What next? Job/Cert

Zraxniah

I worked 5 summers fulltime for a medical hardware/software firm (50 employees or less), doing warehouse work and PC repair during highschool and shortly afterward. I graduated high school with A+ Network+ and CCNA certifications (I took a CCNA program in high school, and passed all the exams in about a month because I got out of finals for the course, heh). Anyway, I've been bumping around college a bit and I'm not a big fan of school full time -- so I've gotten an internship at about 24k, and held the job for about a year. I helped the organization put in place Dell reimbursements and they paid for my Dell certification (which is a joke of a test), although my CCNA has since expired. I am still in night school and plan to be through graduation and probably an MBA (I'm going IT major/CS minor for undergrad).

I'm probably going to take the Security+ test within a month, and was wondering what else I can do to increase my chances of employment. I've been applying to jobs steadily for a couple of months, and have gotten a few nibbles from recruiters. I'm thinking of going for one of the lower M$ certs next or doing CCNA/CCDA or CWNA. I find my biggest problem is money -- I need a higher paying job like 3 months ago when I moved out... and its only going to get worse. Any advice? Any good way to make money on the side without fixing old lady's computers and such?

Side note: I've checked out salary.com's rates for my area, and they seem overly generous (like 20-40% over what I would have expected) -- has anyone else thought this?

Thanks everyone, new to the site but loving it,
Zrax

sab4you

I think your biggest challenge is experience.

Do you want to pursue with your Cisco knowledge? Entry level cisco work is hard to find, unfortunately.

Do you simply want any computer job? If so then I would look for a tech support job - and then get some quick and easy microsoft experience and possibly pursue that route to get some experience under your belt.

But if your going for an MBA, do you want to pursue computers? Maybe I dont understand, but I dont see an MBA as somebody configuring routers or setting up servers? Or do you just want the computer background to support your MBA?

Zraxniah

I'm not quite sure what I want to do, although I'd like to know the business end and possibly get into management in the long-term (hence the MBA). I'm a week or two away from taking my security+ and I've really liked the material. Cisco certifications seem like a gimme because 98% of the networking equipment where security matters is Cisco. I realize an entry level Cisco job isn't very likely, but having the certification makes me elidgable to transfer positions from a help desk or whatever BS job i finally do land. I'm not a huge fan of M$ (duh), but I guess I should just get over it and do an MCSA/MCSE. I was thinking of additional security training, cisco, or even Linux+ (I've been meaning to learn linux, and its a must for security).

So, let's see if I pass Sec+