Watch out that all accreditations you're studying for will be recognised by employers and are bang up to date. 'In-house' exams and the certificates they come with are usually worthless. The main industry leaders like Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA or Cisco all have nationally recognised proficiency courses. Major-league companies like these can make sure you stand out at interview.

Many students assume that the school and FE college system is the way they should go. So why then is commercial certification beginning to overtake it? The IT sector now recognises that for mastery of skill sets for commercial use, certified accreditation from such organisations as Microsoft, CISCO, Adobe and CompTIA most often has much more specialised relevance - and a fraction of the cost and time. University courses, for instance, often get bogged down in a lot of loosely associated study - with a syllabus that's far too wide. This prevents a student from learning the core essentials in sufficient depth.

If an employer is aware what work they need doing, then they simply need to advertise for a person with the appropriate exam numbers. Syllabuses all have to conform to the same requirements and can't change from one establishment to the next (like academia frequently can and does).

Don't get hung-up, as a lot of students can, on the accreditation program. You're not training for the sake of training; this is about employment. Begin and continue with the end in mind. Don't be one of those unfortunate people who select a program that on the surface appears interesting - and get to the final hurdle of an accreditation for something they'll never enjoy.

Prioritise understanding the exact expectations industry will have. Which particular exams you'll be required to have and how you'll go about getting some commercial experience. It's also worth spending time thinking about how far you wish to go as often it can affect your choice of certifications. Look for help from a professional advisor who has commercial knowledge of your chosen market-place, and who can give you 'A typical day in the life of' outline of what duties you'll be performing day-to-day. It'd be sensible to know if this change is right for you before your course begins. What's the point in kicking off your training only to realise you've made a huge mistake.

'In-Centre workshop days' can be offered as a great feature by some trainers. When you talk to the majority of IT hopefuls that have tried them out, you'll find they generally end up being seen as a major problem due to many reasons:

- All the travelling required - lots of trips and normally hundreds of miles each time.

- Requesting frequent time off work - typical schools only offer Mon-Fri workshop availability and link several days together. This can be hard for a lot of working people, even more so if travelling time is added into the mix.

- And don't ignore the lost vacation days. Most of us have twenty days annual leave. If over 50 percent is used in classes, then we haven't got much left for ourselves.

- Training events normally get fully subscribed quite quickly, giving us the only option of a slot that doesn't really suit.

- Some students are trying to maintain a quick pace, while others are looking to take a more 'steady' pace and want to set their own pace that fits. This causes tension in most cases.

- Let's not disregard the added financial outlay of driving or taking public transport or bed and breakfast either. This can run to a lot of money - from hundreds to thousands. Sit down and add it up - you'll be (unpleasantly) surprised.

- Not wanting employers to know about the training will be of paramount importance to quite a lot of attendees. Why would you want to give up potential advancement, salary hikes or success at work because you're getting trained in a different area. If your work discovers you're putting yourself through certification in a completely different market, what do you think they'll do?

- It's really not that uncommon for people not to put a question forward that they would like answered - simply due to the reason that they're in front of other people.

- If you sometimes work elsewhere in the country for several days at a time, consider the added problems of reaching the requisite days in-centre, when time is at a premium.

Wouldn't it be better to watch on-screen and learn with instructors one-on-one via ready-made lessons, doing them when it's convenient for you, not someone else. Consider... With a laptop you're able to learn in the garden, a park, or just outside. And 24x7 support is just a web-browser away if you hit challenges. Repeat any of the classes at any time you need to brush up - memory is aided by repetition. And you'll never have to write notes again - it's already prepared ready. Though this doesn't suddenly avoid every little difficulty, it definitely vastly reduces stress and simplifies things. You also have reduced hassle, travel and costs.

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