If Cisco training is your aspiration, but you’ve no practical experience with network switches or routers, the chances are your first course should be the CCNA training. This educates you in the necessary skills to set up and maintain routers. Vast numbers of routers make up the internet, and national or international corporations with multiple departments and sites also utilise routers to allow their networks to talk to each other.

Routers connect to networks, so it’s important to have an understanding of how networks operate, or you’ll struggle with the course and not be able to do the work. Seek out a program that features the basics on networks (such as CompTIA) before you start the CCNA.

Should this be your first introduction to routers, then working up to and including the CCNA is definitely sufficient - don’t be pushed into attempting your CCNP. Once you’ve worked for a few years, you will have a feel for if CCNP is something you want to do.

It would be wonderful to believe that our jobs will remain safe and our work prospects are protected, but the growing reality for the majority of jobs around the United Kingdom currently is that the marketplace is far from secure. In actuality, security now only emerges via a rapidly rising market, pushed forward by work-skills shortages. It’s this alone that creates just the right conditions for market-security - a more attractive situation all round.

The Information Technology (IT) skills-gap around the United Kingdom falls in at roughly twenty six percent, as reported by a recent e-Skills investigation. Showing that for each four job positions that exist across Information Technology (IT), there are only 3 trained people to do them. Attaining proper commercial IT accreditation is accordingly an effective route to realise a long-term as well as pleasing occupation. Surely, this really is a critical time to train for the computer industry.

Without a doubt, the UK computing industry offers fantastic possibilities. However, to properly investigate, which questions do we need to be raising, and what are the most important considerations?

Beginning with the idea that we have to choose the market that sounds most inviting first, before we’re even able to ponder which educational program fulfils our needs, how do we know the right path? After all, if you’ve got no experience in the IT sector, how are you equipped to know what someone in a particular field spends their day doing? Let alone decide on what certification program provides the best chances for a successful result. Ultimately, a well-informed conclusion can only grow from a methodical examination across many altering factors:

* The kind of person you reckon you are - which things you find interesting, plus of course - what you definitely don’t enjoy.

* Do you hope to realise a key objective - for instance, working for yourself in the near future?

* Where do you stand on salary vs job satisfaction?

* Getting to grips with what the normal job roles and markets are - including what sets them apart.

* What effort, commitment and time you’ll have available to put into getting qualified.

To cut through all the jargon and confusion, and reveal the best path to success, have a good talk with an industry expert and advisor; an individual who appreciates and can explain the commercial realities as well as each qualification.

We’d hazard a guess that you’re a practical sort of person - a ‘hands-on’ personality type. Typically, the world of book-reading and classrooms is something you’ll make yourself do if you have to, but it’s not really your thing. So look for on-screen interactive learning packages if books just don’t do it for you. Memory is vastly improved when we use multiple senses - educational experts have expounded on this for as long as we can remember.

Search for a course where you’ll receive a library of CD or DVD ROM’s - you’ll learn by watching video tutorials and demonstrations, with the facility to practice your skills in interactive lab’s. It would be silly not to view examples of the courseware provided before you purchase a course. You should expect instructor-led video demonstrations and interactive modules with audio-visual elements.

Some companies only have access to training that is purely available online; while you can get away with this much of the time, imagine the problems when you don’t have access to the internet or you only get very a very slow connection sometimes. It’s much safer to rely on CD and DVD ROM materials that will solve that problem.

Students often end up having issues because of a single training area very rarely considered: The way the training is divided into chunks and physically delivered to you. Individual deliveries for each training module one piece at a time, taking into account your exam passes is how things will normally arrive. Of course, this sounds sensible, but you must understand the following: It’s not unusual for trainees to realise that their training company’s typical path to completion doesn’t suit. It’s often the case that it’s more expedient to use an alternative order of study. Could it cause problems if you don’t get everything done within their exact timetable?

For maximum flexibility and safety, it’s normal for most trainees to have all their training materials (which they’ve now paid for) delivered immediately, and not in stages. It’s then your own choice in what order and how fast or slow you’d like to take your exams.

Of all the important things to consider, one of the most essential is always 24×7 round-the-clock support through trained professional instructors and mentors. So many companies we come across will only offer a basic 9am till 6pm support period (maybe later on certain days) with very little availability over the weekend. Never buy study programmes that only provide support to you through an out-sourced call-centre message system after office-staff have gone home. Training organisations will always try to hide the importance of this issue. The simple fact of the matter is - support is needed when it’s needed - not when it’s convenient for them.

It’s possible to find professional companies who give students direct-access online support all the time - including evenings, nights and weekends. Don’t under any circumstances take less than this. 24×7 support is really your only option with technical training. Maybe late-evening study is not your thing; usually though, we’re out at work at the time when most support is available.

Don’t accept anything less than the latest Microsoft (or any other key organisation’s) authorised simulation materials and exam preparation packages. Be sure that the practice exams are not just posing the correct questions from the right areas, but ask them in the way that the actual final exam will formulate them. It throws people if the questions are phrased in unfamiliar formats. Always ask for testing modules that will allow you to test your comprehension whenever you need to. Practice exams help to build your confidence - so the real thing isn’t quite as scary.

The somewhat scary thought of securing your first role in IT can be relieved by some companies, via a Job Placement Assistance facility. Often, there is more emphasis than is necessary on this service, because it’s relatively easy for a well trained and motivated person to get work in the IT industry - as employers are keen to find appropriately trained staff.

Get your CV updated straight-away though (advice and support for this should come from your course provider). Don’t delay till the exams have actually been passed. You may not have got to the stage where you’ve got to the exam time when you land your first junior support job; although this isn’t going to happen unless you’ve posted your CV on job sites. If it’s important to you to find work near your home, then it’s quite likely that an independent and specialised local employment service may work much better for you than some national concern, as they’re far more likely to be familiar with the local job scene.

Various people, it would appear, conscientiously work through their course materials (for years sometimes), only to give up at the first hurdle when finding a good job. Market yourself… Make an effort to get in front of employers. Don’t expect a job to just fall into your lap.

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