A useful feature that several companies offer is job placement assistance. The service is put in place to steer you into your first IT role. The need for this feature can be bigged up out of proportion though - it's quite easy for their marketing department to overstate it's need. At the end of the day, the still growing need for IT personnel in Britain is why employers will be interested in you.

Nevertheless, don't procrastinate and wait until you've finished your training before polishing up your CV. As soon as you start a course, enter details of your study programme and get promoting! It's not uncommon to find that junior support roles have been bagged by people who are still learning and have still to get qualified. At the very least this will get you into the 'maybe' pile of CV's - rather than the 'No' pile. In many cases, a specialist independent regional recruitment consultancy (who will, of course, be keen to place you to receive their commission) should get better results than any division of a training company. They should, of course, also know the local area and commercial needs.

A constant aggravation of various training course providers is how hard students are focused on studying to become certified, but how ill-prepared they are to market themselves for the position they're studied for. Don't falter at the last fence.

Its really quite likely if you are considering getting into IT from another profession you will need to commence your training program somewhere amongst these stages. Exactly where depends on the skill-sets you currently have. For much more advanced programs it's advisable to talk your options through with an industry expert who has I.T. knowledge. But almost any complete job change strategies should really be talked over ahead of diving in - it's a practical move to ensure the training you select is right for the job. Inadequate planning can lead to lots of inconvenience in the future, & cost a good deal more money than it should have!

Review the points below in detail if you've been persuaded that the marketing blurb about an 'Exam Guarantee' sounds great value:

Clearly it isn't free - you're still being charged for it - it's just been included in your package price. Students who enter their exams one by one, funding them as they go are much better placed to get through first time. They are conscious of what they've paid and prepare more appropriately to ensure they are ready.

Find the best exam deal or offer available when you take the exam, and save having to find the money early. In addition, it's then your choice where to do your exams - so you can choose somewhere closer to home. Buying a course that includes payments for examination fees (and interest charges if you're borrowing money) is a false economy. Resist being talked into filling the training company's account with your money simply to help their cash-flow! There are those who hope that you will never make it to exams - so they don't need to pay for them. Don't forget, with 'Exam Guarantees' from most places - the company decides when you are allowed to do a re-take. You'll have to prove conclusively that you can pass before they'll pay for another exam.

On average, exams cost about 112 pounds twelve months or so ago when taken at UK VUE or Prometric centres. So why pay hundreds or thousands of pounds extra to get 'Exam Guarantees', when common sense dictates that the best guarantee is study, commitment and preparing with good quality mock and practice exams.

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