People attracted to this sort of work can be very practical by nature, and don't really enjoy classrooms, and poring through books and manuals. If this could be you, use multimedia, interactive learning, with on-screen demonstrations and labs. Years of research and study has always verified that getting into our studies physically, is far more likely to produce long-lasting memories.

Fully interactive motion videos involving demonstration and virtual lab's will forever turn you away from traditional book study. And they're a lot more fun to do. Always insist on a study material demo' from the training company. You'll want to see instructor videos, demonstrations, slide-shows and virtual practice lab's for your new skills.

Many companies provide just online versions of their training packages; and although this is okay the majority of the time, consider how you'll deal with it if your access to the internet is broken or you get slow speeds and down-time etc. It's much safer to rely on CD and DVD ROM materials that will solve that problem.

One of the most important things to insist on has to be 24x7 round-the-clock support via dedicated instructors and mentors. Too many companies only provide office hours (or extended office hours) support. You'll be waiting ages for an answer with email based support, and phone support is usually just a call-centre that will chat nicely with you for 5 minutes to ask what the issue is and then simply send an email to an instructor - who'll call back sometime over the next 1-3 days, when it suits them. This is no good if you're lost and confused and only have a specific time you can study.

World-class organisations utilise a web-based round-the-clock service combining multiple support operations across the globe. You will be provided with an interface which accesses the most appropriate office at any time of day or night: Support when it's needed. Unless you insist on online 24x7 support, you'll quickly find yourself regretting it. You might not want to use the service throughout the night, but consider weekends, evenings and early mornings at some point.

So, why ought we to be looking at commercial certification and not the usual academic qualifications taught at schools and Further Education colleges? As demand increases for knowledge about more and more complex technology, industry has been required to move to the specialised training only available through the vendors themselves - for example companies like Microsoft, CISCO, Adobe and CompTIA. This often comes in at a fraction of the cost and time. Essentially, only required knowledge is taught. It's not quite as straightforward as that, but principally the objective has to be to cover the precise skills needed (including a degree of required background) - without going into too much detail in everything else (as universities often do).

If an employer is aware what they're looking for, then they just need to look for the particular skill-set required. Commercial syllabuses are all based on the same criteria and aren't allowed to deviate (as academic syllabuses often do).

Typically, a new trainee will not know to ask about a painfully important area - the way their training provider actually breaks down and delivers the training materials, and into how many separate packages. Delivery by courier of each element stage by stage, as you complete each module is the usual method of releasing your program. While sounding logical, you might like to consider this: Maybe the order of study insisted on by the company won't suit you. You may find it a stretch to finalise every element inside their defined time-scales?

An ideal situation would be to have all the training materials posted to you right at the start; every single thing! Thus avoiding any future problems that could impede your capacity to get everything done.

Be watchful that any accreditations that you're considering are commercially relevant and are current. 'In-house' exams and the certificates they come with are generally useless. Only properly recognised accreditation from the top companies like Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA and Adobe will have any meaning to employers.

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