The Cisco training is intended for individuals who wish to work with routers and switches. Routers hook up computer networks over the internet or dedicated lines. We’d recommend that you should start with the CCNA. It’s not advisable to launch directly into your CCNP for it’s full of complexities – and you need to work up to it to have a go at this.

You might end up joining an internet service provider or a big organisation which is located on multiple sites but needs regular secure data communications. This career path is very well paid and quite specialised.

If you’re just entering the world of routers, then working up to and including the CCNA is the right level to aim for – at this stage avoid being tempted to do the CCNP. Once you’ve worked for a few years, you’ll know if it’s relevant for you to have this next level up.

Watch out that all qualifications you’re considering doing will be commercially viable and are bang up to date. The ‘in-house’ certifications provided by many companies are often meaningless.

Unless the accreditation comes from a company like Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco, then chances are it will be commercially useless – because no-one will recognise it.

Students hoping to begin a career in computers and technology normally aren’t sure what direction they should take, let alone which sector to obtain accreditation for.

What is our likelihood of grasping the many facets of a particular career when we’ve never done it? Maybe we have never met anyone who performs the role either.

To attack this, we need to discuss a number of core topics:

* Your personality type as well as your interests – what kind of work-related things please or frustrate you.

* Are you aiming to reach a specific dream – like being your own boss sometime soon?

* Is salary further up on your priority-scale than other factors.

* Many students don’t properly consider the level of commitment involved to attain their desired level.

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

For most of us, considering all these ideas tends to require the help of an advisor who knows what they’re talking about. And not just the accreditations – but also the commercial requirements of the market as well.

If your advisor doesn’t ask many questions – it’s likely they’re just trying to sell you something. If they push a particular product before learning about your history and current experience level, then you know it’s true.

With some real-world experience or qualifications, you could discover that your appropriate starting-point is not the same as someone new to the industry.

Consider starting with user-skills and software training first. It will usually make the slope up to the higher-levels a less steep.

Consider the points below very carefully if you’ve been persuaded that that over-used sales technique about an ‘Exam Guarantee’ sounds great value:

Certainly it’s not free – you’re still being charged for it – the price has simply been included in the whole thing.

Students who enter their exams one by one, paying for them just before taking them are much more likely to pass. They are mindful of their investment and take the necessary steps to ensure they are ready.

Sit the exam as locally as possible and don’t pay up-front, but seek out the best deal for you when you’re ready.

A lot of so-called credible training companies make huge profits because they’re getting in the money for exams at the start of the course and cashing in if they’re not all taken.

In addition to this, ‘Exam Guarantees’ often aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The majority of organisations won’t pay for you to re-take until you’ve completely satisfied them that you’re ready this time.

Due to typical VUE and Prometric tests costing in the region of 112 pounds in this country, the most cost-effective way to cover the cost is by paying when you need them. There’s no sense in throwing away maybe a thousand pounds extra at the start of your studies. Study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams is what will really guarantee success.

(C) 2009 S. Edwards. Pop to Adult Retraining Courses or www.NewCareerOptions.co.uk.