certs
despite of some comments I normally see on several forums regarding IT certifications, I can tell you certs are very usefull. I see scenarios where we need to hire one IT guy and we have two options... yes, sure, we interview both of them, both seems to have similar skills, but we pick up the guy with A+, N+, CCNA, MCP, MCTS, CEH instead of the other guy with no certs. This is the real life.