If you're thinking of using a training company which still utilises workshops as a feature of their programme, then listen to these hassles reported by almost all trainees:

- Loads of travelling - lots of visits and usually hundreds of miles a time.

- Taking time out of work - typical colleges provide weekday availability - typically grouping 2 or 3 days together. This is generally difficult for those of us who work for a living, even more so if you include the travel time on top.

- And don't forget lost holiday time. Most of us have twenty days annual leave. If half of that is used up on workshops, then we haven't got much left for ourselves.

- In a situation where running costs are very high, a lot of colleges make the classes quite large - not ideal (and much less personal).

- You may prefer to move at a pace that is different to the other class members. This creates tension in the class.

- Tot up the cost of all the travelling, parking, accommodation and food and you could find yourself astounded. Trainees report costs ranging from hundreds to over a thousand pounds. Sit down and add it up - and you'll see how.

- The majority of trainees want their training to remain private to avoid any kind of come-back whilst in their current job.

- Who amongst us hasn't shied away from raising a hand in the air, because we wanted to look smarter?

- Don't forget, workshops are basically unreachable, when you work or live away for part of the week.

Doesn't it make much more sense to be taught when it suits you -- not the training company - and make use of virtual lab environments with videos of your instructors. You can train wherever you want. If your PC is a laptop, you could catch some sunshine outside while you work. Any difficulties and logon to the 24x7 support facility. Just watch and re-watch the study modules as often as you need to revise. And of course, you don't have to make notes because you'll always have access to the teaching. Put simply: You save on money, time, hassle and avoid polluting the skies.

Many students come unstuck over a single courseware aspect usually not even thought about: How the training is broken down and couriered to your address. By and large, you'll enrol on a course that takes between and 1 and 3 years and get sent one module each time you pass an exam. It seems to make sense on one level, but consider these issues: What happens when you don't complete every exam? What if you don't find their order of learning is ideal for you? Because of nothing that's your fault, you may not meet the required timescales and therefore not end up with all the modules.

The ideal solution is to have all the training materials packed off to you right at the start; the whole caboodle! Thus avoiding any future problems that could impede the reaching of your goals.

Kick out a salesman who pushes one particular program without performing a 'fact-find' so as to understand your abilities plus your level of experience. Make sure they can draw from a large array of training so they can give you an appropriate solution. In some circumstances, the training inception point for a student with a little experience is often substantially dissimilar to the student with none. If this is going to be your opening attempt at studying to take an IT exam then you may want to start with user-skills and software training first.

Currently, you'll find very few 'Windows' 'NT' Server installations left, but you'll find still quite a lot remaining at server 2000. The most abundant is server 2003, with Server '2008' still in its early days. Since this is actually the case in the business environment, most of Microsoft's qualifications continue to be centred around the 2003 Operating System. MS's certifications MCSA & 'MCSE' have matched the different Server evolutions over time. In accordance with the marketplace, the 2003 versions of these networking certifications are still the most commonly requested. Nevertheless it would not be appropriate to dismiss '08 training, as to cover this too will future proof yourself.

Sometimes people presume that the school and FE college system is still the best way into IT. Why then are commercial certificates slowly and steadily replacing it? Corporate based study (in industry terminology) is far more effective and specialised. Industry has realised that such specialised knowledge is necessary to cope with an increasingly more technical marketplace. Microsoft, CISCO, Adobe and CompTIA are the key players in this arena. Essentially, the learning just focuses on what's actually required. It isn't quite as lean as that might sound, but the principle objective is to focus on the exact skills required (with some necessary background) - without going into too much detail in all sorts of other things (as academia often does).

Just as the old advertisement said: 'It does what it says on the tin'. Companies need only to know what areas need to be serviced, and then match up the appropriate exam numbers as a requirement. Then they're assured that a potential employee can do exactly what's required.

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