CompTIA Certification or Cisco Certification, which is better??
 

I was thinking/deciding on what other certs I should get..

Go the CompTIA route and get the Network+ and Security+ (not sure if I want to get Server+)

Then I was thinking, how about the Cisco route.. and become a Cisco entry level or associate level technician.. this would undoubtedly be a lot harder, I imagine

Heres the catch, I wont be taking a course, instead, I was thinking of getting the books and study it myself.


What do other certified techs think I should do??

A+ cert is crap and will do absolutely nothing for you.

I have a cert from cisco. Got CCNA and working on CCNP for the past 2 years since i'm becoming really lazy to do the tests needed to get CCNP. To be honest you should be doing microsoft certs instead of A+ cert and Cisco certs. Working in the field, I feel that I work on more microsoft stuff than networking gear as networks tend to stay the same and barely go down when working and don't change much.

I find that having a microsoft certs helps more than all the others, but having a CCNA also helps a bit.

I know A+ isnt a big thing, but its a stepping stone into getting other certs from CompTIA..


so what MS certs do you recommend me looking into?

dont bother with any certs man,

any decent employer wont give a shit about them, because they know most certs can be cheated on.

the only employers who care about certs are the ones who give you minimum wage anyway,

its all about having a diploma or degree, and lots of experience.

going the cert route is a dead end

good god, i looked at the MS certs.. there are tons... wtf..

MCSE, MCTS, MCITP, etc.. then theres sub categories... so confusing...


maybe I should start with MCTS then MCITP????

i dont have time to go to school and get a diploma/degree as Ive go 2 jobs (to pay bills)... i can study books at night where i work graveyards...

I wouold at least do network+ first. It gives you the basic in netowrking skills and will help you with other certs you might want to do later on (CCNA, CCNP). Certs are pretty useful IMO.

im actually takin the a+ course at bcit, its boring as hell and it costs a grand. There somethings I learned but very little. I heard from other ppl in the course tat the course used to be really shitty. Most jobs needs a+ cert.

lol for bhtoss TIA course u can easily buy a book or even download online notes study yourself and do the test.........

I want to get a Cisco cert because its a big deal, as Cisco is one of the best and widely used networking devices..

I did though about MS certs, but not sure if its as big a deal as a Cisco cert..


So I shouldnt even bother with an A+ cert and just jump into getting a Network+ cert...
That would probably save my $180.. But I already spent weeks reading that damn book..


Yea this is what im doing, bought the CompTIA A+ book $60.. exam is $180

i disagree that they are crap.
in the employers eyes, they are often important.
consider that your first step to getting hired is often through HR and not the manager of your position.
they look for things like certs because its easy to distinguish.
A+ may be outdated and really basic, but its still the industry standard.

my advice is A+ is a piece of crap to learn, so just pay $20 and buy a braindump of the exam questions. buy the brain dump, spend a week memorizing it, pass the exam.

i wouldnt recommend the same for microsoft or cisco, because when you get interviews for those types of jobs you MUST be competent.
they will smell a bullshitter a mile away. however with A+ 90% of it is a outdated and irrelevant anyway.
dont waste your time and money studying 1000 pages in a textbook to pass that exam.

so should i even bother with A+ cert? since its the industry standard, it would be handy to have?

do what your doin now, jsut dont do what I did. Continue to read the book and get the A+. Its a basic need. A+ is now also need to be renewed every 3 years or smt.

Yes a+ is crap but a lot of employers list recommended/required ones. Since you already started you might as well finish it.

I don't agree that any decent employer will ignore them and base everything on experience.

i dont think a+ needs to be renewed. are you sure about that? i know cisco does.
a+ is way out of date anyway so it hardly makes sense to have to recertify

I recently hired a person who has A+ and Network+, along with 3 or so years of work experience. He didn't have a Computer Science degree but that was fine. In the end, he showed me he is hard working and fast learning.

1 person was hired. 50 or so people applied within a week. If I see someone who has certs and some work experience, it tells me this person is professional and knows some basic tech knowledge. It'll save me hours on training.

In short: certs matter. The place I work at is certainly decent, and definitely not minimum wage.

while A+ is largely not a deal breaker and required only for entry tech jobs, when i look through resumes for a client at my recruitment job, the search terms often include things like CCNA or at least a B.Sc. If it's not on your resume it probably won't be on the list of candidates i forward to my boss.

+1 to certs matter.

I have both A+ and CCNA. Certifications are good for HR guys who have to go over thousands of resumes and don't have the luxury of being able to scan each and every point of a resume. Having certs can quickly put you on the shortlist. Now this is of course not the case all the time, but it sure doesn't hurt to meet more prerequisites rather than less.

I only got my A+ because a lot of employers in the technology-related field ask for it. I definitely do not recommend spending too much time studying, quizzing, and cramming all that A+ stuff in your head. Just download an exam engine and study the actual quiz questions.

CCNA and it's relevance is heavily dependant on the employers you're looking to apply to.

Comptia courses need to be renewed every 3 years now as of the end of 2010. Glad I at least have lifetime network+ certification.

With microsoft certs you have to do a couple different tests in order to get the Cert. Same goes with Cisco Certs

Cisco certs expire every 3 years so you have to take the test again or take some other test with cisco in order to renew it. such a money grab

Can I ask how much the wage you guys start at is?

While I agree that certs may look good to the general HR manager,

but any person who actually knows whats going on in the I.T field, know that certs are useless, as all of them can be cheated on.

I've noticed my current employer and some of my past employers are now moving away from certs for this reason, and are gearing more towards experience, and shadow training.

If any manager tells me I need a cert, I will pass it in 2 days. Certs are irrelevant.

I remember my manager asking me a question about active directory, and I said I didnt know, he said didnt you get the certification? I said ya, but I only know the answer to 50 specific questions. He died a little inside that day, I chuckled.

again im not talking about the future shop or london drugs, NCIX or whatever IT employee.


Knowing what I know now, if I was an employer, If I had 2 resume's, one guy with 3 years experience and no certs, while the other guy had 20 certs and no experience.

I wouldnt even interview the second guy, he's just a memorization jockey.

I used to work with a guy who has aspergers at this old company, he literally had 30 fuckin certs, you name it, he had it, just a brilliant mind when it came to reading and memorizing. yet the guy didnt even know how to change the damn refresh rate, and the company didnt know what to do with him, The certs look good on paper to prospective contracts, but they would constantly kick him off the contracts because he was useless, that company now requires no certs for entry.

Anyway, thats what i've come to learn since I started in this field, sharing what I've experienced.


Also, one last point,

Microsoft also has seen this coming where certs are less and less valued, they are now converting their certs to live testing. Where you actually connect to a VM at microsoft, and they tell you what to do, and you hafto show the steps in doing it, live.

I had to do one of these, and it was easy enough to find exactly what they wanted you to do, I dug a little more and even found video's of each and every step and exactly how to do them. I passed the test with only a week of memorizing the steps. Certs are bogus, even live testing is still cheatable, the internet is a powerfull sharing tool.

I'm a senior system administrator at my company, and I went through probably at least a hundred resumes when we were looking to add a couple new sysadmins, and for us, experience was certainly more important than certificates. I guess it depends on the company and the environment.

Last cert I got was the NT4 based MCSE... No post secondary either and never had a problem finding a job. Was thinking of updating them to the latest last year because I thought about moving to another company. While I was studying, I fired out a number or resumes and got several phone calls even with old certs.

This is why certs aren't as great as they use to be.

How IT pros cheat on certification exams
Perhaps think about signing up for a program at a technical institution?

anyways
I agree that certs are great when HR has to look through hundreds of applicants. What people in industry tell me is, "certs help you get your foot in the door by separating the people who have certs and people who don't". After that no one really cares. When you go in for an interview they'll definitely be able to see how technically inclined you are. Do you get along with other people? How quickly can you learn? How quickly you can solve a problem?

As for certs, I wouldn't waste your time on any of those unless they're windows or cisco; especially if you're just starting off and don't have any experience. You're going to have to go out and buy some routers and switches or use emulation software like GNS3 or packet tracer(this is just script rather than emulation) in order to practice. I recommend taking some courses or signing up for a program truthfully. This way you have a nice lab environment to work in; not to mention you'll actually feel what it's like to work under pressure.

good luck on your career path

is the information tested on these certs not needed in their respective work environment? isn't it immediately apparent that the person has no experience or no idea what he/she is doing?

or r u guys talking about ppl with experience and decide to steal/cheat certs to pass by HR?

Exactly this. Certs help get you through the first cut. Experience will carry you the rest of the way.