If you're hoping to gain acknowledged certifications at the Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator study level, some of the best training tools around are based on CD and DVD ROM's using interactive training. So if you are a professional but are looking to formalise your skills with certification, or are just about to get started, you'll come across interactive MCSA training programs to fit your requirements. Each of these scenarios requires different material, so make sure you're on the right one before investing your cash. Identify a provider that's willing to understand you, and what you're trying to achieve, and one that has the ability to supply you with enough information to decide.

Be careful that the certifications you're working towards will be commercially viable and are up-to-date. 'In-house' exams and the certificates they come with are not normally useful in gaining employment. You'll find that only recognised accreditation from the major players like Microsoft, Adobe, CompTIA and Cisco will have any meaning to employers.

The way in which your courseware is broken down for you isn't always given the appropriate level of importance. How many stages do they break the program into? What is the specific order and do you have a say in when you'll get each part? A release of your materials stage by stage, according to your own speed is how things will normally arrive. Of course, this sounds sensible, but you should take these factors into account: What if for some reason you don't get to the end of every section? And what if you find the order of the modules counter-intuitive? Due to no fault of yours, you may not meet the required timescales and consequently not get all your materials.

In a perfect world, you want everything at the start - giving you them all to come back to at any time in the future - whenever it suits you. This allows a variation in the order that you complete your exams as and when something more intuitive seems right for you.

We're often asked why qualifications from colleges and universities are now falling behind more commercial certificates? As we require increasingly more effective technological know-how, the IT sector has been required to move to the specialised core-skills learning that can only come from the vendors - that is companies such as CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA. This usually turns out to involve less time and financial outlay. In essence, only required knowledge is taught. It's not quite as straightforward as that, but the most important function is always to concentrate on the fundamentally important skill-sets (including a degree of required background) - without trying to cram in everything else (as academia often does).

What if you were an employer - and you required somebody who had very specific skills. What's the simplest way to find the right person: Trawl through loads of academic qualifications from various applicants, asking for course details and which workplace skills they have, or select a specialised number of commercial certifications that precisely match your needs, and then select who you want to interview from that. Your interviews are then about personal suitability - rather than on the depth of their technical knowledge.

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