What can a student looking for training tracks certified by Microsoft expect to come across? Obviously, training companies should be offering a range of courses that match the needs of Microsoft authorised training routes. It's a good idea to talk about career options with an industry expert - and should you be confused, then take counsel on whereabouts in industry would suit you most, dependent on your abilities and personality. Training programs must be customised to suit your ability level and skills. So, once you've decided on the best kind of work for you, you'll then need to look at what is the relevant route that will get you into that job.

Considering the amount of options that are available, there's no surprise that nearly all students balk at what job they could be successful with. What is our likelihood of grasping what is involved in a particular job when we haven't done that before? Most likely we have never met anyone who performs the role either. Generally, the way to deal with this quandary in the best manner stems from a full talk over a number of areas:

* Which type of person you reckon you are - what tasks do you enjoy doing, and don't forget - what you hate to do.

* Are you looking to realise a specific aspiration - like becoming self-employed in the near future?

* What scale of importance is the salary - is it of prime importance, or is enjoying your job further up on the scale of your priorities?

* Always think in-depth about the level of commitment involved to attain their desired level.

* You have to understand what differentiates each area of training.

The bottom line is, the most intelligent way of understanding everything necessary is via an in-depth discussion with a professional who has enough background to be able to guide you.

Now, why should we consider commercial qualifications and not familiar academic qualifications obtained from tech' colleges and universities? With fees and living expenses for university students becoming a tall order for many, and the IT sector's growing opinion that accreditation-based training is closer to the mark commercially, there's been a big surge in CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA accredited training routes that supply key solutions to a student at a much reduced cost in terms of money and time. Of course, a necessary degree of associated detail must be taught, but focused specialisation in the exact job role gives a commercially trained person a real head start.

In simple terms: Commercial IT certifications provide exactly what an employer needs - the title says it all: i.e. I am a 'Microsoft Certified Professional' in 'Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network'. Therefore employers can identify just what their needs are and what certifications are required to fulfil that.

Don't get hung-up, as a lot of students can, on the training process. Your training isn't about getting a plaque on your wall; this is about employment. Focus on the end-goal. It's not unheard of, for example, to obtain tremendous satisfaction from a year of studying but end up spending 10 or 20 years in a tiresome job role, entirely because you stumbled into it without the correct level of soul-searching at the beginning.

You must also consider how you feel about earning potential, career development, and how ambitious you are. You need to know what will be expected of you, what certifications they want you to have and where you'll pick-up experience from. Chat with someone who has a commercial understanding of the realities faced in the industry, and could provide detailed descriptions of what tasks are going to make up a typical day for you. Getting to the bottom of all this before you start on any retraining programme makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

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