Charging for exams with the course fee and presenting it as a guarantee for your exams is popular with many training course providers. But look at the facts:

Everyone knows they're ultimately paying for it - it's quite obvious to see that it's already in the overall figure from the training company. It's certainly not free (it's just marketing companies think we'll fall for anything they say!) It's well known in the industry that if students pay for each progressive exam, one by one, they'll be in a better position to pass every time - since they are conscious of their investment in themselves and therefore will put more effort into their preparation.

Does it really add up to pay your training college in advance for exams? Hold on to your money and pay for the exam when you're ready, instead of paying any mark-up - and take it closer to home - rather than in some remote place. Including money in your training package for exams (and interest charges if you're borrowing money) is a false economy. Resist being talked into filling the training company's account with your hard-earned cash simply to help their cash-flow! Some will be pinning their hopes on the fact that you won't get to do them all - so they don't need to pay for them. You should fully understand that re-takes via training companies with an 'Exam Guarantee' are tightly controlled. They'll insist that you take mock exams first until you've demonstrated an excellent ability to pass.

Spending hundreds or even thousands extra on 'Exam Guarantees' is foolish - when hard work, commitment and the right preparation via exam simulations is what will really guarantee success.

Often, trainers provide piles of reference manuals and workbooks. Learning like this is dull and repetitive and isn't the best way to go about taking things in. If we can utilise all of our senses into our learning, then the results are usually dramatically better.

Modern training can now be done at home via easy-to-use DVD or CD ROM's. By watching and listening to instructors on video tutorials you'll absorb the modules, one by one, by way of the expert demonstrations. Then you test your knowledge by using practice-lab's. Any company that you're considering should willingly take you through a few samples of the type of training materials they provide. You're looking for evidence of tutorial videos and demonstrations and a wide selection of interactive elements.

Often, companies will only use training that is purely available online; while you can get away with this much of the time, consider what happens if you lose your internet access or you get a slow connection speed. It's preferable to have DVD or CD discs that will solve that problem.

Commercial qualifications are now, very visibly, already replacing the traditional routes into the IT sector - so why is this happening? Industry is of the opinion that for mastery of skill sets for commercial use, the right accreditation supplied for example by Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe is far more effective and specialised - for considerably less. This is done through focusing on the actual skills required (along with an appropriate level of background knowledge,) instead of spending months and years on the background 'padding' that academic courses can often find themselves doing - to pad out the syllabus.

Imagine if you were an employer - and you required somebody who had very specific skills. Which is the most straightforward: Wade your way through a mass of different academic qualifications from various applicants, asking for course details and what vocational skills they've acquired, or choose particular accreditations that exactly fulfil your criteria, and make your short-list from that. Your interviews are then about personal suitability - rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.

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