7 years work experience with no cert or degree

I've taken a couple of crash courses in windows administration and have been working in the field for about 7 years now. i manage/work with:
-network devices(routers, switches, firewalls, web filters etc)
-windows servers(iis, dc, exchange, dns, etc)
-vmware esxi 5
-androids, iphones, blackberry(bes)
-voip: 3cx and trixbox
-helpdesk software and remote software

i cant quite get over my salary hump and was wondering what type of certifications i should obtain at this point in my career? preferrably, i'd like to self study without any courses. i'm not sure if i should focus on windows administration or do a vendor neutral cert or something else.

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Comments

ajs1976

What interest you? Some options are the MCSA 2008 or MCSA 2012, CCNA/CCENT, Security+, CISSP (if you have or can get the experience).

Slowhand

I'd like to expand a little bit on what ajs1976 asked: what is your current role? Are you on the sysadmin side of things, on the desktop support team, a NOC admin role, or perhaps in a network engineering position? The two factors to take into consideration is what you've been doing and what you want to be doing.

kriscamaro68

I would also add that if your vendor neutral cert choices are anything from CompTIA then skip them. I would say you are past the point of these doing you any good. I would say follow a vendor or multiple vendors. Maybe an MCSA\MCSE and VCP 5 would get you somewhere you want to be. Also like Slowhand said it will depend on what your current role is. Sounds as though you atleast past helpdesk so I would still say those would be a good path. If you prefer networking instead of sys admin type stuff then the CCNA-CCNP would be a good path as well.

iBrokeIT

The easy way to a higher salary at that point in your career is to specialize. Pick an area you want to specialize in an start working on vendor certs in that specialization.

sasnimrod

iBrokeIT wrote: »

The easy way to a higher salary at that point in your career is to specialize. Pick an area you want to specialize in an start working on vendor certs in that specialization.

+1

I think that picking an area of specialization is the way to go, if you want to secure a good salary. That being said - maybe I'm a bit biased over this since I hate being a jack of all trades (which is were I'm at, at the moment