A lot of training providers only give support to you inside of office hours (typically 9am-6pm) and sometimes a little earlier or later; not many go late into the evening (after 8-9pm) or cover weekends properly. Avoid those companies that use messaging services 'out-of-hours' - with the call-back coming in during the next 'working' day. It's not a lot of help when you've got study issues and need an answer now.

The best trainers incorporate three or four individual support centres active in different time-zones. They use an online interactive interface to link them all seamlessly, no matter what time you login, help is just seconds away, avoiding all the delays and problems. If you fail to get yourself online 24x7 support, you'll regret it. You might not want to use the service late in the night, but consider weekends, evenings and early mornings at some point.

Watch out that all qualifications you're considering doing are commercially relevant and are up-to-date. 'In-house' exams and the certificates they come with are often meaningless. To an employer, only the top companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe or CompTIA (for instance) will open the right doors. Nothing else will cut the mustard.

Searching for your first position in IT is often made easier with the help of a Job Placement Assistance program. But don't place too much emphasis on it - it's quite easy for training companies to make too much of it. In reality, the need for well trained IT people in the United Kingdom is the reason you'll find a job.

Whatever you do, don't leave it until you've finished your training before getting your CV updated. As soon as you start studying, mark down what you're doing and place it on jobsites! It's possible that you won't have even got to the exam time when you land your first junior support role; although this can't and won't happen unless your CV is with employers. Generally, you'll receive better performance from a specialist locally based employment agency than you'll experience from any course provider's centralised service, as they'll know the area better.

Fundamentally, as long as you put the same commitment into securing your first job as into studying, you're not going to hit many challenges. Some people bizarrely put hundreds of hours into their training course and just give up once certified and seem to expect employers to find them.

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