Salary Survey

teckve85

Hello,
Maybe i'm rude to ask bout this topic but just want some ideas with people holding CCNP and their pays. Thanks!

wildfire

http://tcpmag.com/salarysurveys/

read that and add a couple of years inflation on and its not that far of the mark. Things like experience have a high influence on your pay. I work with a colegue who has NP/DP and CCIP but hes only been in the industry 18 months so earns less than I do.

TechJunky

I think that site depends on where you live... I had my CCNA in 2002 and I was making half of what they say is the average. I had 3 years experience and my A+ and N+. $60,000 is outragous for a CCNA IMO.

darkuser

i aggree .....

i made 30-35 before i took the next step ....

strauchr

Skills, experience, education, certification is only a very small part of salary.

A lot of the time it has to do with being in the right place at the right time, which company you work for, what type of company you work for, what position you are in, how valuable you are to the company and who you know. And the most important - how well you can negotiate.

An example - a colleague I worked with first started working at a company. They outsourced their IT to another company. He got a raise to move to the new company. That company was taken over by another company, then another, then another company decided to insource their IT dept. from this outsourcer (which he had been shuffled around to) Each time he was getting bonuses and wage increases.

He had no certs, about as much experience as I did, in a similar position to me but he was getting paid double due to his circumstances. Right place right time

keenon

experience is the real difference in pay scale

0 -2 years lower side even with cert
2- 4 years mid level even without cert
5-7 years without cert good pay

however with the cert on 5- 7

TeKniques

I love seeing salary surveys that have something like:

'Highest obtained certification and salary'

And then I'll look on the list and see MCP - $56,000 or something so outrageous it reminds me why salary surveys IMO are used as a marketing ploy.

I know the surveys depend on a lot of who responds, but I don't buy half of it.

Trailerisf

Hahahaha... CCNA making 60k? Somebody was phibbing.

I plan on taking the CCNA once I complete my mcse... Even contemplated going all the way to CCIE. Problem is, its a completely different direction than I am going now.

I am lucky enough to have a great small company I work for that has incredible incentives.... If I went cisco, I'd be looking at working for telco's or large companies.

Ccna is a draw to me for knowledge, not a pay check.

Olajuwon

Online salary surveys are the last thing you want to look at. They are so misleading.

pizzafart

Now, don't get mad when I say this.


Somehow I am able to make over 50k doing level 2 helpdesk support with no college degree and no certifications. Am I a lucky bastard? Yes, probably. I think I'm good, but, you can only be so good fixing desktops.

2 years ago I decided to buckle down and get into networking & I.T. certs. I've been interning on/off with the network services department and if I wait a bit, I'm pretty certain to get a job there. This would be considered a significant promotion. The thing is, I wonder if their eyes are going to pop out of their heads when they find out how much I make already.

lol

Luck of the draw. I think part of the reason I'm paid so well is because I was hired around y2k when desktop folks were in such high demand. Negotiation is helpful. Also, you might just tell a prospective employer that you made more than you really did at your old job. Just a thought.

darkuser

i made 46k without a degree

now \\

with all my certs I make double that .....

i started my certs in 2000

keenon

Trailerisf wrote:

Hahahaha... CCNA making 60k? Somebody was phibbing.

LOL, think so

i have been offered 60k-70k with a NA and years experience.

garv221

TeKniques wrote:

And then I'll look on the list and see MCP - $56,000 or something so outrageous it reminds me why salary surveys IMO are used as a marketing ploy.

I'm MCP and make more than that number. I agree that these surveys push the idea that one single cert alone will magicaly get you a certain salary. Certs are not even close to half the reason an employee makes a desired salary. They should include experience, location & education and other certs. I know CCNA's who make over 80K, they have a remarkable resume and I think the majority of times resumes push harder than certs. - with the exception of CCIE/CISSP( Can't have those certs and not a remarkable resume) With todays brainbumps and paper certs, I bet 80% of certs can be obtained with no experience or idea of how to apply what you just passed on a test.

forbesl

I've got two outstanding network admins working for me making in the upper 50s who have no certs whatsover; and I'd take them over a professional cert-taker any day. I truthfully don't take much stock in certifications anymore. There are entirely too many out there, (even at the professional level - CCNP, CCSP, etc.) that have dumped there way through the tests. The associate level (CCNA, CCDA, etc.) is even worse.

EdTheLad

I think everybody with a little experience realises that certs are a means to an end,they dont really mean anything when you have them but mean alot when you dont have them.Most jobs require a minimum entry qualification which happens to be either CCNA/CCNP without these 90% of the time you dont get a lookin, but during the interview is when you should get weeded out,if not its probably not much of a company.
When i worked for Siemens a technican who worked with cisco kit was very good,he didnt have any certs as he was happy in his job and wasnt bothered.
Then his salary got capped because he didnt have a degree,he decided to get his certs and within a year he was ccie passed first time.
1 year ago i thaught CCNP was a good cert, but now with all the **** sites i realise its a sham, and if someone tells me there a CCNP or whatever i dont pay much heed until i see them work.

TeKniques

garv221 wrote:

I agree that these surveys push the idea that one single cert alone will magicaly get you a certain salary.

That was my main point. I think these salary surveys get people thinking along the lines ... 'If I just get that cert than I can start making/demanding this and that much'. While a lot of you guys have made some great points in this thread, I think the most important is that a person's experience and how well they do their job seems to be the know all end all to making a better salary.

Of course, having a degree and certs on top of the experience will most likely separate people and demand hire salaries.

TechJunky

I think everyone with their CCNA should post their Location and salary. I think $60000 would be reasonable in Boston, New York etc. It defiantly depends on your location.


I live in Alaska and make $38000, but get paid overtime, on call, bonuses and other nice perks. It really isnt about the money to me though. I could have taken a job making 45-50k but I would have been burnt out after a few years and it is just desktop/server repair for the most part, and pushing out some patches etc.

This job that I accepted I get the Title of Network Admin/Lead Field Tech. So it looks better on a resume and they are a small/medium company so they wont need another guy like myself until they get bigger. So I have excellent job security.

garv221

ed_the_lad wrote:

1 year ago i thaught CCNP was a good cert, but now with all the **** sites i realise its a sham, and if someone tells me there a CCNP or whatever i dont pay much heed until i see them work.

Those type of people are ruining certs all together. Thats why I see more and more HR dept.'s looking for experience and degress required first. These HR depts are starting to realize if they soley depend on certified people they will end up alot of the time with worthless cheats & people looking for a quick buck. At least with a degree you have someone who accomplished something & has made a goal for themselves and obtained it. I cannot count how many slackers I have meet on job sites claiming they are studying MCSE and want to get into IT.

pizzafart

Just to play devils advocate, because this is an interesting discussion:

How many people are cheating their way through these exams. Is there a reliable means of gathering statistics? When an employer gets zonked with one of these guys, does that employer send a report somewhere so that it can be tracked? When we say "there are too many people cheating" - do we really have enough information to come to this conclusion?

My personal experience has been that most everyone I know who's acquired these certifications has done so fairly. Now... this is simply my personal experience. The people I interact with make up probably .0001% of the total I.T. folks out there. So, what I'm saying is... does anyone have any solid information to back claims that people are or are-not cheating to get through the exams?

Certainly the fact that braindump sites exist does mean that there are people cheating. But, it would be interesting to see the number of hits sites like those get in comparison to Boson or Amazon books, etc...

I couldn't say either way because I just don't have enough information. I think Cisco certs in particular could be hard to fake on the job because they're pretty difficult. If I talk to someone who has a CCNA and he or she doesn't know how to subnet...

keenon

at best there subnetting skills are very weak.. for someone to **** their way to any cert will be found incompetent when the time arises for them to use " the skills" of that cert

Non-Profit Techie

Trailerisf wrote:

Hahahaha... CCNA making 60k? Somebody was phibbing.

I plan on taking the CCNA once I complete my mcse... Even contemplated going all the way to CCIE. Problem is, its a completely different direction than I am going now.

I am lucky enough to have a great small company I work for that has incredible incentives.... If I went cisco, I'd be looking at working for telco's or large companies.

Ccna is a draw to me for knowledge, not a pay check.

like people said, its all about location. The techs in my department make 57K with no certs and could not pass A+ if they tried. Yeah they do a good job, but no they could not subnet if their lives depended on it.

wildfire

Like you say location is true,

The salary survery for the UK is about right for the Area of the country Im in, maybe even a little lower than real life. Move into london and depending on your are of expertise you can earn more. But its all about matching a specific skill set, just having a CCNP wont cut the mustard most places will want that plus experience in specific areas.

strauchr

pizzafart wrote:

Just to play devils advocate, because this is an interesting discussion:

How many people are cheating their way through these exams. Is there a reliable means of gathering statistics? When an employer gets zonked with one of these guys, does that employer send a report somewhere so that it can be tracked? When we say "there are too many people cheating" - do we really have enough information to come to this conclusion?

My personal experience has been that most everyone I know who's acquired these certifications has done so fairly. Now... this is simply my personal experience. The people I interact with make up probably .0001% of the total I.T. folks out there. So, what I'm saying is... does anyone have any solid information to back claims that people are or are-not cheating to get through the exams?

Certainly the fact that braindump sites exist does mean that there are people cheating. But, it would be interesting to see the number of hits sites like those get in comparison to Boson or Amazon books, etc...

I couldn't say either way because I just don't have enough information. I think Cisco certs in particular could be hard to fake on the job because they're pretty difficult. If I talk to someone who has a CCNA and he or she doesn't know how to subnet...

I'm with you there. Almost everyone I have worked with who has certs has been quite good. There was excpetion of a guy I worked with who was so hopeless, he didn't know basics like nslookup or the implications of pulling a network cable out of a server (seriously) and then I was shocked to learn he had MCSE 2000. I doubt he would even have the brains to ****!

I have also come across a lot of talented people who have no certs but for me they just lack that little bit more knowledge that certified people have. While experienced people have learnt through trial and error and from what others have done they do not have the knowledge to think outside the box. That is, they haven't been taught the fundamentals or the foundation, the vendors specific way, or given the information of how many different ways there are to do things to better match the business requirements.

Thats where I think legitimate certified people come in use.