Commercial qualifications are now, very visibly, taking over from the older academic routes into the IT sector - why then has this come about? With an ever-increasing technical demand on resources, industry has had to move to specific, honed-in training only available through the vendors themselves - for example companies such as CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA. This often comes in at a fraction of the cost and time. Obviously, an appropriate portion of closely linked knowledge has to be covered, but focused specifics in the required areas gives a commercially educated student a massive advantage.

The bottom line is: Commercial IT certifications give employers exactly what they're looking for - everything they need to know is in the title: for example, I am a 'Microsoft Certified Professional' in 'Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network'. Consequently companies can look at the particular needs they have and which qualifications are required to fulfil that.

A proficient and practiced advisor (vs a salesperson) will talk through your current experience level and abilities. This is paramount to working out the starting point for your education. With a bit of real-world experience or qualifications, it may be that your starting point of study is different from a beginner. For students starting IT studies and exams from scratch, you might like to ease in gradually, beginning with some basic user skills first. This is often offered with most training packages.

Many trainers provide piles of reference manuals and workbooks. Obviously, this isn't much fun and not a very good way of achieving retention. Where we can get all of our senses involved in our learning, our results will often be quite spectacular.

The latest audio-visual interactive programs featuring instructor demo's and practice lab's will forever turn you away from traditional book study. And they're far more fun. Make sure to obtain a look at some courseware examples from any training college. The materials should incorporate slide-shows, instructor-led videos and fully interactive skills-lab's.

Some companies only have access to purely on-line training; sometimes you can get away with this - but, imagine the problems if you lose your internet access or you get a slow connection speed. It's preferable to have physical CD or DVD discs that don't suffer from these broadband issues.

Being a part of the information technology industry is amongst the most exciting and ground-breaking industries that you could be a part of. To be working on the cutting-edge of technology puts you at the fore-front of developments shaping life over the next few decades. We're barely starting to get a handle on how this will truly impact our way of life. How we interrelate with the rest of the world will be massively affected by technology and the internet.

A typical IT professional throughout Britain will also receive a lot more money than employees on a par outside of IT. Mean average incomes are around the top of national league tables. The requirement for well trained and qualified IT technicians is assured for a good while yet, thanks to the constant growth in this sector and the very large shortage that we still have.

Commencing from the viewpoint that we have to choose the job we want to do first, before we can ponder what method of training ticks the right boxes, how can we choose the correct route? Since having no commercial background in IT, how should we possibly be expected to understand what anyone doing a particular job actually does? Often, the key to unlocking this question appropriately comes from an in-depth conversation around a variety of topics:

- Personality factors as well as your interests - the sort of work-centred jobs you like and dislike.

- Are you looking to reach a specific goal - for instance, working for yourself someday?

- How important is salary to you - is it the most important thing, or does job satisfaction rate higher up on your priority-list?

- Always think in-depth about the work needed to get fully certified.

- It makes sense to understand what differentiates each area of training.

In actuality, your only option to seek advice on these matters is via a conversation with someone that has years of experience in the IT industry (and chiefly the commercial needs and requirements.)

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