Beware of putting too much emphasis, as many people do, on the certification itself. Training is not an end in itself; you're training to become commercially employable. Begin and continue with the end in mind. Don't let yourself become part of that group who set off on a track that sounds really 'interesting' and 'fun' - only to end up with a qualification for something they'll never enjoy.

Spend some time thinking about the income level you aspire to and how ambitious you are. Usually, this will point the way to which particular qualifications you'll need to attain and how much effort you'll have to give in return. The best advice for students is to chat with an experienced professional before following a particular learning path. This is essential to ensure it features what is required for that career path.

Be watchful that any accreditations you're working towards will be commercially viable and are bang up to date. 'In-house' certificates are generally useless. Only properly recognised certification from companies such as Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA and Cisco will open the doors to employers.

A proficient and specialised consultant (vs a salesperson) will want to thoroughly discuss your current experience level and abilities. This is useful for working out your study start-point. In some circumstances, the training inception point for someone with experience is often substantially different to the student with no experience. Working through a basic PC skills course first can be the best way to get into your IT studies, depending on your current skill level.

Have you recently questioned how safe your job is? Normally, we only think of this after something dramatic happens to shake us. But really, the reality is that our job security simply doesn't exist anymore, for the vast majority of people. We can however find security at market-level, by searching for areas that have high demand, tied with a shortage of skilled staff.

The Information Technology (IT) skills shortfall across the country is standing at just over 26 percent, as reported by the 2006 e-Skills investigation. Meaning that for each four job positions in existence in computing, there are only 3 trained people to do them. Highly skilled and commercially accredited new workers are correspondingly at a total premium, and in all likelihood it will stay that way for a long time. As the Information Technology market is evolving at such a quick pace, there really isn't any other area of industry worth considering for retraining.

Most people don't even think to ask about a painfully important area - the way their training provider segments the courseware elements, and into how many bits. Training companies will normally offer a program typically taking 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: It's not unusual for trainees to realise that their providers standard order of study isn't ideal for them. It's often the case that a slightly different order suits them better. And what if you don't get to the end inside of the expected timescales?

Ideally, you'd get ALL the training materials right at the beginning - enabling you to have them all to come back to in the future - as and when you want. Variations can then be made to the order that you move through the program as and when something more intuitive seems right for you.

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