You can check out each area much more extensively on specific pages on this site. We cover the accreditation paths necessary to get you into the IT industry. If you wish, we'll send you our comprehensive e-book 'Lollypedia' at no cost to you, which gives you the opportunity to contact our specialist advisory team.

What is the reason why qualifications from colleges and universities are being overtaken by more qualifications from the commercial sector? With the costs of academic degree's climbing ever higher, together with the IT sector's recognition that corporate based study is closer to the mark commercially, we have seen a large rise in Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA based training paths that create knowledgeable employees for much less time and money. Clearly, a reasonable amount of associated detail needs to be covered, but core specialisation in the areas needed gives a commercially trained person a huge edge.

Just as the old advertisement said: 'It does what it says on the label'. Employers simply need to know what they're looking for, and then match up the appropriate exam numbers as a requirement. Then they're assured that a potential employee can do exactly what's required.

A proficient and professional consultant (in direct contrast to a salesman) will talk through your current experience level and abilities. This is vital for establishing the point at which you need to start your studies. Of course, if you've got any previous certification, then you can sometimes expect to start at a different point than a student who's starting from scratch. Working through a basic PC skills module first may be the ideal way to commence your IT program, depending on your skill level at the moment.

Basically, the starting point for an absolute novice, who just wants to acquire a fundamental idea of how to get more out of their PC, is the ECDL. The majority of personal PCs run on a system called Microsoft Windows, and the 'ECDL' goes over how to run it's basic components. You can expect to get to know more about the way to log-in to the net, and the way to get into and find your way around websites and manage emails. You'll also be taught the basic principles of word-processing plus a bit about what spreadsheets & databases are generally used for.

A further level is to get some more formal training to enhance your Curriculum Vitae or get you prepared for extra tasks at work. A specialist working knowledge of 'Microsoft Office' is the next logical step. The most useful professional certifications teaching Office are Microsoft 'Office Specialist' & 'Microsoft Certification Application Specialist' (recognised respectively as MOS & 'MCAS'). Whereas the former is based around the MS Office 2003 environment under Windows 'XP', the second emphasises Windows Vista & 'Office' 2007. 'XP' is still most commonly used in business, but 'Vista' could be more future-proof. Both accreditation paths contain individual exams around the major Ms 'Office' applications: 'Word', 'Excel', "Powerpoint" and 'Access' - for word processing, spread-sheets, 'presentations' and 'databases'. Each of them are well-respected certifications and help to make things simple for employers to recognise your advanced capability with the applications.

You should remember: a course itself or an accreditation isn't the end-goal; the particular job that you're getting the training for is. Many trainers unfortunately over-emphasise the certificate itself. It's quite usual, in some situations, to obtain tremendous satisfaction from a year of studying only to end up putting 20 long years into a career that does nothing for you, entirely because you stumbled into it without some quality research when you should've - at the outset.

Make sure you investigate how you feel about career development, earning potential, and if you're ambitious or not. You need to know what will be expected of you, which certifications are needed and how to develop your experience. Your likely to need help from someone that knows the commercial realities of the market you're hoping to qualify in, and who can give you 'A typical day in the life of' synopsis of what you actually do on the job. This really is very important as you'll need to fully understand if you're going down the right road.

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