Congratulations! Hitting upon this feature proves you must be contemplating your career, and if it's re-training you're considering you've already done more than the majority of people will. Did you know that surprisingly few of us describe ourselves as fulfilled and satisfied with our jobs - but most will do absolutely nothing about it. Why not break free and take action - think about how you could enjoy Monday mornings.

On the subject of training, it's vital to first define what you DO want and DON'T want from the position you're looking to get into. It's important to discover if a new career would suit you better before much time and effort is spent taking a new turn. We recommend looking at the whole story first, to avoid disappointment:

• Is having company at work important to you? Is it meeting new people or being part of a team? Or you may prefer task-orientated work that you deal with by yourself?

• Do you have a preference which area you could be employed in? (In this economy, it's even more crucial to get it right.)

• Is this the last time you envisage re-training, and based on that, will your chosen career path allow you to do that?

• Are you happy that your chosen retraining can help you find employment, and will offer the chance to keep you in work up to the time you want to stop?

Prioritise Information Technology, that's our best advice - you'll find it's one of the only growing market sectors throughout Europe. Another benefit is that remuneration packages are much better than most.

A knowledgeable and practiced advisor (as opposed to a salesman) will talk through your abilities and experience. This is paramount to understanding your starting point for training. With some real-world experience or qualifications, you could discover that your appropriate starting-point is not the same as someone new to the industry. Opening with a basic PC skills module first is often the best way to get up and running on your IT studies, but really depends on your level of familiarity with computers.

Adding in the cost of exam fees up-front and offering an 'Exam Guarantee' is common for many training course providers. However, let's consider what's really going on:

It's become essential these days that we are a tad more knowledgeable about sales gimmicks - and the majority of us ought to cotton on to the fact that it is actually an additional cost to us (it's not a freebie because they like us so much!) Students who go in for their examinations when it's appropriate, funding them as they go are much better placed to get through first time. They're mindful of the cost and prepare more appropriately to make sure they're ready.

Don't you think it's more sensible to hold on to your money and pay for the exam at the time, rather than coughing up months or even a year or two in advance to a college, and to do it locally - rather than in some remote centre? A lot of extra profit is netted by some training companies that get money upfront for exam fees. For quite legitimate reasons, a number of students don't get to do their exams and so the company is quids-in. Surprising as it sounds, there are companies around that depend on students not taking their exams - as that's very profitable for them. In addition to this, you should consider what an 'exam guarantee' really means. The majority of organisations won't be prepared to pay for re-takes until you have demonstrated conclusively that you won't fail again.

Paying maybe a thousand pounds extra on an 'Exam Guarantee' is foolish - when hard work, commitment and the right preparation via exam simulations is what will get you through.

Consider only study courses that grow into commercially accepted accreditations. There are far too many trainers proposing unknown 'in-house' certificates that are essentially useless when you start your job-search. You'll discover that only industry recognised qualifications from the major players like Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA and Adobe will mean anything to employers.

Proper support should never be taken lightly - look for a package that includes 24x7 access, as not opting for this kind of support could impede your ability to learn. Beware of institutions who use 'out-of-hours' messaging systems - where an advisor will call back during standard office hours. It's no use when you're stuck on a problem and want support there and then.

World-class organisations provide an online access 24 hours-a-day facility pulling in several support offices across the globe. You're offered a simple environment that seamlessly accesses whichever office is appropriate any time of the day or night: Support when it's needed. You can't afford to accept less than you need and deserve. Direct-access 24x7 support is the only viable option for technical training. Maybe late-evening study is not your thing; often though, we're working while the support is live.