Training for your CompTIA A+ has four specialist sections - you need to pass exams in just two sectors to reach the level of competent in A+. For this reason, most colleges limit their course to 2 of the training options. To us, this is selling you short - certainly you'll have the qualification, but experience of all four will prepare you more fully for when you're in industry, where gaps in your knowledge will expose weaknesses. So that's why you deserve training in all four areas.

As well as learning about the ins and outs of building and maintaining computers, students involved in this training will be taught how to operate in antistatic conditions, along with remote access, fault finding and diagnostics. If you're considering being someone who works in a multi-faceted environment - supporting, fixing and maintaining networks, you should include CompTIA Network+ to your training package, or follow the Microsoft route - MCP's, MCSA or MCSE because it's necessary to have a deeper understanding of the way networks work.

Many men and women think that the tech college or university track is still the most effective. Why then are qualifications from the commercial sector becoming more in demand? Accreditation-based training (in industry terminology) is most often much more specialised. Industry has acknowledged that a specialist skill-set is necessary to meet the requirements of an increasingly more technical workplace. Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe are the key players in this arena. Of course, a reasonable degree of background information needs to be learned, but precise specialised knowledge in the exact job role gives a vendor educated student a massive advantage.

Imagine if you were an 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 a mass of different academic qualifications from several applicants, having to ask what each has covered and which commercial skills have been attained, or choose particular accreditations that precisely match your needs, and then select who you want to interview from that. Your interviews are then about personal suitability - instead of long discussions on technical suitability.

How can job security honestly exist anymore? In a marketplace like the UK, where business constantly changes its mind on a day-to-day basis, it certainly appears not. But a marketplace with high growth, where there just aren't enough staff to go round (through an enormous shortfall of trained staff), creates the conditions for true job security.

Taking a look at the computing industry, a recent e-Skills investigation highlighted a more than 26 percent shortage in trained professionals. Showing that for every 4 jobs in existence across IT, we've only got three properly trained pro's to fill that need. This glaring concept shows the urgent need for more technically trained computer professionals in the UK. Actually, seeking in-depth commercial IT training over the coming years is almost definitely the safest career direction you could choose.

Don't accept anything less than the latest Microsoft (or Cisco, CompTIA etc.) authorised exam preparation and simulation materials. Because most IT examining boards are from the USA, you must be prepared for the way exams are phrased. You can't practice properly by simply understanding random questions - they have to be in the same format as the actual exams. Mock exams will prove invaluable as a resource to you - so that when you come to take the real thing, you don't get phased.

The area most overlooked by people considering a training program is the issue of 'training segmentation'. Basically, this means the method used to break up the program for delivery to you, which can make a dramatic difference to what you end up with. Individual deliveries for each training module one piece at a time, according to your own speed is the typical way that your program will arrive. While seeming sensible, you should take these factors into account: What would happen if you didn't finish all the exams at the speed they required? Often the prescribed exam order won't fit you as well as some other order of studying might.

To be straight, the best option is to have their ideal 'order' of training laid out, but to receive all the materials up-front. You then have everything in case you don't finish at their required pace.