The CCNA is where it all starts for Cisco training. With it, you’ll learn how to handle maintaining and installing routers and switches. Fundamentally, the internet is based upon huge numbers of routers, and big organisations that have various regional departments use them to allow their networks to keep in touch.

Routers connect to networks, so it is important to have prior knowledge of how networks operate, or you’ll struggle with the program and not be able to do the work. Find a training programme that teaches the basics (for example CompTIA) prior to starting your CCNA.

Get on a specially designed course that covers everything to make sure that you have comprehensive skills and abilities before getting going with Cisco.

Many trainers provide mainly work-books and reference manuals. Learning like this is dull and repetitive and not ideal for remembering. Where we can involve all our senses in the learning process, our results will often be quite spectacular.

Programs are now found in disc format, where your computer becomes the centre of your learning. Through video streaming, you can sit back and watch the teachers showing you precisely how to do something, with some practice time to follow – in an interactive lab. You really need to look at courseware examples from your chosen company. They have to utilise video, demonstrations and various interactive elements.

It’s usually bad advice to go for purely on-line training. Connection quality and reliability varies hugely across most broadband providers, ensure that you have access to CD or DVD ROM based materials.

Ask any professional consultant and they’ll regale you with many awful tales of salespeople ripping-off unsuspecting students. Ensure you only ever work with an experienced industry advisor who asks lots of questions to find out what’s right for you – not for their wallet! It’s very important to locate a starting-point that will suit you. With some commercial experience or certification, it may be that your starting point of study is not the same as someone new to the industry. It’s wise to consider a user-skills course first. This can often make your learning curve a little less steep.

An effective training program will have accredited exam preparation packages. Often students can find themselves confused by trying to prepare themselves with questions that aren’t from official sources. It’s not uncommon that the terminology in the real exams is unfamiliar and you should be prepared for this. Ensure that you ask for exam preparation tools that will allow you to verify your comprehension along the way. Practice or ‘mock’ exams help to build your confidence – then you’re much more at ease with the real thing.

There are a plethora of professional positions up for grabs in IT. Arriving at the correct choice for yourself is generally problematic. After all, if you’ve got no know-how of the IT market, what chance is there for you to know what a particular IT employee actually does day-to-day? Let alone decide on which training route is the most likely for you to get there. Reflection on these issues is essential if you need to reveal the right answer for you:

* What hobbies you’re involved with in your spare-time – as they can highlight what areas will give you the most reward.

* Are you hoping to get qualified due to a certain raison d’etre – i.e. do you aim to work based at home (maybe self-employment?)?

* Is the money you make further up on your priority-list than other factors.

* Getting to grips with what the normal career areas and markets are – and what differentiates them.

* You will need to understand what differentiates each area of training.

When all is said and done, your only chance of covering these is by means of a meeting with an advisor who through years of experience will be able to guide you.

Most training companies will only offer office hours or extended office hours support; not many go late into the evening (after 8-9pm) or cover weekends properly. Avoid, like the plague, any organisations who use ‘out-of-hours’ call-centres – with the call-back coming in during the next ‘working’ day. This is no use if you’re stuck and could do with an answer during your scheduled study period.

If you look properly, you’ll find the top providers who offer online support at all times – no matter what time of day it is. Never make the mistake of compromise when you’re looking for the right support service. The majority of IT hopefuls that can’t get going properly, are in that situation because of support (or the lack of).

What can a student searching for training tracks certified by Microsoft expect from providers these days? Undoubtedly, companies ought to have a variety of routes that match the needs of Microsoft authorised training routes. It’s a good idea to discuss the job possibilities with a person who’s got industry experience – and should you be confused, then have some guidance on what sort of job would suit you most, based on your personality and ability level. When you’ve chosen the career track for you, your next search is for a suitable training program tailored to be right for your current level of knowledge and ability. The quality of training should more than match your expectations.

Speak with almost any expert consultant and we’d be amazed if they couldn’t provide you with many awful tales of salespeople ripping-off unsuspecting students. Only deal with an experienced professional who asks lots of questions to discover the most appropriate thing for you – not for their retirement-fund! Dig until you find a starting-point that will suit you. Quite often, the starting point of study for a person with a little experience is vastly dissimilar to someone without. If this is going to be your first crack at studying for an IT examination then you may want to start with some basic Microsoft package and Windows skills first.

Often, trainers provide a big box of books. This can be very boring and isn’t the best way to go about remembering. If we can utilise all of our senses into our learning, then we often see hugely increased memory retention as a result.

Modern training can now be done at home via interactive CD and DVD ROM’s. Through instructor-led video classes you’ll find things easier to remember by way of their teaching and demonstrations. Then it’s time to test your knowledge by interacting with the software and practicing yourself. Always insist on a demonstration of the study materials from your training provider. You’ll want to see expert-led demonstrations, slideshows and fully interactive skills-lab’s.

Select actual CD or DVD ROM’s whenever you can. Thus avoiding all the issues associated with internet connection failure and issues with signal quality.

Considering the amount of options that are available, does it really shock us that a large majority of trainees don’t really understand the best career path they could be successful with. Consequently, without any background in the IT sector, what chance is there for you to know what some particular IT person spends their day doing? How can you possibly choose which certification program will be most suitable for your success. Getting to the right choice really only appears via a detailed examination across many different criteria:

* Personality plays an important part – what kind of areas spark your interest, and what are the things that you really dislike.

* Why it seems right stepping into Information Technology – maybe you want to achieve some personal goal such as working for yourself for example.

* Any personal or home requirements you may have?

* Getting to grips with what the normal career types and markets are – and what differentiates them.

* You should also think long and hard about the amount of time and effort you’re going to give to the accreditation program.

For most of us, getting to the bottom of all these ideas tends to require the help of an advisor who can explain things properly. And not just the certifications – but also the commercial expectations and needs of industry too.

Locating job security nowadays is problematic. Businesses frequently remove us from the workplace at the drop of a hat – as and when it suits them. In actuality, security now only emerges in a fast growing market, driven forward by a shortfall of trained staff. It’s this shortage that creates just the right conditions for a higher level of market-security – a far better situation.

The computer industry skills shortage throughout Great Britain is standing at approximately twenty six percent, according to a recent e-Skills survey. Quite simply, we can only fill three out of every four jobs in the computer industry. This troubling certainty shows an urgent requirement for more properly qualified computer professionals across Great Britain. For sure, it really is a critical time to train for the computer industry.

Only consider learning programmes that move onto industry approved certifications. There are loads of small colleges proposing minor ‘in-house’ certificates which will prove unusable when you start your job-search. Unless your qualification is issued by a major player like Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA or Cisco, then chances are it will have been a waste of time – because no-one will recognise it.

You’re Not To Blame For Being Fat! First things first though: That doesn’t mean we’re saying you can’t do something about it. Just that the truth about weight loss has been kept from you.

We’d like to break that depressing chain of misinformation. We want to help you break free from the chains of obesity, and start living again.

There are too many factors involved in why we’re overweight, though often we’re not at fault as individuals. The good thing is we can do something about it – we can re-educate ourselves and be guided by factually accurate systems that are both enjoyable and sustainable. Feelings of embarrassment can be banished from our lives.

Visualise this scenario – a Toyota needs fixing, but the mechanic’s been issued with the tools to fix a Ford. Not the right tools at all! He’s doomed to failure! It’s impossible for a mechanic to do the repairs with the wrong equipment.

Clearly it’s necessary to always have the specific tools that suit the task. Despite the fact that he’ll have a good idea of what he should be doing, with the wrong set of tools he’ll just be disappointed.

And so it is with weight reduction. So our aim here is to proffer a set of tools that will work as instruments of weight reduction. In truth, we’re all individuals on this earth. We like it to be that way. What works for one doesn’t always work for another.

A number of choices are necessary to find the perfect one to fit the way you live. Our experiences have probably told us that sometimes we find dieting hard, and sometimes effortless. If we have a lot of things to do, we’re not usually thinking too much about eating; whereas when we’re just sitting it can absorb our attention.

A passive lifestyle then can be said to be a very negative contributor where weight management is concerned. What we need are unique, tailored systems. Only then will we learn how to re-build our lives and become slimmer, more vital and bursting with energy.

It’s not easy to have faith in much of the weight loss advice given today. The truth is a vast industry has been built around losing weight, and many products just don’t work! Yet like many others, we were after something that worked. This is how we went about it…

It was important to us to find real experts who’d tested a long-term program. We wanted people that could show us life-changing solutions that we could grab hold of and use. An awareness of the facts is what we need. We didn’t want to have to purchase costly diet products week on week. Our approach was to find a re-education program that we could happily live with.

The three we liked best are all reassuringly sound. They don’t push the latest ‘quick fix’ pills. Please – do they think we’re that stupid?

The authors of our shortlist really understand what it is to be overweight. They deal with the problem by teaching us workable solution-orientated habits. Your health will be greatly enhanced once you put the techniques into practice. As you begin to benefit from your new knowledge, the results will quickly follow.

The Solution Actually Is Available Then? Without doubt – though few have discovered it under the mass of rubbish! Nevertheless, we know for sure that we’ve discovered some real breakthroughs.

We’re aware that battling with diet after diet has been a reality for many of us. We get some weight off temporarily, but the pounds creep back on again. We get demoralised very quickly when trying to lose weight – without fast results over ninety percent of us give up.

Sports men and women at the top of their game pay close attention to what they eat. Sports industry research has produced very clear evidence of the most favorable foods for our bodies. The research results can be adapted for regular people as well.

But we have to stop putting things off. Real results can come very quickly once we start. But if we’re ‘not in it’ we can’t win it! The most important thing is to begin, and not give up. Be pleased with yourself for starting.

If you’re reading this it’s possible that you’d like to enter the world of computers and you fancy taking your MCSE, or you’re already a professional and it’s apparent that you can’t get any further without the MCSE certification.

As you discover more about training colleges, make it a policy to steer clear of those that compromise their offerings by failing to provide the current Microsoft version. Such institutions will hold back the trainee due to the fact that they’ll have learned an out-of-date syllabus which isn’t in line with the current exam syllabus, so they’ll probably fail. Training companies ought to be completely focused on establishing the best direction for prospective students. Directing learning is as much about guiding people on establishing where to go, as it is helping to help them get there.

There is no way of over emphasising this: It’s essential to obtain proper 24×7 round-the-clock instructor and mentor support. You’ll definitely experience problems if you let this one slide. Try and find training with help available at any time you choose (no matter if it’s in the middle of the night on a weekend!) You want access directly to professional tutors, and not access to a call-in service which takes messages – so you’re consistently being held in a queue for a call-back when it’s convenient for them.

Keep looking and you’ll come across the very best companies which recommend and use online support 24×7 – including evenings, nights and weekends. Never make the mistake of compromise with the quality of your support. Many students that give up, are in that situation because of support (or the lack of).

Students often end up having issues because of a single training area which doesn’t even occur to them: The method used to ’segment’ the courseware before being sent out to you. Individual deliveries for each training module piece by piece, taking into account your exam passes is the usual method of releasing your program. This sounds sensible, but you must understand the following: It’s not unusual for trainees to realise that their providers typical path to completion isn’t the easiest way for them. You may find that a slightly different order suits them better. And what if you don’t get to the end in the allotted time?

In all honesty, the very best answer is to have a copy of their prescribed order of study, but get everything up-front. Everything is then in your possession if you don’t manage to finish quite as quick as they’d want.

‘In-Centre workshop days’ can be offered as a big positive benefit by a lot of training academies. After chatting with most IT students who have partaken in a couple, you’ll begin to see a common thread – they are viewed as a major problem because of many things:

* The amount of travel required – lots of journeys and normally hundreds of miles each time.

* Weekday only access for workshops is typically the case, and with 2-3 days to book off work, this is usually problematic for many working people.

* Holiday days lost – many employed people only get 4 weeks annual leave. If you give up at least half to your educational events, that doesn’t leave much holiday time left for the family as a whole.

* Workshop days typically get bloated with students.

* Many students want to study at a somewhat more suitable pace – rather than be dictated to by the rest of the class. Often this can bring about classic classroom tension.

* The growing costs associated with travel – driving to the training centre and of course over-night bed and breakfast can really add up over several visits. With only 5-10 classes at about thirty-five pounds for one night’s accommodation, plus a petrol cost of 40 pounds and food at 15.00, that equates to 450-900 pounds of add-on cost.

* Do you want to risk even a small chance of getting side-stepped for potential advancement or pay-rises because your employer knows you’re retraining.

* Asking questions in the presence of other class-mates often makes any one of us a little awkward. Would you admit that you’ve occasionally avoided posing a question just because you were worried it might make you look silly?

* Working and living away – a minority of students need to live or work away for sections of their training. Events become problematic to attend, but the money has already changed hands as part of your fees.

A more flexible training route is to make use of filmed lessons in the comfort of your own home – and do it when it’s convenient to you – not anyone else. Think… If you’ve got a laptop then you’re free to work wherever you happen to be at that time. And live 24×7 support is only a web-browser click away when challenges strike you. You can re-watch and re-cover the modules at any time you need to revise. There’s absolutely no need to write any notes as you have access to the class forever. Even though this won’t remove any normal learning difficulties, it certainly reduces stress and eases things. And you’ve reduced costs, travel and hassle.

If you’d like to get involved in a web design team, an Adobe Dreamweaver course is vital to achieve relevant qualifications that are globally recognised. The complete Adobe Web Creative Suite should additionally be studied in-depth. This will educate you in Flash and Action Script, (and more), and could lead on to the ACE (Adobe Certified Expert) or ACP (Adobe Certified Professional) qualification.

Making websites is only the beginning of the necessary skill-set for professional web-designers today. Why not look for a program that includes important features like HTML, PHP, MySQL, Search Engine Optimisation and E-Commerce in order to know how to maintain content, create traffic and program dynamic sites that are database driven.

Can job security honestly exist anymore? Here in the UK, with businesses changing their mind at alarming speeds, it seems increasingly unlikely. In times of increasing skills shortfalls mixed with high demand areas however, we always find a new kind of security in the marketplace; driven by the constant growth conditions, organisations are struggling to hire the influx of staff needed.

Offering the computer industry as an example, the most recent e-Skills survey showed massive skills shortages across the United Kingdom of around 26 percent. Put simply, we only have the national capacity to fill three out of every four jobs in the computing industry. This one truth on its own underpins why the UK requires considerably more trainees to get into the IT sector. Because the IT sector is growing at such a rate, could there honestly be a better sector worth taking into account for a new career.

Accredited simulation materials and exam preparation packages are vital – and absolutely ought to be offered by your course provider. Due to the fact that a lot of examination boards in IT are from the USA, it’s essential to understand how exam questions will be phrased and formatted. It isn’t good enough just understanding random questions – they need to be in the proper exam format. You should make sure you check your depth of understanding by doing quizzes and mock ups of exams prior to taking the proper exam.

People attracted to this sort of work are often very practical, and don’t really enjoy classrooms, and struggling through thick study-volumes. If you identify with this, try the newer style of interactive study, with on-screen demonstrations and labs. Where possible, if we can study while utilising as many senses as possible, then the results are usually dramatically better.

Courses are now available on CD and DVD discs, so everything is learned directly from your own PC. Using video-streaming, you can watch instructors demonstrating how it’s all done, and then practice yourself – with interactive lab sessions. Always insist on a study material demo’ from any training college. The package should contain demo’s from instructors, slideshows and fully interactive skills-lab’s.

Many companies provide training that is purely available online; while you can get away with this much of the time, think what will happen when you don’t have access to the internet or you get intermittent problems and speed issues. A safer solution is the provision of actual CD or DVD ROMs which will not have these problems.

One feature that several companies offer is a programme of Job Placement assistance. It’s intention is to help you find your first job in the industry. The honest truth is that it isn’t a complex operation to secure the right work – once you’re trained and certified; the growing UK skills shortage sees to that.

Advice and support about getting interviews and your CV is sometimes offered (if it isn’t, consult one of our sites). It’s essential that you bring your CV right up to date today – not when you’re ready to start work! It’s not uncommon to find that junior support jobs are offered to trainees who are still learning and haven’t even passed a single exam yet. At the very least this will get your CV into the ‘possible’ pile and not the ‘no’ pile. Most often, a specialist independent regional recruitment consultancy – who make their money when they’ve found you a job – will be more pro-active than a centralised training company’s service. It also stands to reason that they’ll know the local industry and employment needs.

Certainly be sure that you don’t put hundreds of hours of effort into your studies, then call a halt and expect somebody else to land you a job. Get off your backside and get on with the job. Put as much focus into finding a good job as you did to gain the skills.

An all too common mistake that potential students often succumb to is to look for the actual course to take, instead of focusing on where they want to get to. Training academies are brimming over with direction-less students who took a course because it seemed fun – instead of what would yield their end-goal of a job they enjoyed. Avoid becoming one of the unfortunate masses who select a program which looks like it could be fun – and get to the final hurdle of an accreditation for an unrewarding career path.

Be honest with yourself about what you want to earn and the level of your ambition. This can often control what particular accreditations will be required and what industry will expect from you in return. Our recommendation would be to seek guidance and advice from an experienced advisor before you begin some particular study programme, so you can be sure that a program provides the skill-set required for your career choice.

Previously we discussed SEO basics and on-page optimisation. But ‘Off-Page’ SEO is what’s really important. It’s rather like a voting scheme. One website volunteers a link or vote to another website. The first site is advocating support for the other.

This link consists of two major parts. Firstly it contains the specific URL of the page. Then secondly the keyword phrase. This will be highlighted on the web page. This equates to a vote being generated for that exact page. In other words one ‘vote’ to push the website up the natural listings.

It always works in this way. The page being targeted and the Anchor Text are permanently linked to each other. You can’t create a vote for a page without some highlighted anchor text. The anchor text notifies the Search Engine about the page’s content – and thus what search term it should come under. To re-iterate: Your website’s search terms are totally controlled by its anchor texts.

Hence, a link saying “click here for…” isn’t a good idea. We’ve simply voted for the words Click Here. Whoever is going to type that phrase into the Search Engine? Obviously no-one.

That’s the reason the anchor text must be right. Since it stands for all the terms you want to be searched for. Interestingly, you’ll see the Adobe Reader download site in pole position for ‘click here’. Do Adobe think ‘CLICK HERE’ is an important term? Heck No! But they’re up at the top because the phrase “CLICK HERE to Download Adobe reader” features on so many websites.

So to count a ‘vote’ for a web page, the Search Engines always go to the anchor text. And doesn’t that make sense? Google wants to emulate what a real human being is looking for and would like to find. To some extent it’s irrelevant what your page is actually about. The only relevant phrases are the anchor text phrases that point to you. That’s how it works.

Naturally, there’s more to it than that… Such as the title of the webpage being pointed at. As well as a variety of other things. For example; how spread-out and relevant the sites are that are linking to you.

The crux of it all is though that a mass of back links solves all the problems! And these need to be from as many different sites as possible – with the correct phrases used as anchor text. The ‘authority’ of a site also plays a major part: Receiving a link from a top site like Microsoft is much more valuable than one from a start-up site.

Take time to make sure you have the appropriate keywords in place. (And you should perform a lot of keyword and competitor research before putting any strategy into place.) It really boils down to one thing: What do people type into the search box when they’re trying to find your service or product? When you know that, you know which keyword phrases and anchor text to use.

But these keywords can’t be just randomly chosen without thought, investigation and testing. The best results can sometimes be quite surprising. So many different phrases come to mind when we think of what to search for. Imagine you’re intent on sleeping better. You might think to search for ‘comfortable bed’. Whereas another person may type in “I can’t sleep”.

Hypothesising on likely phrases is very unreliable. A lot of measuring, testing and research of each term is of vital importance. They’ll form the basis of ALL the visitors you’ll get to your website. It’s just like having an ad in a telephone Directory. You won’t receive any calls if you’re listed under an inappropriate heading. Careful keyword research and analysis is the key to effective SEO.

There are a total of 4 specialist training sectors in the full CompTIA A+ syllabus, of which you need to pass two to gain A+ competency. Be aware though that only learning about 2 of the specialised areas could expose flaws in your knowledge when applying for a job. Look for training that covers all the specialist areas – this will give you the edge in the working environment.

Training courses in A+ are about fault finding and diagnosing – both through hands-on and remote access, in addition to learning to build, repair and fix and understanding antistatic conditions. If you add Network+ to your A+ course, you’ll also have the ability to look after networks, meaning you’re in a position to move further up the career path.

Students often end up having issues because of one aspect of their training very rarely considered: The breakdown of the course materials before being packaged off through the post. Students often think it makes sense (with a typical time scale of 1-3 years to pass all the required exams,) for many training providers to send out the courseware in stages, until you’ve passed all the exams. But: What if there are reasons why you can’t finish every section? What if you don’t find their order of learning is ideal for you? Without any fault on your part, you may not meet the required timescales and therefore not end up with all the modules.

In all honesty, the best solution is to have a copy of their prescribed order of study, but make sure you have all of your learning modules right from the beginning. Everything is then in your possession should you not complete it within their ideal time-table.

Make sure you don’t get caught-up, as a lot of students can, on the training process. Training for training’s sake is generally pointless; this is about gaining commercial employment. Stay focused on what it is you want to achieve. It’s a testament to the marketing skills of the big companies, but thousands of new students commence training that sounds amazing from the sales literature, but which delivers a career that doesn’t fulfil at all. Speak to a selection of college students for examples.

You also need to know your leanings around earning potential, career development, and how ambitious you are. You should understand what industry expects from you, which certifications are needed and where you’ll pick-up experience from. Look for help from an experienced professional that has commercial knowledge of your chosen market-place, and who can offer ‘A typical day in the life of’ synopsis of what duties you’ll be performing with each working day. It’d be sensible to ensure you’re on the right track well before you start on any retraining programme. What’s the reason in starting to train only to find you’ve gone the wrong way entirely.

Workshops can be portrayed as a big positive benefit by a lot of certification companies. After a good chat with the majority of IT students that have tried them out, you’ll discover that they’re really a difficulty to be ‘got round’ mainly due to the following:

* A lot of driving back and forth from the workshops – sometimes hundreds of miles.

* Requesting constant holidays or time off – many trainers can only give Mon-Fri workshop availability and group several days in a chunk. This isn’t ideal for most people who work, and this is made worse if travelling time is added into the mix.

* And don’t forget lost vacation time. Usually we’re lucky to have twenty days annual leave. If half is given up to classes, then it doesn’t leave much for us and our families.

* Classes often become quickly full, meaning we have to accept a slot that doesn’t really suit.

* You may prefer to move at a slower or quicker pace than the rest of the class. Sometimes this causes tension in the class.

* Most trainees tell us of the considerable cost of travelling back and forth to the training facility whilst paying for accommodation and food gets very high.

* Maintaining the privacy of our training can be high on the list of priorities to a lot of students. There’s no need to throw away potential advancement, wage increases or achievement with your current employer just because you’re retraining. When your boss discovers you’ve committed to accreditation in another sector, how will they regard you?

* It’s very common for trainees to hide the fact that they want to raise a question – simply due to the reason that they’re with their peers.

* Typically, events frequently become pretty much undoable, if you live away for part of your week or month.

The best possible solution is to watch a pre-made lesson – having instructor-led teaching on hand any time of the day that suits. Whenever you get stuck, make use of the 24×7 support (that you should have insisted on for any technical study.) Don’t forget, if you’ve got a notebook PC, study isn’t restricted to the home or office. You have the ability to come back to any of the study modules as often as you need to prep for an exam. And of course, you won’t need to take notes as you’ll have direct access to the instruction whenever you want to go back to it. Though it’s impossible to remove every single problem, it unquestionably removes stress and makes things simpler. You also have reduced travel, hassle and costs.

If you’re looking for an MCSA (Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator) training program, be aware that companies offer quite diverse courses; some are easier than others. You’ll come across a number of options, both if you’re new to network support, or have a certain amount of knowledge but are looking to gain accredited qualifications. Identify a training company that’s happy to take the time to get to know you, and can sort out the best route for you, even before they start thinking about which course. You can also expect them to advise you where to start dependent on your present knowledge or lack of it.

Often, individuals don’t really get what IT is about. It is thrilling, changing, and means you’re a part of the huge progress of technology that will change our world over the next few decades. We’re only just starting to see just how technology will define our world. The internet will profoundly alter the way we view and interrelate with the entire world over the coming decades.

And it’s worth remembering that income in the IT market throughout this country is considerably greater than in other market sectors, so you’ll more than likely receive considerably more in the IT sector, than you would in most typical jobs. Excitingly, there’s no easing up for IT industry growth in the United Kingdom. The market is still growing rapidly, and as we have a skills gap that means we only typically have three IT workers for every four jobs it’s not likely that things will be any different for quite some time to come.

It only makes sense to consider training programmes that’ll move onto commercially acknowledged qualifications. There’s a plethora of small colleges suggesting unknown ‘in-house’ certificates which will prove unusable in the real world. You’ll find that only recognised accreditation from the top companies like Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco and Adobe will be useful to a future employer.

Getting your first commercial position is often made easier if you’re supported with a Job Placement Assistance program. In reality it isn’t so complicated as you might think to secure a job – assuming you’re well trained and qualified; employers in this country need your skills.

Ideally you should have advice and support about your CV and interviews though; and we’d recommend any student to work on polishing up their CV as soon as training commences – don’t delay until you’ve graduated or passed any exams. It’s not uncommon to find that junior support roles are offered to students who are in the process of training and haven’t got any qualifications yet. At least this will get your CV into the ‘possible’ pile and not the ‘no’ pile. You can usually expect better performance from an independent and specialised local recruitment consultancy than you’ll experience from any course provider’s employment division, because they’ll know local industry and the area better.

A regular aggravation of various training providers is how hard trainees are prepared to study to get qualified, but how ill-prepared they are to market themselves for the role they’ve qualified for. Get out there and hustle – you might find it’s fun.

Considering how a program is ‘delivered’ to you is usually ignored by most students. How many parts is the training broken down into? What is the specific order and what control do you have at what pace it arrives? Training companies will normally offer some sort of program spread over 1-3 years, and drop-ship the materials to you piecemeal as you pass each exam. Sounds reasonable? Well consider these facts: With thought, many trainees understand that their training company’s standard order of study is not what they would prefer. They might find a slightly different order suits them better. And what happens if they don’t finish in the allotted time?

In an ideal situation, you want ALL the study materials up-front – so you’ll have them all for the future to come back to – irrespective of any schedule. This also allows you to vary the order in which you move through the program where a more intuitive path can be found.

Review the points below and pay great regard to them if you’re inclined to think the marketing blurb about an ‘Exam Guarantee’ sounds great value:

You’re paying for it one way or another. It’s definitely not free – it’s simply been shoe-horned into the price as a whole. If it’s important to you to get a first time pass, then you should avoid exam guarantees and pay when entering exams, prioritise it appropriately and apply yourself as required.

Why pay your training course provider in advance for examinations? Go for the best offer at the appropriate time, rather than coughing up months or even a year or two in advance – and do it in a local testing centre – instead of miles away at the college’s beck and call. Buying a course that includes payments for examination fees (which also includes interest if you’ve taken out a loan) is bad financial management. Resist being talked into filling the training company’s account with your money just to give them more interest! Many will hope you don’t even take them all – but they won’t refund the cash. In addition to this, exam guarantees often have very little value. The majority of companies will not pay for re-takes until you’re able to demonstrate an excellent mock pass rate.

VUE and Prometric examinations are in the region of 112 pounds in the United Kingdom today. What’s the point of paying huge ‘Exam Guarantee’ fees (often hidden in the cost) – when the best course materials, the right level of support and commitment, effort and practice with quality exam preparation systems are the factors that really get you through.

Keeping a food diary is a very accurate way to establish your current eating habits. Start a full week before you plan to commence dieting. Write down everything you eat and drink (be honest!) throughout the day. Look at what you’ve written down, and after a few days you should be in a position to see where adjustments could be made.

You may be surprised at how many snacks and sweets you’re getting through, or how many glasses of wine. If that’s the case, they should be minimised first. If your diary only shows nutritious food, then perhaps smaller portions would be the answer. Whether it’s the first or the second situation, you’ll be able to see how to adjust your intake from the entries in the diary.

Produce a programme that you will follow for the next week. Put everything down relating to exercise, food and drink. As far as food is concerned, make sure you note down what you’re not allowed, or maybe what you’ll restrict to the weekend. Also write down the alternative food that you do plan to eat.

Under your drink heading, restrict alcohol to limited amounts on special days only. Rule out all sweet carbonated drinks. You’ll need to commit to a fitness regime, so next write in your diary which days you plan to exercise and how.

Weigh yourself at the beginning of your regime first thing in the morning. Then repeat the process each week. If necessary, modify parts of the plan for better results. Only weigh yourself at the beginning of each week at the same time of day. Note it down in your diary.

A plan such as this will allow you to manage your weight loss programme and adjust it to suit yourself. Your diary is a working document – make notes about how each day has gone. Don’t forget to be honest about how much exercise you’re taking. Write it all down! A diary is a very simple way to monitor your progress – and a remarkable tool for staying with the program!

It won’t happen overnight though. Changes may be hard to detect in the early stages, but clothes will start to become less tight, and your energy level will increase after a few short weeks. Just be patient and have faith! Keeping up your motivation is sometimes tough, so try to dwell on the end result and the joy it will bring!

If you do get demoralised with your results, analyse what’s been happening. It’s possible your programme needs some adjusting. Additional physical activity can help you catch up. A brisk walk several times a week can be done at any time of day.

Be proud of your achievements. Rewarding your efforts will keep you much more motivated. New clothes may need to wait until your goals have been reached. But an evening at a show would be spot-on to toast a ten pound loss!