The IT Certification Thread

[ITAsh]

Hi everyone,

 

I thought I would start a new thread called The IT Certification Thread for people to talk about what IT Certification they're planning on taking/ booked and what you already have. I would like people to share their knowledge on their experiences of the IT Certification world.

 

I will start off by saying I have my A+ 901 exam in less than a month now (and it is coming up quickly) and I have done a lot of study for it. I plan on finishing my A+ cert and then I will do the certifications in the following order.

 

CCENT

MTA- Server Administration

CCNA- Routing and Switching

MCSA- Server Administration.

 

In 4 years time I hope to be a network administrator (hence the exams I will be taking).

 

How about everyone else?

 

ITAsh

[hardtailstar]

Good Luck!

 

Im looking into stuff at the moment so will keep an eye on this thread.

[FN-GM]

Hello,

 

I have a CCNP Routing & Switching (and this also means I have CCENT and CCNA R&S)

 

I am moving onto the ITIL foundation and practitioner before Xmas (not biggies these).

 

I am considering the CCNA Security next but not 100% sure. I don't want to do Microsoft certifications - it doesn't interest me anymore.

 

Cheers

[bwestlake]

Aiming to get:

 

MCSA: Office 365

MCSA: Server 2016

MCSA: Cloud Infrastructure

(2016 + Cloud Infrastructure = MCSE: Cloud Infrastructure and Platform)

CCNA: Routing and Switching

VMWare: 6.5 VDC

Citrix: CCA/V & CCA/P

[karldenton]

Interesting discussion this.

The more MAT IT managers I talk to, the more there seems to be a shift from manufacturer quals to more IT project manager & ITIL.

[rich_tech]

I am on Resilia atm (ITIL CyberSec/Resilience), going for CCDA early next year, I also wouldn't touch MS qualifications, their not worth it IMO.

[mavhc]

Depends what you want to learn. I wouldn't bother paying money for them, wouldn't want to work with people who could only tell if you knew what you were doing by whether you had a piece of paper. Seems like kind of a scam when a company is selling training for their own products. Maybe make them easier to use instead. Also you'll end up biased towards those products, if I hire a cisco trained person they'll want to buy cisco stuff all the time (and they paid cisco to learn to want that, weird, cisco should be paying them)

 

If you want to do project management then learn those things, if you want to do people management, learn that, if you want to do stuff with computers, just read.

 

No point knowing how to organise a project if you don't know what's available in the field, or how it works. Practical experience matters 100x more

[ITAsh]

Hello,

 

I have a CCNP Routing & Switching (and this also means I have CCENT and CCNA R&S)

 

I am moving onto the ITIL foundation and practitioner before Xmas (not biggies these).

 

I am considering the CCNA Security next but not 100% sure. I don't want to do Microsoft certifications - it doesn't interest me anymore.

 

Cheers

 

What made you choose to go the ITIL route? I've been hearing a lot about ITIL but I have no idea what it fully is.

[irfdude]

Depends what you want to learn. I wouldn't bother paying money for them, wouldn't want to work with people who could only tell if you knew what you were doing by whether you had a piece of paper. Seems like kind of a scam when a company is selling training for their own products. Maybe make them easier to use instead. Also you'll end up biased towards those products, if I hire a cisco trained person they'll want to buy cisco stuff all the time (and they paid cisco to learn to want that, weird, cisco should be paying them)

If you want to do project management then learn those things, if you want to do people management, learn that, if you want to do stuff with computers, just read.

No point knowing how to organise a project if you don't know what's available in the field, or how it works. Practical experience matters 100x more

I wholeheartedly agree, but have come across an issue where I asked for a pay rise but have been told without recognised qualifications it wont happen. Luckily my bosses are happy to pay for me to do it, now I just have to find something that matches my requirements and satisfies their criteria.

[elsiegee40]

Moved to training forum

[christhetech]

I had worked in both Local Authorities and the private sector before entering the Education sector, and received plenty of training.

I hold ITIL Practitioner status, I am Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Accredited, did have Prince 2 Practitioner status, which has now expired and CCNA. ITIL & Prince 2 have come in quite handy for me over the years, as the courses themselves provide a really solid base for you to start from. It's quite good to be able to manage your projects in a recognised and completely structured manner and it looks really impressive when you start producing a series of Gant charts to take into meetings with you, the SLT here love Gant charts, even though they don't necessarily understand them. Prince 2 is not really something that you need in education, and I'm not sure exactly why MATs would be looking to send their IT staff down that route necessarily, but the basic principles of Prince 2 are really useful, so maybe they could focus on giving their staff a basic grounding in Prince 2 methodology, rather than going down the whole Practitioner status route, as that is just overkill really.

 

Much of ITIL, Prince 2 and Lean Six Sigma are just general common sense really, so I would say that I am fully accredited in applying common sense to problems, with a Cisco certificate to prove that I have passed an exam in networks. I don't think that I have ever consciously used any of my Lean Six Sigma training, but the Prince 2 methodology gets used all of the time.

[mavhc]

Your business will only give you more money if they also pay you to stop working for a week and pay more for you to take a course? Are you sure they're sane?

 

Problem with courses is they're so slow, and often cover half the stuff you already know, easier to watch videos at 2x speed and skip the ones you know already, then have a skype session with the trainer for half a day to ask questions

[Mr_Cook]

Hey Guys!

 

I was hoping on some advice on where to start. Been working as an I.T tech in a school for 5 years now (also support other primary schools) and am wondering where to start with training/certifications etc.

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

[FN-GM]

Hey Guys!

 

I was hoping on some advice on where to start. Been working as an I.T tech in a school for 5 years now (also support other primary schools) and am wondering where to start with training/certifications etc.

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

 

What interests do you have? I would work with that. For example I was interested in networking and fed up of Microsoft so took a CCNP.

[Zammo]

Hey Guys!

 

I was hoping on some advice on where to start. Been working as an I.T tech in a school for 5 years now (also support other primary schools) and am wondering where to start with training/certifications etc.

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

What direction do you *want* to go in? Where do your strengths lay? if your strength is in service and organisation maybe look at ITIL or project management. If it is more technical then AWS or Cisco?

 

The role of the IT generalist technician is slowly dying out in many places.

[Mr_Cook]

Probably down the networking route too!

Though i am thinking of taking a couple Microsoft exams too (I enjoyed setting up SCCM), though the books are rather dreary to read haha

[supportman]

ITIL seems to be the one that employers want these days, its pretty easy to be honest.

[sigma]

You mean your schools pay for and/or give time for training? In my experience, CPD is only for teachers or TAs.

[Mr_Cook]

You mean your schools pay for and/or give time for training? In my experience, CPD is only for teachers or TAs.

 

If we request sparingly and it's not "too" expensive yes, they are generally quite good here regarding training.

[MS2011]

What direction do you *want* to go in? Where do your strengths lay? if your strength is in service and organisation maybe look at ITIL or project management. If it is more technical then AWS or Cisco?

 

The role of the IT generalist technician is slowly dying out in many places.

 

I agreed with you, IT generalist technician roles are dying.

 

I have done Microsoft certification and doing VCP. But future is cloud computing Azure, AWS etc.

[Leeoakley]

ITIL seems to be the one that employers want these days, its pretty easy to be honest.

 

Don't Sit ITIL V3 in 2018. A new version is out Q1 next year.

[ITAsh]

My exam is in less than a week, any tips from anyone on how I should spend my last week preparing?

[mavhc]

Probably down the networking route too!

Though i am thinking of taking a couple Microsoft exams too (I enjoyed setting up SCCM), though the books are rather dreary to read haha

 

[jtotheb]

Seems like kind of a scam when a company is selling training for their own products. Maybe make them easier to use instead. Also you'll end up biased towards those products, if I hire a cisco trained person they'll want to buy cisco stuff all the time (and they paid cisco to learn to want that, weird, cisco should be paying them)

 

Cisco training, certainly on the R+S tracks, is for the most part agnostic. It's learning about networking concepts, design, and protocols as a whole. The application of that knowledge to Cisco gear is a relatively small part of the course.

[ITAsh]

Good news guys, I passed my 901 A+ Exam with a 842 out of 900!