Well, as I mentioned on other threads, I'm kinda looking at other job possibilities, such as stock broker assistant or financial planner assistant, something completely and totally different, although i still have my 4 year IT degree which is nice
Anyway, I had my CCNA scheduled for November 10th, but I'm forgetting about it for now. I did a bit of an experiment and called and wrote approx 60 employers in the country which had networking jobs out on the job boards and mentioned that I had no prior networking experienced, just a few classes, and I asked them if it would make a difference if I got my CCNA certifcation even though I had no experience, and although I only got responses back from about 20 of them. Only 1 employer out of all of those said that it "may" make a difference. ALL of the other ones said it wouldn't make a hill of beans difference for me and that they were all looking for prior experience not certs. Anyway, I know that others on this board have mentioned that, but I guess I just had to prove it to myself.... Although I didn't ask any of them if it would make a difference if I had the experience and the CCNA, I imagine it would.
Anyway, with that in mind, I'm just going to forget about CCNA for now. Since my top priority is to get a job(before my unemployment runs out), CCNA should be the last thing on my mind, since as these employers were telling me, it wouldn't make a hill of beans difference. Soooo, at least now instead of spending 6 hours per day studying for the exam, I'm going to spend those 6 hours looking for a job. I've already had a few good leads and interested employers, but most of them aren't IT....It's quite amazing when you sit down at your computer and go through the search engines in every possible area you can, just how many opportunities you can find out there, and many are willing to train, BUT you have to be willing to step out of the IT technical field, so you have to make sure that it's something you really want to do before making that change. For all of you discouraged folks looking any job, there are PLENTY of Non IT jobs out there. You just have to creative in your search, and be willing to explore other possibilities. Another thing is when you write your cover letter, be very creative and flexible in the wording that you use...Make sure that they know that they would be getting someone really special if they were to hire you(of course make it more subtle then that
). It's a total numbers game. Send your resume EVERYWHERE....Also make sure to tone down your resume for jobs which are outside of the IT sector(that's what takes alot of the time). I have about 20 different versions now of my resume now, each for a different field but still entry level. All my experiences is in Mainframe production support, so I also apply for those jobs as well. Of course don't just apply for ANYTHING. Make sure it's something you WANT, don't sound desperate. I've been offered about 3 jobs over the last month, and although the pay was fine, it is something that I knew I would totally hate, so I turned them down.
As far as taking CCNA in the future. Well, if I happen to land a job and a networking position comes up within that company, and I want to explore it, and they are willing to hire and train me, then I'll probably go for the cert then. ...My CCNA instructor that I had told me that I can still pass the new CCNA exam with my prior CCNA knowledge. I just may neet to study another topic or two. It just makes no sense to spend the money to get the certification now, hoping that if I did that it would increase my chances for landing a job..That's just NOT going to happen without some type of prior networking experience.... Boy oh boy, it would sure be good to have those dot.com days back
....Most of the people on this forum seem to already have some type of networking experience though, and for all of you people, I'd say, keep at it!!!!!!!!
Dusty
