Good for you! Discovering this piece means you're likely to be pondering over your options, and if you're considering retraining that means you've taken it further than almost everybody else. Are you aware that hardly any of us are contented at work - yet the vast majority of us will take no corrective action. We encourage you to stand out from the crowd and make a start - those who do hardly ever regret it.

We'd strongly advise that in advance of taking any individual training program, you run through some things with a mentor who is familiar with the working environment and can make recommendations. They can assess your personality and give you guidance on the right role for you:

* Do you enjoy a busy working environment? Are you better with new people or those you know well? Perhaps you prefer not to be disturbed and enjoy responsibilities that you deal with by yourself?

* The building trade and the banking industry are not coping well these days, so which sector would give you the most options?

* When you've done all your re-training, would you like your skills to see you to retirement age?

* Will this new qualification give you the opportunity to find the work you're looking for, and remain in employment until sixty five?

A predominant industry in Great Britain that can satisfy a trainee's demands is the IT industry. There is a requirement for greater numbers of knowledgeable staff in this market, - take a look at any jobsite and you'll see for yourself. However, it's not all nerdy people looking at their computerscreens all the time - there are loads more jobs than that. Most of staff in the computer industry are just like you and me, with well paid and stimulating jobs.

Commercially accredited qualifications are now, very visibly, beginning to replace the traditional routes into the IT industry - but why is this the case? With the costs of academic degree's becoming a tall order for many, alongside the industry's recognition that vendor-based training often has more relevance in the commercial field, we have seen a great increase in Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA certified training programmes that educate students at a fraction of the cost and time involved. Typically, students are simply taught the necessary specifics in depth. It isn't quite as lean as that might sound, but the most important function is always to cover the precise skills needed (alongside some required background) - without overdoing the detail in every other area - in the way that academic establishments often do.

What if you were an employer - and you wanted someone who could provide a specific set of skills. What is easier: Pore through loads of academic qualifications from several applicants, asking for course details and which trade skills they've acquired, or choose particular accreditations that precisely match your needs, and then choose your interviewees based around that. You can then focus on how someone will fit into the team at interview - rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.

The old fashioned style of teaching, using textbooks and whiteboards, is an up-hill struggle for the majority of us. If this sounds like you, look for learning programmes that are multimedia based. Research has constantly shown that getting into our studies physically, will more likely produce memories that are deeper and longer-lasting.

Courses are now available on CD and DVD discs, where your computer becomes the centre of your learning. Using video-streaming, you can watch instructors demonstrating how to do something, and then practice yourself - with interactive lab sessions. Don't take any chances and look at some examples of the kind of training materials you'll be using before you purchase a course. What you want are video tutorials, instructor demo's and interactive audio-visual sections with practice modules.

It's usually bad advice to opt for on-line only training. With highly variable reliability and quality from most broadband providers, make sure you get actual CD or DVD ROM's.

Have a conversation with a expert consultant and we'd be amazed if they couldn't provide you with many horror stories of students who've been sold completely the wrong course for them. Ensure you only ever work with an experienced industry advisor who asks some in-depth questions to discover the most appropriate thing for you - not for their paycheque! You need to find a starting-point that will suit you. With a strong background, or even a touch of work-based experience (some industry qualifications maybe?) then obviously the point from which you begin your studies will vary from a student that is completely new to the industry. Where this will be your initial attempt at studying to take an IT exam then you may want to practice with some basic Microsoft package and Windows skills first.

The way a programme is physically sent to you is often missed by many students. In what way are your training elements sectioned? And in what order and how fast does each element come? You may think that it makes sense (with training often lasting 2 or 3 years to pass all the required exams,) for many training providers to send out a single section at a time, until you've passed all the exams. But: What if for some reason you don't get to the end of every section? And what if the order provided doesn't meet your requirements? Through no fault of your own, you mightn't complete everything fast enough and therefore not end up with all the modules.

For future safety and flexibility, many trainees now want to request that all their modules (now paid for) are posted to them in one go, with nothing held back. You can then decide at what speed and in which order you want to finish things.

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