Should you be aspiring to become Cisco accredited, but you've no practical experience with switches and routers, we'd recommend taking the Cisco CCNA qualification. This will provide you with the knowledge you need to understand routers. Vast numbers of routers make up the internet, and national or international corporations with several locations also utilise routers to connect their computer networks.

Routers are linked to networks, therefore it's important to have prior knowledge of the operation of networks, or you will have difficulties with the course and not be able to follow the work. Seek out a program that includes basic networking skills (for example CompTIA) before you get going on CCNA.

You'll need a specially designed course that takes you on a progressive path to make sure that you've mastered the necessary skills and abilities prior to getting going with Cisco.

There is no way of over emphasising this: Always get full 24x7 support from professional instructors. We can tell you that you'll strongly regret it if you don't heed this.

Many only provide email support (too slow), and phone support is usually just a call-centre who will just take down the issue and email it over to their technical team - who will call back over the next day or so (assuming you're there), at a time suitable for them. This isn't a lot of good if you're sitting there confused over an issue and only have certain times available in which to do your studies.

As long as you look hard, you will find the top providers that give students direct-access support at all times - including evenings, nights and weekends.

If you opt for less than support round-the-clock, you'll quickly find yourself regretting it. It may be that you don't use it during the night, but you're bound to use weekends, late evenings or early mornings.

An all too common mistake that we encounter all too often is to choose a career based on a course, rather than starting with the desired end-result. Colleges are brimming over with direction-less students who chose a course based on what sounded good - in place of something that could gain them an enjoyable career or job.

Students often train for a single year but end up doing a job for a lifetime. Avoid the mistake of finding what seems like a program of interest to you only to spend 20 years doing a job you don't like!

Take time to understand how you feel about career development, earning potential, and how ambitious you are. You should understand what the role will demand of you, which certifications are needed and how you'll gain real-world experience.

You'd also need help from a professional who understands the sector you're hoping to qualify in, and who can give you 'A typical day in the life of' synopsis of the job being considered. This really is absolutely essential as you'll need to know if you're going down the right road.

It's likely that you're quite practically minded - the 'hands-on' individual. Usually, the trial of reading reference books and manuals would be considered as a last resort, but you really wouldn't enjoy it. Check out video-based multimedia instruction if book-based learning really isn't your style.

Research into the way we learn shows that memory is aided when we involve as many senses as possible, and we get physically involved with the study process.

Modern training can now be done at home via self-contained CD or DVD materials. Instructor-led tutorials will mean you'll find things easier to remember via the expert demonstrations. Then you test your knowledge by using practice-lab's.

You'll definitely want a study material demo' from any training college. You should ask for slide-shows, instructor-led videos and interactive labs where you get to practice.

Avoid training that is purely online. Physical CD or DVD ROM materials are preferable where available, as you need to be able to use them whenever it's convenient for you - and not be totally reliant on your internet connection always being 'up' and available.

Finding job security in the current climate is incredibly rare. Companies can remove us from the workplace at the drop of a hat - as long as it fits their needs.

We can however reveal security at the market sector level, by searching for high demand areas, tied with work-skill shortages.

The 2006 UK e-Skills survey highlighted that twenty six percent of IT jobs are unfilled mainly due to a chronic shortage of properly qualified workers. Quite simply, we can't properly place more than 3 out of each four job positions in the computing industry.

Well trained and commercially accredited new workers are consequently at a resounding premium, and it's estimated to remain so for many years to come.

We can't imagine if a better time or market circumstances is ever likely to exist for gaining qualification for this rapidly growing and developing sector.