Skills that are not "certifiable"

--chris--

I am taking the summer off from school (3 months) and have been playing with the idea of learning something new or different and having fun with it.

My first thought was to cert up; security+ and JNCIA to add a few more letters to my resume and broaden my knowledge base. Or maybe CCNA:S or just leisurely read up on CCNP switch topics.

My second thought was to learn something completely different, like a programming language or get comfortable with a cloud provider.

Anyone set out to learn something and find out afterwards it was much more useful than originally thought? I am finding more and more that there are all sorts of skills that simply do need a certificate to make them worthwhile.

BlackBeret

Python has been undeniably useful. A job I'm currently working to move to doesn't require it, doesn't list it as a preference, but in the interview basically told me that I better be able to do some scripting/coding in something. I'm seeing scripting/programming becoming expected in most security roles, even if it's not used a lot.

PC509

Learn scripting. Be it Powershell or bash or Python or whatever. It will really help you stand out. I'm learning Powershell and am able to do a whole lot of stuff with minimal work. Create a script, then add it to your Powershell environment, and then you can run it with a single simple command. I'm still a beginner, but it saves me a ton of time and effort.

Learn Powershell in a month of Lunches is supposed to be a good book to learn Powershell.

DoubleNNs

I agree with learning to script - Linux Shell, Python, or Ruby. (Perl if you're in a large Large Linux/Unix environment with a lot of Perl scripts already in use)

Cloud and configuration management tools seem to be very hot lately as well, tho lately they ARE becoming certifiable skills.
Amazon has a free-tier version of AWS. You could play around w/ it and use a VM in your clod to practice scripting on.

Kinet1c

Another vote for scripting. Currently going through some bash tutorials as I'm on the cli a lot so I want to try automate the runbooks I use. After I've done them in bash, I plan on automating them in Python.

--chris--

Powershell would have a direct impact on my day-to-day work and would be marketable longer term. Good ideas. Its also something I have always wanted to learn, so the drive to learn it is there.

dave330i

Communication/presentation skills. It doesn't matter how good your ideas are if you can't communicate them.

PC509

dave330i wrote: »

Communication/presentation skills. It doesn't matter how good your ideas are if you can't communicate them.

Also, for me anyways, time management skills. I was fine for a long time until the projects and work started piling up. Then, it was time to start prioritizing and scheduling things rather than taking it all and trying to get it all done straight away. Now, I have an order to the chaos and things are not piling up even though there are more requests for my time.

Chitownjedi

In my current position I began learning Powershell by using Don Jones resources, and they brought in a guy who is literally a powershell expert that sits next to me, and he's helped me learn some things that someone with no background in scripting/programming would find difficult to grasp at first.

Literally I learn from his videos and the monthly lunches, then would take my everyday task that I would need to do .. if it was with AD or SCCM, and scripted them out and created a module for myself... literally I was taking task that would take me 4 or 5 mins at a time through GUI, and even more if it was creating accounts and provisioning security groups or apps, and made it take seconds... literally seconds...

--chris--

I spent a few hours last night getting acquainted with PS and have already thought of a few different things at work that could be automated. One is user creation at a client that has very particular, time consuming creation user process. Automating that would be awesome for us (eliminating errors) and good for them (less billable time).

I see how PS could be a real powerful tool in a MSP where trimming time on everything you do results in more money for the company.

linuxabuser

--chris-- wrote: »

I spent a few hours last night getting acquainted with PS and have already thought of a few different things at work that could be automated. One is user creation at a client that has very particular, time consuming creation user process. Automating that would be awesome for us (eliminating errors) and good for them (less billable time).

I see how PS could be a real powerful tool in a MSP where trimming time on everything you do results in more money for the company.

Powershell (scripting in general), will also provide a great standardized config. That's something every MSP doesn't have nearly enough of.

beads

UNIX admins have been scripting for ages. Why the MS crowd, oh wait, got it no gui - no way to script it.

If your a bit more mathematically bent and have a grasp of statistics 'R' is the next answer. Take all your metrics and measurements, slice and dice the data and put it all into human readable graphics. Golden.

- beads

--chris--

beads wrote: »

UNIX admins have been scripting for ages. Why the MS crowd, oh wait, got it no gui - no way to script it.

If your a bit more mathematically bent and have a grasp of statistics 'R' is the next answer. Take all your metrics and measurements, slice and dice the data and put it all into human readable graphics. Golden.

- beads

This thing?
R: The R Project for Statistical Computing