If you would like to be a good user to help you as part of your work, or study for a specialist career in a supporting position, there are a number of training programs to get you there. To find out about Office 2003 ('XP') check out 'MOS' - 'Microsoft Office Specialist'. For Office 2007 ('Vista') skill-sets choose MCAS - Microsoft Certified Application Specialist. For a certification that allows you to support others, research the 'Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician', or MCDST as its known.

You may equally be thinking about a senior job in the I.T. field, which would mean rather more in depth and technical Microsoft certification training. In a bid to update their professional level certification programs, 'Microsoft' have recently re-structured a number of their examinations. Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) & 'Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist' ('MCTS') are now being brought in, though a number of Microsoft Certified Professional ('MCP') exams continue to be current. 'MCTS' training packages are usually worked on as building blocks to the 'MCITP'.

Some training companies still use one of the most out-dated training concepts - classroom lessons. Usually touted as a major benefit, if you talk to a student who has had to attend a few, don't be surprised to be lectured on several if not all of these problems:

- Repeated visits to the centre - quite a distance away a lot of the time.

- Asking for time out of work - typical trainers provide Monday to Friday workshop availability - typically grouping 2 or 3 days together. To be honest, this doesn't suit working people, even more so when you add the travel time on.

- And let's not disregard the lost vacation days. Most of us have 20 days holiday per year. If half of that is used up on workshops, then we haven't got much left for ourselves.

- Classes normally become bloated with students.

- Often students are trying to maintain a quick pace, but some like to take it easier and not be pushed beyond their comfort-zone. This will often generate tension and unrest a lot of the time.

- A lot of students tell us of the considerable cost of all the travelling back and forth to the training venue and paying for food and accommodation can get very high.

- Privacy is important to us all. We don't want to risk giving up any advancement due to us just because we're retraining.

- Most of us feel awkward about asking questions when surrounded by other students - so we don't appear ignorant.

- Where students have to occasionally live away for part of the week, imagine the trouble involved in travelling to the required workshops, when time-off becomes even harder to obtain.

The most impressive solution is based on viewing a filmed class - with instructor-led learning available any time of the day that suits. Study at home on your desktop PC or if you have laptop, why not get outside if the weather's nice. Any questions; then use the provided 24x7 live support (that should come with any technical program.) Modules and lessons can be repeated if you need to - the more times you cover something - the more you'll remember. And you'll never have to write notes again - everything is already laid on for you. What could be more straightforward: A lot of money is saved and you avoid all the travelling; plus you have a far more stress-free learning environment.

Many trainers will provide a useful Job Placement Assistance service, designed to steer you into your first job. With the huge skills shortage in the United Kingdom even when times are hard, there's no need to get too caught up in this feature though. It isn't so complicated as you might think to land a job once you're well trained and qualified.

One important thing though, don't wait till you have qualified before getting your CV updated. Right at the beginning of your training, enter details of your study programme and tell people about it! Having the possibility of an interview is more than not being known. A surprising amount of junior positions are offered to students in the early stages of their course. In many cases, an independent and specialised local recruitment consultant or service (who will get paid by the employer when they've placed you) is going to give you a better service than a recruitment division from a training organisation. It also stands to reason that they'll be familiar with the local industry and employment needs.

Various men and women, it seems, put a great deal of effort into their studies (sometimes for years), only to do nothing special when finding a good job. Introduce yourself... Do everything you can to put yourself out there. Good jobs don't just knock on your door.

A knowledgeable and practiced consultant (vs a salesperson) will talk through your current situation. This is paramount to understanding your starting point for training. Of course, if you've had any relevant previous certification, then you may be able to pick-up at a different starting-point to a trainee with no history to speak of. Opening with a user skills course first may be the ideal way to commence your IT program, but really depends on your level of familiarity with computers.

'Structured Query Language' or SQL is a specific language for interrogating Databases. SQL is relevant to how data is saved on a database and extracted from it. Consequently knowledge of the 'language' is crucial for anybody looking for a professional level database position. Developers (DBD's) setup & design 'databases' for 'Administrators' ('DBAs') to regulate, interrogate and generate reports on the information. Frequently, a Database Developer will also obtain programming qualifications (either in 'VB' or C#,) in order to hold the full skillset required to create database software, as well as design the storage-structures.

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