Once CCNA, what can i expect?

unwritt3n

Well been studying CCNA through the Networking Academy over the last say 18months. I successfully completed and had lots of hands on experience with different equipment. Now im giving myself at least a month to study everything ive learnt from the networking academy to sit my CCNA 640-801 exam. Im using the Networking Academy online content and Sybex study guide. Im a little rough on my Subnetting, VLSM and ACLs, but with study i can get this all down.

Currently ive completed my IT Essentials 1 and 2 through the Net. Academy, and have completed my MCP for Windows XP Pro. Once i get my CCNA, i wanna start working with what i have got. But also while doing that i want to slowly start with my track to CCNP.

Now that ive given you a little background info, what i want to know is, what is it like going straight into a job after being CCNA certified, having no "real-life" experience? I have had lots of hours on cisco equipment for labs and stuff, but what would a typical day of a CCNA person be?

BubbaJ

unwritt3n wrote:

Now that ive given you a little background info, what i want to know is, what is it like going straight into a job after being CCNA certified, having no "real-life" experience? I have had lots of hours on cisco equipment for labs and stuff, but what would a typical day of a CCNA person be?

Well, it could be just about anything, but I would expect you will be given jobs where you can't do much damage until they assess your abilities. Things like connecting patch cables, testing connectivity, etc., but you probably won't have passwords to any equipment. Eventually, you may be allowed to enable/disable, assign VLANs, etc. to switch ports. This is an entry-level certification so expect an entry-level job. Don't make any changes to network devices without express consent.

On the other hand, I have seen companies that are cheap enough to hire a CCNA and expect CCIE performance. This doesn't work out very well for either party.

Personally, I think jumping right into BSCI study is the way to go if you are going to work on your CCNP. This seems to be the most difficult CCNP exam, and all the routing stuff is still reasonably fresh in your mind.

binarysoul

Regard working with cisco equipment as 'experience'. After all, that's what it's. It's all about how you present not what you present. If you tell an employer you are trained in cisco tech, it means you have no experience, but if you say you have experience with cisco equipment, it simply means that, that is what they need.

Remember, you're not lieing here, as you don't list a a job to back it up.

For example, you can say you have 200 hours "experience" with routers at the Academy.

Remember grandpa's advive, "honesty is the best policy".

unwritt3n

yeah both true guys.

Yeah i would love to get straight into the CCNP, but i wanna get out there and start working. I would be happy to do CCNP aswell as working full time. Self study at nights, or even join the networking academy night classes once a week. Then again, holding off til the end of the year and going for CCNP sounds good, but most companies here ask for CCNPs with at least some work-field expericene. But then again like you said "binarysoul" the net academy has given me loads of hands on experience, so i guess that would be the same, just not real life situations.

unwritt3n

Im actually interested to see what kind of jobs people have gotten out of being CCNA certified.

Anyone care to share?

Humper

Well I work as a Jr Network Analyst at a large corporation and on a day to day basis I get too:

-network support (tickets, outages, ip address handouts)
-adding network devices to TACACS+
-adding devices to CiscoWorks
-configure access routers
-work on our monitoring system

Now I think I am considered lucky because I am still in school (coop workterm). The company will let me work on anything I want, I have learned so much from working (more then my schooling so far). They recently gave me a leash, you know those annoying blackberrys :P

Danman32

ModemHumper wrote:

They recently gave me a leash ...

When I first read that before coming to the blackberry, I was thinking they restricted you somehow, which had me think "what did you do that had them restrict you?".

Instead they seem to value you quite a bit. Sounds like a great job.

exkor5000

They recently gave me a leash, you know those annoying blackberrys

yeaaaaa.......

I am getting one of those too next week. It is not actually in regards to value it is just that they want to put a leash on you and make you a 24-7 worker. It does payoff because you can call for free all you want, but hey, people from work will call you all they want as well, borthering you with silly question about forgotten passwords and connectivity problems with VPN.

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