Ensure all your accreditations are current and commercially required - you're wasting your time with courses which lead to some in-house certificate (which is as useless as if you'd printed it yourself). The top IT companies such as Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco or Adobe have nationally renowned proficiency courses. Huge conglomerates such as these will make your CV stand-out.

You've probably noticed that 'Digital' or 'Computer' Forensics is a newer expression that has been made popular via TV shows such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation". The actual reality of 'Digital Forensics' is very much less glamorous than the portrayal in these types of programmes (clearly!) However for many people, it offers a very interesting and rewarding role in technology based investigation. A Digital Forensics expert will find & explain 'digital artefacts' which can often be used to resolve crimes.

Alongside Security and Digital Forensics the relatively new field of Ethical Hacking is developing. Skilled IT professionals can study the principles of criminal hacking for ethical security reasons. The EC Council delivers mid to high level accreditations, entitled the CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) and the CHFI ('Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator').

A lot of training companies will only offer basic 9am till 6pm support (maybe a little earlier or later on certain days); not many go late into the evening (after 8-9pm) or cover weekends properly. Look for training with help available at all hours of the day and night (irrespective of whether it's the wee hours on Sunday morning!) Ensure you get direct access to tutors, and not simply some messaging service that means you're parked in a queue of others waiting to be called back during office hours.

If you look properly, you'll find the top providers that provide their students online support all the time - including evenings, nights and weekends. If you fail to get yourself online 24x7 support, you'll very quickly realise that you've made a mistake. You might not want to use the service during the night, but consider weekends, early mornings or late evenings.

Accreditations in this market are not limited Microsoft & Cisco themselves. Many well respected independents are today offering increasingly more appropriate & essential accreditations. The importance of grasping converging technologies & inter connectivity in networks has become well recognized. Networking is in actual fact undergoing some important paradigm-shifts right now; notably the move towards 'cloud' or Internet based computing (both in terms of storage of data, and actual processing power), and the mental attitude shift towards 'green' IT. From a business standpoint, greener engineering must be designed to be much more cost-effective, in addition to being more gentle towards the planet. Computers generate less heat (and so require much less cooling) if they have lower-powered processors. Organisations with large computer networks can reduce their electricity bills considerably with greener and much more efficient computer systems.

A rudimentary understanding of networks is an ideal first base for anyone getting into the IT industry. You must know just how PCs operate & communicate with one another before you can consider anything else. Presuming a rudimentary level of computer literacy, (refer to our general Computer/IT Training sections if not,) the recommended starting place is nearly always CompTIA A+ and 'Network+' . Examples of these are included under the 'CompTIA' pages on this website.

What you choose to do next depends largely upon whether you intend to focus on hardware or software. For hardware, you're looking at 'Cisco' ('CCNA'/'CCNP'), and for 'software' you'll need Microsoft (MCSA or MCSE). That said, Microsoft boasts a major penetration within most network-environments, and so an in-depth understanding of their software is actually extremely important whatever you specialise in. As before, you'll see details about each accreditation on the Cisco and MS areas of the web-site.

A different alternative is to continue with CompTIA qualifications for instance Security+, Linux+ or Server+ & continue being 'vendor-neutral', or take the 'CWNA' or 'CWNP' & specialise in wire-less technology.

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