Letting your current job/position drive the direction of your studies/certs...

JoJoCal19

I'm curious if anyone has or is letting their current job or position drive the direction of their studies or the certifications they pursue.

I myself have a mostly IAM/GRC security background, and I had always wanted to go more technical but after some studying for various technical security topics, I decided to stick with what I know and what comes to me naturally (I can study and easily absorb CISM, CISA, COBIT, etc, however technical topics take a lot more effort to stick). In my current position as a Sr. IT Security Administrator I am actually doing a ton of PM, audit, and policy and procedure stuff in addition to typical Security Administrator duties, which I've been happy with. I have however been presented with the opportunity to move to a Sr. IT Security Engineer role by my manager's manager (Sec Admins roll up to my manager and the Sec Engineers roll up to his manager). While I am still going to go for my CISM, I will need to take up studies that are geared more towards the technical side of things, including the CCSA. I don't plan on giving up on the things that I want to pursue, but I have to add in studies for whatever is necessary for me to be successful in the new role, so it will definitely be challenging.

kly630

I have done this myself although I've been in very technical roles. When I started as a network specialist, Microsoft and Cisco was my focus. I then worked for quite a while as an ERP analyst and then earned certifications from SAP and SugarCRM. And just recently, I started as a system administrator and earned redhat and am targeting VMware now. I think getting tons and tons of "aspirational" certs is sort of a waste. If there's a place you know you want to be, it's probably better to target roles first and take advantage of what certs you can do after you have knowledge of what the role is like.

bertieb

All the time and in every role I've had over the last 16yrs. I generally have a rough idea which areas I want to focus on (including technical subjects/ managerial experience or honing my personal skills etc) but there will often be a work requirement that may require something different than my personal focus, for a while a least.

The key thing here is, if you enjoy your company and the work you are doing you're much more likely to do whatever it takes to be successful in current and future roles as long as you feel energized. Feeling energized is a nice place to be for so many reasons, such as taking on new opportunities or challenges as you'll be more willing and open to do something you hadn't had mapped out on your radar - and you may find that you'll love the new direction whilst being able to accomplish your original plans.

Like most, I've had roles that turned out to be nothing like I wanted, wouldn't lead me to where I wanted to be by a country mile and made me miserable in the process. This is nothing a role or company change can't sort out so I say embrace the new opportunity and slight direction change and go for it. You can certainly strive for your original plans alongside the new challenges and go back that way if you don't enjoy it. Best of luck.

Polynomial

I'm on the road to getting Salesforce certified in just about everything. Finished my first one last week. Second one coming up fast.

Company will pay for it and provides me with all their premier materials. Salesforce skills are actually in really, really high demand. Pays just as well as everything else.

UnixGuy

Absolutely! I think getting certified in the products that you work with is a great way to actually understand the products more AND to prove your experience to future/current employer(s).

I'm also considering CCSA as I work with CheckPoint a lot! Looks like we're on similar path! (No policy work for me, just pure technical Ops so far).