If Cisco training is your aspiration, but you've not yet worked with routers or network switches, the chances are your first course should be a CCNA course. This will give you knowledge and skills to work with routers. Vast numbers of routers make up the internet, and national or international corporations with various different locations also need routers to allow their networks to talk to each other.

Routers connect to networks, so it's essential to know how networks operate, or you'll struggle with the training and be unable to understand the work. Look for a course that covers networking fundamentals (CompTIA is a good one) before you get going on CCNA.

Having the right skills and comprehension ahead of starting the CCNA is vital. So talk to someone who can tell you what else you need to know.

Many students think that the school and FE college system is the way they should go. So why is commercial certification slowly and steadily replacing it? With fees and living expenses for university students spiralling out of control, plus the IT sector's increasing awareness that vendor-based training is often far more commercially relevant, we've seen a dramatic increase in Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe authorised training paths that supply key solutions to a student for considerably less. Essentially, only required knowledge is taught. It's slightly more broad than that, but principally the objective has to be to cover the precise skills needed (including a degree of required background) - without overdoing the detail in everything else (as universities often do).

If an employer is aware what areas they need covered, then they just need to look for a person with the appropriate exam numbers. Commercial syllabuses are set to exacting standards and aren't allowed to deviate (as academic syllabuses often do).

A key package of training should have fully authorised exam simulation and preparation packages. Ensure that the exams you practice are not just posing the correct questions from the right areas, but additionally ask them in the way the real exams will formulate them. This really messes up trainees if the questions are phrased in unfamiliar formats. Always ask for exam preparation tools in order to check your comprehension at any point. Simulated or practice exams add to your knowledge bank - so the actual exam is much easier.

Be careful that the qualifications that you're considering are recognised by industry and are up-to-date. 'In-house' exams and the certificates they come with are often meaningless. From an employer's viewpoint, only the big-boys such as Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco or Adobe (for instance) will open the right doors. Nothing else hits the mark.

An advisor that doesn't dig around with lots of question - it's likely they're actually nothing more than a salesman. If they wade straight in with a specific product before looking at your personality and experience, then it's definitely the case. An important point to note is that, if you have some relevant qualifications that are related, then you may be able to commence studying further along than someone who is new to the field. If you're a student commencing IT study from scratch, it can be useful to ease in gradually, by working on a user-skills course first. This is often offered with most training packages.

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