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The CompTIA A+ course has four specialist sections – you’ll have to qualify in two of these areas to be A+ competent. This is why, most colleges only offer two of the four in the syllabus. We consider that this isn’t enough – yes you’ll have qualified, but training on all 4 will give you a distinct advantage in your working life, where gaps in your knowledge will expose weaknesses. That’s the reason why you should train in all 4 specialities.

CompTIA A+ training programs are about fault finding and diagnosing – both remote access and hands-on, alongside building, fixing, repairing and having knowledge of antistatic conditions. Should you want to work towards maintaining networks, you should add CompTIA Network+ to your training package. This qualification will put you in a position to command a more senior job role. You may also want to consider the networking qualifications from Microsoft, i.e. MCP, MCSA MCSE.

Bearing in mind the sheer volume of discussion covering Information Technology (IT) right now, how can we recognize what precisely to look for?

Starting from the viewpoint that we need to locate the area of most interest first and foremost, before we can chew over what educational program would meet that requirement, how do we decide on the right path? Since with no previous experience in IT, how could any of us know what anyone doing a particular job actually does? Contemplation on these different areas is imperative when you need to uncover the right solution that will work for you:

* Which type of individual you think yourself to be – the tasks that you get enjoyment from, plus of course – what don’t you like doing.

* For what reasons you’re starting in IT – maybe you’d like to conquer some personal goal such as being your own boss maybe.

* Where do you stand on salary vs job satisfaction?

* With many, many markets to choose from in the IT industry – there’s a need to achieve some key facts on what sets them apart.

* You have to appreciate the differences between the myriad of training options.

The bottom line is, your only chance of understanding everything necessary is via a good talk with an advisor or professional that through years of experience will provide solid advice.

Traditional teaching in classrooms, involving piles of reference textbooks, can be pretty hard going sometimes. If this describes you, check out study materials that are multimedia based. Memory is vastly improved with an involvement of all our senses – educational experts have expounded on this for years now.

Courses are now available in the form of CD and DVD ROM’s, where your computer becomes the centre of your learning. Video streaming means you can watch instructors demonstrating how something is done, and then practice yourself – in a virtual lab environment. Be sure to get a training material demonstration from the training company. The package should contain slide-shows, instructor-led videos and fully interactive skills-lab’s.

It’s unwise to opt for on-line only training. Because of the variable quality and reliability of your average broadband company, it makes sense to have physical media such as CD or DVD ROM’s.

Often, students don’t think to check on something that can make a profound difference to their results – how their company actually breaks down and delivers the physical training materials, and into how many parts. Trainees may consider it sensible (with a typical time scale of 1-3 years to pass all the required exams,) that a training provider will issue one module at a time, as you achieve each exam pass. But: What if there are reasons why you can’t finish every section? And what if you find the order of the modules counter-intuitive? Through no fault of your own, you might take a little longer and not get all the study materials as a result.

In a perfect world, you want ALL the study materials up-front – giving you them all to return to any point – at any time you choose. This also allows you to vary the order in which you complete each objective if you find another route more intuitive.

Most trainers only give support to you inside of office hours (typically 9am-6pm) and sometimes a little earlier or later; It’s rare to find someone who offers late evening or full weekend cover. You’ll be waiting ages for an answer with email based support, and phone support is usually just a call-centre which will take the information and email an instructor – who will then call back sometime over the next 24hrs, at a suitable time to them. This is not a lot of use if you’re lost and confused and have a one hour time-slot in which to study.

As long as you look hard, you will find professional training packages who recommend and use online support around the clock – even in the middle of the night. Unless you insist on direct-access 24×7 support, you’ll end up kicking yourself. You may avoid using the support late in the night, but you may need weekends, late evenings or early mornings.

You should only consider training courses that’ll progress to industry recognised accreditations. There’s a plethora of small colleges suggesting unknown ‘in-house’ certificates which aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on when you start your job-search. If your certification doesn’t come from a big-hitter like Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco, then it’s likely it will have been a waste of time – because no-one will recognise it.

One crafty way that colleges make extra profits is by charging for exams up-front and presenting it as a guarantee for your exams. It looks impressive, till you look at the facts:

Patently it’s not free – you’re still being charged for it – it’s just been included in your package price. It’s everybody’s ambition to qualify on the first attempt. Taking your exams progressively in order and paying for them just before taking them makes it far more likely you’ll pass first time – you revise thoroughly and think carefully about the costs.

Find the best exam deal or offer available at the time, and save having to find the money early. In addition, it’s then your choice where to sit the exam – meaning you can choose a local testing centre. A great deal of money is made by many companies who incorporate exam fees into the cost of the course. Many students don’t take them for one reason or another and so they pocket the rest. Believe it or not, there are companies around that actually bank on it – as that’s how they make a lot of their profit. In addition to this, ‘Exam Guarantees’ often aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Many training companies won’t be prepared to pay for you to re-take until you have demonstrated conclusively that you won’t fail again.

Due to typical VUE and Prometric exams coming in at around 112 pounds in the UK, by far the best option is to pay for them as you take them. There’s no sense in throwing away maybe a thousand pounds extra at the start of your studies. Study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will really guarantee success.

When did you last consider how safe your job is? Typically, this issue only becomes a talking point when something dramatic happens to shake us. Unfortunately, the painful truth is that true job security is a thing of the past, for most of us. But a marketplace with high growth, where staff are in constant demand (because of a massive shortage of properly qualified staff), provides a market for lasting job security.

The computing Industry skills shortage around the UK clocks in at around 26 percent, according to a recent e-Skills analysis. Basically, we’re only able to fill three out of 4 positions in the computer industry. This one idea in itself shows why the country needs a lot more workers to get trained and enter the IT sector. With the market evolving at such a speed, could there honestly be a better market worth taking into account as a retraining vehicle.

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