Several of the most useful industry-acknowledged accreditations now are produced by the vendor neutral Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA). Companies like ISC2 offer 'Security' certifications, and CWNP supply specialist wireless networking paths. As you would expect Microsoft & Cisco offer a full array of professional certifications. Mainly due to the scope & quantity of certification routes available in this sector, it's sensible to discuss this sort of career change with an experienced expert. You might save yourself a lot of money and time, to say nothing of aggravation and discouragement.

If your advisor doesn't dig around with lots of question - it's more than likely they're just a salesperson. If someone pushes specific products before getting to know your background and whether you have any commercial experience, then you know you're being sold to. With a bit of real-world experience or certification, you could discover that your appropriate starting-point is very different to someone completely new. If you're a student starting IT studies and exams anew, it can be useful to avoid jumping in at the deep-end, by working on some basic PC skills training first. This can easily be incorporated into any educational course.

Getting your first commercial position can feel more straightforward if you're supported with a Job Placement Assistance program. Because of the huge demand for appropriately skilled people in Great Britain at the moment, it's not necessary to get too caught up in this feature though. It isn't so complicated as you might think to land the right work once you're trained and certified.

You would ideally 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 put it off until you've qualified. Having the possibility of an interview is more than not being regarded at all. Many junior support roles are got by people (who've only just left first base.) Generally, a specialist locally based recruitment consultancy (who will, of course, be keen to place you to receive their commission) is going to give you a better service than a recruitment division from a training organisation. Also of course they should know the area and local employers better.

Fundamentally, as long as you focus the same level of energy into getting your first IT position as into training, you're not likely to experience problems. A number of people curiously conscientiously work through their course materials and then call a halt once they've passed their exams and would appear to think that businesses will just discover them.

You should only consider learning programs that'll grow into industry accepted certifications. There's an endless list of trainers offering unknown 'in-house' certificates which will prove unusable when you start your job-search. All the major IT organisations such as Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco have globally acknowledged proficiency programmes. Major-league companies like these can make sure you stand out at interview.

Now, why ought we to be looking at commercial certification and not traditional academic qualifications gained through tech' colleges and universities? The IT sector now acknowledges that to learn the appropriate commercial skills, proper accreditation from companies such as CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA is far more effective and specialised - and a fraction of the cost and time. Typically, only required knowledge is taught. Actually, it's not quite as pared down as that, but the principle objective is to focus on the exact skills required (alongside some required background) - without going into too much detail in every other area (as academia often does).

Think about if you were the employer - and you required somebody who had very specific skills. What's the simplest way to find the right person: Wade your way through a mass of different academic qualifications from hopeful applicants, struggling to grasp what they've learned and which commercial skills they've mastered, or select a specialised number of commercial certifications that exactly fulfil your criteria, and make your short-list from that. You'll then be able to concentrate on getting a feel for the person at interview - instead of long discussions on technical suitability.

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