A service provided by many trainers is job placement assistance. This is designed to steer you into your first IT role. With the growing skills shortage in Great Britain today, there isn't a great need to get too caught up in this feature though. It's actually not as hard as some people make out to secure a job once you're well trained and qualified.

Work on polishing up your CV right away however - you should get plenty of help from your training provider on this. Don't wait until you've graduated or passed any exams. You might not even have got to the exam time when you will be offered your first junior support position; although this is not possible if your CV isn't in front of employers. Normally you'll get quicker results from a specialist independent regional employment service than you will through a training provider's centralised service, because they will understand the local industry and employment needs.

A constant aggravation of some training providers is how much students are prepared to study to become certified, but how un-prepared they are to work on getting the job they're qualified for. Get out there and hustle - you might find it's fun.

Most trainers typically provide a big box of books. This isn't very interesting and not a very good way of achieving retention. Where we can involve all our senses in the learning process, then we often see hugely increased memory retention as a result.

Programs are now found via DVD-ROM discs, so everything is learned directly from your own PC. Through video streaming, you will be able to see the instructor presenting exactly how it's all done, and then have a go at it yourself - with interactive lab sessions. It would be silly not to view a small selection of training examples before you make your decision. What you want are instructor-led video demonstrations and audio-visual elements backed up by interactive lab's.

Go for CD and DVD ROM based physical training media if possible. This then avoids all the potential pitfalls with the variability of broadband quality and service.

Frequently, the everyday student has no idea where to start with IT, let alone which market they should look at getting trained in. How likely is it for us to understand the day-to-day realities of any IT job if we've never been there? Maybe we don't even know anybody who does that actual job anyway. Reflection on these different areas is required when you need to get to the right answers:

- Our personalities play a starring part - what gives you a 'kick', and what are the activities that ruin your day.

- What time-frame are you looking at for your training?

- Have you thought about job satisfaction vs salary?

- Often, trainees don't consider the level of commitment needed to get fully certified.

- You need to understand what differentiates each area of training.

In actuality, you'll find the only real way to gain help on these areas tends to be through a good talk with a professional who has years of experience in IT (and specifically the commercial requirements.)

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