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Congratulations! As you’re looking at this it’s likely you’re thinking about retraining for a new career - so you’ve already done more than most. Only one in ten of us are content with our jobs, but most complain but just stay there. So, why not be one of the few who actually do something about it.

Before you make decisions on any career courses, discuss your thoughts with an industry expert who can help you sort out which area will be right for you. Someone who can get to know your personality, and find out what types of work suit you:

* Do you like working on your own or is being in a team environment an important option?

* What do you require from the market sector you work in? (Things do change - look at the building trade, or banks for example.)

* Is this the last time you imagine you’ll re-train, and if so, do you suppose your new career will allow you to do that?

* Do you expect your new knowledge base to give you the chance to get a good job, and keep working until sixty five?

Prioritise Information Technology, that’s our best advice - unusually, it’s one of the growing market sectors in this country and overseas. Salaries are also more generous than most.

Finding your first job in the industry is often made easier with a Job Placement Assistance program. At the end of the day it isn’t so complicated as you might think to land a job - as long as you’re correctly trained and certified; the shortage of IT personnel in Britain looks after that.

CV and Interview advice and support is sometimes offered (alternatively, check out one of our sites for help). Ensure you update that dusty old CV immediately - not after you’ve qualified!

It’s not unusual to find that you’ll secure your first job whilst you’re still studying (occasionally right at the beginning). If your CV doesn’t show your latest training profile (and it’s not being looked at by employers) then you don’t stand a chance!

If you don’t want to travel too far to work, then you’ll often find that a local (but specialised) recruitment consultancy may serve you better than the trainer’s recruitment division, for they’re going to be familiar with local employment needs.

A big frustration for a number of training providers is how much people are focused on studying to get top marks in their exams, but how un-prepared they are to work on getting the role they’ve acquired skills for. Get out there and hustle - you might find it’s fun.

Don’t get hung-up, as many people do, on the certification itself. Training is not an end in itself; you should be geared towards the actual job at the end of it. You need to remain focused on where you want to go.

It’s common, in some situations, to thoroughly enjoy one year of training and then spend 20 miserable years in a job you hate, as a consequence of not performing the correct research when you should’ve - at the outset.

You must also consider your feelings on earning potential, career development, plus your level of ambition. It makes sense to understand what (if any) sacrifices you’ll need to make for a particular role, what exams are required and where you’ll pick-up experience from.

It’s good advice for all students to speak with an industry professional before following a particular study program. This gives some measure of assurance that it contains the commercially required skills for the chosen career path.

In most cases, your normal person has no idea in what direction to head in a computing career, let alone which market they should be considering getting trained in.

Perusing long lists of different and confusing job titles is a complete waste of time. Surely, most of us have no idea what our own family members do for a living - so we have no hope of understanding the ins and outs of any specific IT role.

Consideration of the following issues is most definitely required when you want to reveal the right answers:

* Personality plays an important role - what things get your juices flowing, and what are the areas that really turn you off.

* Are you aiming to achieve a closely held dream - like working for yourself someday?

* How highly do you rate salary - is it of prime importance, or do you place job satisfaction a little higher on the scale of your priorities?

* Often, trainees don’t consider the work involved to gain all the necessary accreditation.

* It’s wise to spend some time thinking about the level of commitment you’ll put into your training.

In all honesty, it’s obvious that the only real way to research these issues will be via a meeting with someone that understands Information Technology (as well as it’s commercial needs and requirements.)

You have to be sure that all your exams are current and what employers are looking for - you’re wasting your time with programmes which provide certificates that are worthless because they’re ‘in-house’.

Unless your qualification is issued by a company like Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco or Adobe, then it’s likely it will be commercially useless - because it won’t give an employer any directly-useable skills.