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Good for you! As you’re reading this article you’re probably toying with the idea of getting re-qualified for a new job – that puts you way ahead of the crowd. Less of us than you’d think are content with our jobs, but most complain but just stay there. You could join a select group who actually do something about it.

Prior to considering individual courses, discuss your thoughts with an industry expert who can talk you through the right type of training for you. Someone who has the ability to ask questions about your likes and dislikes, and discover what type of job will be right for you:

* Do you enjoy a busy working environment? Do you like to deal with the public? Or are you better with things that you can get on with on your own?

* What’s important that you get from the area of industry you choose? – We all know that things have changed, look at building and banking for instance.

* And how many years do you want to get out of your retraining, and will the industry provide you with that possibility?

* Would you like your study to be in an industry where you know your chances of gainful employment are high up to the time you want to stop?

Look at the IT sector, that’s our best advice – unusually, it’s one of the growing market sectors in this country and overseas. In addition, salaries and benefits exceed most other industries.

Most of us would love to think that our jobs will remain safe and our future is protected, but the growing reality for most jobs throughout the United Kingdom right now is that security just isn’t there anymore. We could however find security at the market sector level, by looking for areas of high demand, together with a shortage of skilled staff.

The computing Industry skills-gap around the country is standing at over twenty six percent, as shown by the 2006 e-Skills analysis. Alternatively, you could say, this shows that the UK can only find three qualified staff for every four jobs that exist now. This alarming notion underpins the urgent need for more technically accredited computer professionals in the UK. With the market expanding at such a rate, is there any other area of industry worth considering as a retraining vehicle.

Which kind of questions should we ask so as to take in the understanding required? Because it’s evident there are many fairly superb prospects for us all to look at.

Considering the amount of options that are available, is it any wonder that most potential career changers don’t really understand the best career path they could be successful with. Working through a list of IT job-titles is next to useless. The vast majority of us don’t even know what the neighbours do for a living – so we have no hope of understanding the intricacies of any specific IT role. Deliberation over these different factors is imperative if you need to get to a solution that suits you:

* Your personal interests and hobbies – often these show the possibilities will satisfy you.

* For what reasons you’re getting involved with IT – is it to achieve a long-held goal such as firing your boss and working for yourself maybe.

* Any personal or home requirements you have?

* Getting to grips with what typical job roles and sectors are – including what sets them apart.

* The time and energy you’ll have available to commit your training.

To bypass the barrage of jargon, and discover the best route for you, have an informal chat with an advisor with years of experience; someone that appreciates and can explain the commercial realities and of course all the qualifications.

If you’re like many of the students we talk to then you’re a practical sort of person – the ‘hands-on’ personality type. If you’re anything like us, the trial of reading reference books and manuals is something you’ll force on yourself if you absolutely have to, but you really wouldn’t enjoy it. You should use video and multimedia based materials if books just don’t do it for you. Memory is vastly improved when all our senses are brought into the mix – experts have been clear on this for many years.

Start a study-program in which you’ll receive a selection of CD or DVD ROM’s – you’ll learn by watching video tutorials and demonstrations, and be able to use virtual lab’s to practice your new skills. Don’t take any chances and look at some examples of the kind of training materials you’ll be using before you purchase a course. The minimum you should expect would be instructor demonstrations, video tutorials and audio-visual elements backed up by interactive lab’s.

You should avoid purely online training. Physical CD or DVD ROM materials are preferable where obtainable, as you need to be able to use them whenever it’s convenient for you – it’s not wise to be held hostage to a good broadband connection all the time.

Often, students don’t think to check on a painfully important area – how their training provider segments the training materials, and into what particular chunks. You may think it logical (with most training taking 1-3 years to pass all the required exams,) that a training provider will issue one section at a time, as you pass each element. But: What would happen if you didn’t finish each section at the proposed pace? Often the staged order won’t be as easy as another different route may.

Ideally, you’d get ALL the training materials right at the beginning – giving you them all for the future to come back to – at any time you choose. Variations can then be made to the order that you complete your exams if another more intuitive route presents itself.

At the top of your shopping list for a training program should be proper direct-access 24×7 support through professional mentors and instructors. Far too often we see trainers who will only offer a basic 9am till 6pm support period (maybe later on certain days) with very little availability over the weekend. Never purchase study programmes that only provide support to you with a call-centre messaging system after office-staff have gone home. Training companies will always try to hide the importance of this issue. But, no matter how they put it – you need support when you need support – not at their convenience.

Top training companies utilise several support facilities active in different time-zones. They use an online interactive interface to seamlessly link them all together, irrespective of the time you login, there is always help at hand, avoiding all the delays and problems. Search out a trainer that goes the extra mile. As only round-the-clock 24×7 support gives you the confidence to make it.

Adding in the cost of exams with the course fee then including an exam guarantee is a common method with many companies. However, let’s consider what’s really going on:

In this day and age, we tend to be a little bit more aware of sales ploys – and the majority of us ought to realise that of course it is something we’re paying for – they’re not just being charitable and doling out freebies! If it’s important to you to pass in one, then you should pay for each exam as you go, prioritise it appropriately and apply yourself as required.

Doesn’t it make more sense to find the best exam deal or offer at the appropriate time, instead of paying a premium to the training college, and also to sit exams more locally – rather than possibly hours away from your area? Why borrow the money or pay in advance (plus interest of course) on exams when you didn’t need to? Big margins are netted by organisations getting money in early for exam fees – and then hoping that you won’t take them all. The majority of organisations will insist on pre-tests and hold you back from re-takes until you’ve demonstrated an excellent ability to pass – so an ‘Exam Guarantee’ comes with many clauses in reality.

With average prices for VUE and Pro-metric exams costing in the region of 112 pounds in this country, it makes sense to pay as you go. It’s not in the student’s interests to fork out hundreds or thousands of pounds for exams when enrolling on a course. Commitment, effort and practice with quality exam preparation systems are the factors that really get you through.

Any program that you’re going to undertake should always lead to a nationally (or globally) recognised accreditation as an end-goal – definitely not some ‘in-house’ piece of paper. You’ll find that only recognised qualifications from the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco and CompTIA will have any meaning to employers.

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