examinations with the course fee and offering an ‘Exam Guarantee’ is a popular marketing tool with many training course providers. Consider the facts:

Certainly it isn’t free – you’re still coughing up for it – it’s just been wrapped up in the price of the package. It’s well known in the industry that if students pay for their own exams, one by one, they will be much more likely to pass first time – since they’ll think of their payment and their application will be greater.

Go for the best offer you can find when you take the exam, and hang on to your cash. You’ll then be able to select where you do the examinations – meaning you can choose a local testing centre. A lot of current training providers secure huge profits because they’re getting paid for exam fees early then hoping that you won’t take them all. Remember, in the majority of cases of ‘exam guarantees’ – they control when and how often you are allowed to do a re-take. Subsequent exam attempts are only authorised at the company’s say so.

Due to typical VUE and Prometric exams coming in at approximately 112 pounds in Great Britain, the most cost-effective way to cover the cost is by paying when you need them. Why splash out often many hundreds of pounds extra at the beginning of your training? Study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will really guarantee success.

If an advisor doesn’t ask many questions – it’s more than likely they’re just a salesperson. If they’re pushing towards a particular product before understanding your background and current experience level, then it’s very likely to be the case. With a little work-based experience or some accreditation, your starting-point of learning is different from a beginner. If you’re a student commencing IT study from scratch, it can be helpful to start out slowly, starting with a user-skills course first. This can be built into most accreditation programs.

We’re regularly asked to explain why qualifications from colleges and universities are now falling behind more qualifications from the commercial sector? Accreditation-based training (to use industry-speak) is far more specialised and product-specific. Industry has realised that this level of specialised understanding is vital to cope with an acceleratingly technical workplace. CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA are the dominant players. They do this by honing in on the skills that are really needed (alongside an appropriate level of related knowledge,) as opposed to trawling through all the background ‘padding’ that degrees in computing can often find themselves doing – to fill a three or four year course.

Put yourself in the employer’s position – and you required somebody who had very specific skills. What’s the simplest way to find the right person: Go through a mass of different academic qualifications from graduate applicants, having to ask what each has covered and which vocational skills have been attained, or select a specialised number of commercial certifications that precisely match your needs, and then select who you want to interview from that. You can then focus on how someone will fit into the team at interview – rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.

Many individuals don’t catch on to what IT can do for us. It’s stimulating, innovative, and means you’re doing your bit in the gigantic wave of technology that will affect us all over the next generation. We’ve only just begun to get an inclination of how technology is going to shape our lives. The internet will significantly alter the way we view and interact with the entire world over the coming years.

Let’s not forget that typical remuneration in IT across the UK is noticeably greater than remuneration packages in other industries, therefore you’ll be in a good position to receive much more as an IT specialist, than you’d expect to earn elsewhere. Due to the technological sector increasing year on year, it’s looking good that the requirement for qualified professionals will continue to boom for a good while yet.

Many trainers provide a big box of books. It’s not a very interesting way to learn and not really conducive to studying effectively. Where possible, if we can study while utilising as many senses as possible, then we normally see dramatically better results.

Start a study-program in which you’ll receive a selection of DVD-ROM’s – you’ll be learning from instructor videos and demo’s, followed by the chance to hone your abilities through virtual lab’s. It’s imperative to see the type of training provided by any company that you may want to train through. Be sure that they contain full motion videos of instructors demonstrating the topic with lab’s to practice the skills in.

It is generally unwise to choose training that is only available online. Connection quality and reliability varies hugely across all internet service providers, you should always obtain disc based courseware (On CD or DVD).