If it weren’t for a continuous flood of well educated network and PC support staff, business in the United Kingdom (and around the world) would inevitably be drawn to a standstill. We have a constantly increasing demand for technicians to support both users and the systems they work with. The world’s requirement for those members of the workforce is ever increasing, as everything becomes significantly more computer dependent.

Getting to the most suitable career choice is very difficult – so which sectors are important to investigate and which questions do we need to be posing?

It’s important to understand: a actual training or a certification isn’t what this is about; a job that you want to end up in is. Many trainers unfortunately over-emphasise the piece of paper. Avoid becoming part of that group that choose a course that seems ‘fun’ or ‘interesting’ – and end up with a certification for a job they hate.

Make sure you investigate what your attitude is towards career development, earning potential, and how ambitious you are. It’s vital to know what (if any) sacrifices you’ll need to make for a particular role, which particular accreditations are needed and how you’ll gain real-world experience. We’d recommend you always seek guidance and advice from a skilled professional before settling on a study path, so you’re sure from the outset that the chosen route will give you the skills for the job being sought.

Be careful that the certifications you’re considering doing are commercially relevant and are current. ‘In-house’ certificates are often meaningless. To an employer, only top businesses such as Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco or Adobe (for instance) will get you short-listed. Nothing else makes the grade.

One of the most important things to insist on has to be 24×7 round-the-clock support through trained professional instructors and mentors. Too many companies only provide office hours (or extended office hours) support. You’ll be waiting ages for an answer with email based support, and so-called telephone support is normally just routed to a call-centre that will just take down the issue and email it over to their technical team – who will attempt to call you within 24-48 hrs, when it’s convenient to them. This isn’t a lot of good if you’re stuck with a particular problem and have a one hour time-slot in which to study.

World-class organisations offer a web-based 24×7 service involving many support centres from around the world. You get an easy to use environment that seamlessly selects the best facility available any time of the day or night: Support when you need it. Don’t compromise when it comes to your support. The vast majority of trainees that fall by the wayside, are in that situation because of a lack of support.

The age-old way of teaching, with books and manuals, is often a huge slog for most of us. If you’re nodding as you read this, check out study materials that are multimedia based. Where possible, if we can get all of our senses involved in our learning, then we often see hugely increased memory retention as a result.

Top of the range study programs now offer interactive discs. Through instructor-led video classes you’ll learn your subject via their teaching and demonstrations. Then you test your knowledge by practicing and interacting with the software. Don’t take any chances and look at a small selection of training examples before you purchase a course. The minimum you should expect would be instructor-led video demonstrations and a variety of audio-visual and interactive sections.

Avoid training that is purely online. Always choose CD or DVD based study materials where offered, so that you have access at all times – you don’t want to be reliant on a quality and continuous internet connection.

Students often end up having issues because of a single courseware aspect which is often not even considered: How the training is broken down and couriered to your address. Training companies will normally offer a 2 or 3 year study programme, and deliver each piece one-by-one as you pass each exam. This sounds reasonable until you consider the following: With thought, many trainees understand that their training company’s typical path to completion is not what they would prefer. You may find that varying the order of study will be far more suitable. And what if you don’t get to the end at the pace they expect?

In a perfect world, you’d get ALL the training materials right at the beginning – giving you them all to come back to at any time in the future – at any time you choose. This allows a variation in the order that you complete your exams if another more intuitive route presents itself.

Think about the points below and pay great regard to them if you’ve been persuaded that that over-used sales technique about ‘guaranteeing’ exams sounds like a benefit to the student:

Everyone knows they’re still footing the bill for it – it’s not so hard to see that it’s already in the overall figure from the training company. Certainly, it’s not a freebie (although some people will believe anything the marketing companies think up these days!) The fact is that when trainees fund their own exams, one by one, they will be much more likely to get through on the first attempt – since they’re aware of their payment and therefore will put more effort into their preparation.

Isn’t it in your interests to go for the best offer at the time, not to pay any mark-up to the college, and to do it in a local testing office – rather than possibly hours away from your area? Considerable numbers of questionable training course providers net huge amounts of money through getting paid for all the exam fees up-front then hoping you won’t see them all through. It’s also worth noting that many exam guarantees are worthless. The majority of organisations will not pay for you to re-take until you can prove to them you’re ready to pass.

Spending hundreds or even thousands extra on ‘Exam Guarantees’ is short-sighted – when study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will really see you through.

Often, people don’t catch on to what information technology means. It is stimulating, innovative, and means you’re a part of the huge progress of technology affecting everyones lives in the 21st century. We’ve only just begun to get a feel for how technology will influence everything we do. Computers and the Internet will massively change how we see and interrelate with the world around us over the next few years.

And don’t forget salaries either – the average salary in the United Kingdom for the usual IT worker is significantly more than the national average. Odds are that you’ll receive a whole lot more than you could reasonably hope to get in other industries. It seems there’s no easing up for IT industry growth in the United Kingdom. The sector is continuing to expand enormously, and we don’t have anywhere near enough qualified skilled IT professionals to fill current job vacancies, so it’s not likely that this will change significantly for the significant future.