.::.Easy Clairvoyance.::.

In these days of super efficiency, support workers who have the ability to mend PC's and networks, plus give ongoing help to users, are vital in all sections of industry. Our requirement for more technically qualified people multiplies, as society becomes significantly more beholden to computers in today's environment.

There is no way of over emphasising this: It's essential to obtain proper 24x7 round-the-clock instructor and mentor support. Later, you'll kick yourself if you don't.

Always avoid certification programs which can only support trainees through a message system when it's outside of usual working hours. Companies will try to talk you round from this line of reasoning. But, no matter how they put it - you need support when you need support - not when it's convenient for them.

The most successful trainers utilise several support facilities around the globe in several time-zones. They use an online interactive interface to join them all seamlessly, any time of the day or night, help is just seconds away, without any contact issues or hassle.

If you accept anything less than support round-the-clock, you'll end up kicking yourself. It may be that you don't use it late at night, but you're bound to use weekends, late evenings or early mornings.

It's important to understand: the training program or a certification is not what you're looking for; the particular job you're training for is. Far too many training organisations put too much weight in the piece of paper.

Avoid becoming part of the group who choose a training program that sounds really 'interesting' and 'fun' - and end up with a certification for a career they'll never really get any satisfaction from.

It's well worth a long chat to see what industry will expect from you. Which precise exams they'll want you to gain and in what way you can gain some industry experience. It's also worth spending time thinking about how far you think you'll want to progress your career as often it can force you to choose a particular set of exams.

Take advice from a professional advisor, even if you have to pay - as it's a lot cheaper and safer to find out at the start whether you've chosen correctly, rather than find out after several years of study that you aren't going to enjoy the job you've chosen and have to start from the beginning again.

How can job security truly exist anymore? Here in the UK, where industry can change its mind whenever it suits, there doesn't seem much chance.

In times of increasing skills shortages coupled with high demand areas however, we often discover a newer brand of market-security; as fuelled by the constant growth conditions, companies just can't get the staff required.

The 2006 national e-Skills analysis showed that more than 26 percent of all IT positions available haven't been filled because of a lack of trained staff. To put it another way, this highlights that the United Kingdom is only able to source 3 certified professionals for each four job positions existing currently.

This single reality on its own underpins why the United Kingdom urgently requires considerably more people to get into the industry.

Because the IT sector is evolving at such a rate, there really isn't any other sector worth investigating as a retraining vehicle.

Sometimes men and women assume that the state educational system is still the most effective. So why are commercially accredited qualifications beginning to overtake it?

With university education costs spiralling out of control, along with the industry's growing opinion that vendor-based training often has more relevance in the commercial field, there has been a great increase in Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA accredited training programmes that educate students at a much reduced cost in terms of money and time.

Vendor training works by honing in on the skills that are really needed (along with a relevant amount of background knowledge,) as opposed to covering masses of the background non-specific minutiae that academic courses can get bogged down in - to pad out the syllabus.

Think about if you were the employer - and your company needed a person with some very particular skills. What's the simplest way to find the right person: Wade your way through loads of academic qualifications from various applicants, struggling to grasp what they've learned and which workplace skills they have, or choose particular accreditations that exactly fulfil your criteria, and make your short-list from that. You can then focus on how someone will fit into the team at interview - rather than establishing whether they can do a specific task.