Don't buy into "get your CCNA, get a good job automatically"

wgroom

I went about it backwards, I was hired as a network admin with 0 Cisco experience. I was trained by a CCNA to do my job, took part in as many Cisco projects as I could, learned a lot from vendors and the like, and loved it. Now I am a lot closer to home, working as a VoIP technician, and studying to get my CCNA. Taking my CCENT exam on 12/20/2013, small break over the holidays, and then working on my CCNA Voice. Once that is under my belt, then I will get my CCNA R&S. Been working with Cisco for 7 years, in IT for over 15. Figure it is time to get the certs to show I know what I am doing!

Bill

Iristheangel

As far as the original point of the thread: A CCNA (or any cert) alone won't get you a "good" job but it might help get your foot in the door to get a decent enough entry-level job.

As far as what everyone else is saying, certifications are great and have their time/place but certs do not equal experience, they compliment them. A CCNA/CCNP/MCSE/etc without experience won't get you a better job than the guy without certs and who has experience, but you might learn some additional stuff that the guy without certs has if you're gaining the same job experience along the way and it might make you look better in the eyes of your superiors which is a bonus

Magic Johnson

Iristheangel wrote: »

As far as the original point of the thread: A CCNA (or any cert) alone won't get you a "good" job but it might help get your foot in the door to get a decent enough entry-level job.

As far as what everyone else is saying, certifications are great and have their time/place but certs do not equal experience, they compliment them. A CCNA/CCNP/MCSE/etc without experience won't get you a better job than the guy without certs and who has experience, but you might learn some additional stuff that the guy without certs has if you're gaining the same job experience along the way and it might make you look better in the eyes of your superiors which is a bonus

As an apprentice engineer maybe? Problem is there are hardly any entry-level jobs because companies are making senior guys do entry-level stuff to cut back on staff.

It also does irk me when these bogus training companies try and get your interest by saying 'bin man (waste disposal engineer)? Store assistant (consumer spending technician)? Re-train now and get 'X' cert to earn £40,000 a year! Woohoo!' No. Just...no.

Legacy User

I don't believe a single cert can guarantee you any amount of money. I do believe that depending on the certification it can help get your foot in the door. To the OP even though that person is probably long gone from this forum he came off sounding as if he is all high and mighty compared to the cashier.

The CCNA is still a valued and one of the most recognized certification. In the past when I was on interviews that did not have to do with cisco networking but on the systems admin side I was told by different interviewers "the fact that you have a ccna I know in 6 months you can be brought up to speed because the ccna is a difficult exam so learning systems should be a piece of a cake for you". I see noc jobs pop up in my area all the time only requisite is a CCNA.

A few years back I was told by my brother who was an system admin at the time to get the CCNA and leave my crappy job. At that time I had no idea what it was and what it entailed. I didn't have any experience and was working as a auto mechanic which I grew to hate with the cold winters and unbearable summers. When I read up on what the ccna was the material seemed to intimidating almost like reading a foreign language. I went to a networking/systems training program and with some self study I passed the CCNA. It took me about 2 months from that point to find a job but the X factor that got me my current job was the CCNA. I went from making $12.50/hr to $20/hr and few bumps quickly after, all because of the CCNA. Passing the CCNA was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

If the person practices interviewing and polishes the resume I still feel the CCNA can pay off for anyone as long as you do not **** it of course.

Khaos1911

I personally think that in the real world (outside of this website of techies) people get certs to get a job (or moreso, be more competitive at obtaining a job) than to learn new technologies and skills. A poster somewhere above me said it best, certs (or degrees for that matter) don't guarantee jobs, but they do compliment your experience well. If you have the time to obtain a degree, do it! Obtain certs, do it! Of course, experience appears to be the end all be all. But I say have all three areas covered and a personality and skies the limit for you.

networker050184

Khaos1911 wrote: »

A poster somewhere above me said it best, certs (or degrees for that matter) don't guarantee jobs, but they do compliment your experience well.

That sums it up quite well. Really nothing else to say about the whole argument.

theodoxa

One difference that I noticed from when I started studying Networking (2000) and 2010 when I took a few classes is that the students have changed. When I started, there were a few who were only there because they thought it was a guaranteed job, but most of us were truly passionate about IT/Technology. In 2010, I would say a sizable chunk of the class was just looking that "guaranteed" "high paying" job. There seemed to be alot more students who didn't seem to have even a basic grasp of networking and alot more of them failing or barely scraping by.

jvrlopez

I remember when I got my CCNA a few months ago, everyone at work was congratulating me and proclaiming that I would be landing a 6 figure salary soon.

Haha!

Jon_Cisco

I didn't plan to post to this thread because my experience is limited. However I am in the Cisco academy class at my local community college and it is funny seeing some of the people they suckered into signing up. I truely dont believe many of them could even pass using **** but the school piles them into class.

I wish them them all the best of luck. Most people can learn once they find something that interests them. But a lot of them joined simple because IT is a good job.

As to certs getting me a job. I doubt that will happen but I will find an opportunity and try to make an impression. I believe luck is created and studying for certs is me attempting to shift the odds in my favor.

roch_greg

^^^ Excellent attitude to have.

gorebrush

Yep I can agree with that too. Always a bit of luck involved

JustFred

Dieg0M wrote: »

Half of the network engineers at work do not have any certifications and the other half all have CCIE #. This proves that certifications do not = good job. Certifications will help you immensely in interviews and in your work environment though. Also, I noticed that the guys who don't have certifications have big gaps in their knowledge; they will lack understanding of the underlying technologies.
Everyone should get certifications regardless (it's pretty embarrassing when your talking to a senior networking guy who doesn't know what PVLAN's are or how policy-maps,VPLS, QinQ works. Also, I think there's a lot of cheating going on and its lowered the value of certs in general. The only way to know for sure if the guy is legit is in an interview. At my job, the higher the cert you have the more grilling you get. The other day, there was a guy who listed CCIE R&S (written) as a cert in his resume and got a 4 hour grill session with 3 of our CCIE's in a conference room.

Did the guy survived?

pnass

JustFred wrote: »

Did the guy survived?

Every single CCIE interview I have ever heard about is a several hour butt raping. I know a few people that find that as the worst part of the job. They do a lot of contract jobs and each one demands this long painful butt raping. If they are going to pay you $250 an hour they need to know you're worth it and know your ****.

Dakinggamer87

Certifications+degrees+experience = Formula for success in IT as they each complement and support each other. It gives you the best well-rounded arsenal in your tool kit.

junmacarambon

i believe it will help somehow to get an entry-level job. it's hard applying if you don't have the general grasp nor foundation of networking. you'll get spank ass in interview. hehe.

Magic Johnson

Just to say I got my CCENT and got a good job automatically.

Deathmage

To give my two sense about this topic and my own experience thus far...

I started out in IT as most of you all know it 4 1/2 years ago. I knew nothing about IT but some person at my 1st gig gave me a chance. I ended up getting let go about 16 months later because well I sucked now looking back at it. It was partially their fault and mine the job was as a IT coordinator and they had higher expectations than I could muster I gave it my all though.

...Then I landed my current job 3 years ago with no certifications just was able to talk the lingo of IT... my 1st year was the steepest learning curve of my life. I went from basically a un-certificated A+ tech (with the skills I mean with no cert) that had an understanding of things to somehow managing 600 users with networking, wireless, servers, exchange, AD integrations, you name it I was exposed to it overnight and was able to learn super fast (lots of stress if I remember too).

Now looking back my real-world experience has outpaced my current certifications. I do things now most CCNP and MCSE's do and I managed to figure it all out. Bear-in-mind I only use HP Procurves at work and Adtran Routers which as some know are very similar to Cisco in more ways than one...

I'm playing catch up now with my certifications to keep pace with my daily jack-of-all-trade experience.

I think so far my most notable achievement was right after Hurricane Sandy (at the time I was just finishing the A+ and Net + books) we had 10 feet of salt water consume our 1st floor in our NJ location along the ocean front near Teterboro airport that basically destroyed 300 Wyse thin clients, destroyed 15 miles of Cat3/5e and destroyed over $85k worth of xerox and kyocera printers, 6 routers, 4 core switches and one production server. - I somehow managed to bring it all back online within 72 hours with rush deliveries from Newegg and PCM. I think this was my biggest trial by fire in my life...

... But not many people I know can say they re-built a network and server infrastructure from scratch in 3 days, it was extremely hard managing over 40 vendors and contractors to get new cables run, electrical panels installed, new drywall, servers racked, switches deployed, and then to configured everything with little or no testing just faith I got the configs right...

Not to see to far from the OP but I think certifications (in my experience) justify you have the focus and commitment to quality, however you will only really learn by breaking stuff and learning how to fix it. In my instance this happened on a production environment with people screaming down your neck to get it all fixed. It's only now 3 years later than I'm able to manage 1200 users, 1 primary VM site (with 25 servers: exchange, sql, 6 TS-server farm, and a bunch of other servers mostly vendor clusters), 2 DR VM sites (warm sites), 3 AD domains, one 1.6 million square foot manufacturing facility with 16 industry leading vendors on 16 Vlans that consist of over 4064 different hosts and it now all easy to me....

Certs aren't everything.... experience weighs more...

justchris73

alan2308 wrote: »

So these commercials I hear on the radio that will get me Microsoft certified so I can start earning $70,000+ aren't quite accurate?

Seriously, my wife took their entrance exam and scored 90%. She doesn't know jack about computers.

Those type of commercials remind me of the ads for x-ray specs on the back of comic books from years ago.
They exist because suckers exist.

justchris73

After reading the responses in this thread, I can say I agree with one major point that most of you are echoing. It all has to do with the interview. Why do you think a face to face interview is necessary? It comes down to perception. Perception is 90% key. You have to sell yourself. All the certs in the world won't do you any good if you can't speak properly and carry yourself in a professional manner.

omi2123

Don't know what to say when my INTERVIEW MANAGER TOLD ME THAT BECAUSE OF my CCNA, I've got the Senior Associate position even though not having enough experience.....

DB Cooper

Certs have their place. But put yourself in the shoes of the company you are applying with. Who would you choose for war, a guy fresh out of war college or a battle harden Corporal?

Magic Johnson

DB Cooper wrote: »

Certs have their place. But put yourself in the shoes of the company you are applying with. Who would you choose for war, a guy fresh out of war college or a battle harden Corporal?

Depends if they were hiring a corporal or private...

pitviper

I have nothing to add to the debate but this old thread has me wondering about mikej412

theodoxa

One of the problems with the "make $x on average" claim is that it includes everybody with said cert. There are people being averaged in who have 20 years experience, multiple more advanced certs, etc...I have a CompTIA A+, but it didn't get me my current position and pay. But, because I have it, I'm likely pulling up some statistic for average A+ pay, not to mention average MCP pay, etc...