Four specialist training areas feature in the complete CompTIA A+ course, of which you’ll need certification in two subjects to be considered A+ qualified. We would advise however that only studying two of the four specialities might well not equip you for a job. At least learn about all four – employers will notice the difference.

Qualifying in CompTIA A+ on its own will allow you to fix and repair stand-alone PC’s and MAC’s; ones which are usually not part of a network – which is for the most part the home market.

If your ambition is maintaining networks, you should add CompTIA Network+ to your A+ course. Including Network+ will put you in a position to apply for more interesting jobs. Other ones that might be interesting to you are the networking qualifications from Microsoft, i.e. MCP, MCSA MCSE.

You’ll come across courses which guarantee examination passes – this always means you have to pay for the exams at the very beginning of your studies. However, prior to embracing this so-called guarantee, consider this:

You’ll be charged for it ultimately. It’s definitely not free – they’ve simply charged more for the whole training package.

Qualifying on the first ‘go’ is what everyone wants to do. Entering examinations when it’s appropriate and funding them one at a time makes it far more likely you’ll pass first time – you revise thoroughly and are mindful of the investment you’ve made.

Doesn’t it make more sense to find the best exam deal or offer at the time, rather than coughing up months or even a year or two in advance to a training college, and to do it locally – instead of the remote centre that’s convenient only to the trainer?

Many questionable training colleges secure a great deal of profit through getting paid for examinations upfront and hoping either that you won’t take them, or it will be a long time before you do.

Also, ‘Exam Guarantees’ often aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The majority of organisations will not pay for re-takes until you’re able to demonstrate an excellent mock pass rate.

Exam fees averaged 112 pounds or thereabouts last year through local VUE or Pro-metric centres throughout the country. Therefore, why splash out often many hundreds of pounds extra to have ‘an Exam Guarantee’, when it’s no secret that the best guarantee is a commitment to studying and the use of authorised exam preparation tools.

We’d all like to believe that our jobs will remain secure and our future is protected, but the growing reality for the majority of jobs around the UK today appears to be that security may be a thing of the past.

We can however locate security at market-level, by probing for areas in high demand, together with work-skill shortages.

Taking the computing business for instance, a recent e-Skills analysis demonstrated massive skills shortages throughout Great Britain around the 26 percent mark. To explain it in a different way, this reveals that the United Kingdom can only find three qualified staff for each 4 positions existing currently.

Well taught and commercially certified new professionals are therefore at a total premium, and it looks like they will be for many years to come.

It’s unlikely if a better time or market settings will exist for acquiring training in this quickly increasing and blossoming market.

We’re regularly asked to explain why traditional degrees are now falling behind more commercial qualifications?

With an ever-increasing technical demand on resources, the IT sector has had to move to the specialised core-skills learning that the vendors themselves supply – for example companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA. This usually turns out to involve less time and financial outlay.

In essence, only that which is required is learned. It’s not quite as straightforward as that, but the principle objective is to concentrate on the fundamentally important skill-sets (with some necessary background) – without trying to cram in every other area (as degree courses are known to do).

Imagine if you were an employer – and your company needed a person with some very particular skills. Which is the most straightforward: Go through loads of academic qualifications from hopeful applicants, struggling to grasp what they’ve learned and which commercial skills have been attained, or select a specialised number of commercial certifications that precisely match your needs, and make your short-list from that. You can then focus on how someone will fit into the team at interview – rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.

Don’t get hung-up, as many people do, on the training process. Training is not an end in itself; you should be geared towards the actual job at the end of it. Begin and continue with the end in mind.

Avoid becoming part of the group who select a program that seems ‘fun’ or ‘interesting’ – only to end up with a qualification for something they’ll never enjoy.

Set targets for earning potential and the level of your ambition. Often, this changes which certifications will be expected and what you can expect to give industry in return.

We’d recommend you take guidance from a skilled professional before making your final decision on some particular training programme, so you’re sure from the outset that a program provides the appropriate skill-set.

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