Ok what certification should I go for

josephadaly

I am a recent college graduate with a BS in computer engineering, I have had a few interns totalling about 12-18 months of doing desktop suppor minor system administration stuff. I have recently gotten my first "real" job as a "desktop support specialist/ jr network admin".

My 5 year goal is to become some sort of IT manager / Head of IT / CTO or some similar high end position. The job that I am in now has 100% tuition reimbursement so I am thinking about taking some certifications to further my career. In your opinions what are the best certifications to have and which one should I go for first.

I have been thinking MCSE as it seems to be the most widely accepted and the class structure covers mostly all the products that most of the business world uses.

What do you guys think please help out a young IT guy in the making

Ricka182

I suppose logically, your track could be MCDST, MCSA, then MCSE. You could also throw in some Comptia certs like A+, Net+, and/or Server+. MCSE still has some value, byt without experience(more than a few years), it may not look as impressive. If you do pick MCDST, that counts an elective towards MCSA, so with that, you would only need three exams to pick up MCSA, with two for MCDST. Either way, it sounds like you've got a good foot in the door already, just stick with it.

josephadaly

So wait a minute here MCDST can used to the MCSA which can in turn be used for the MCSE? If this is the case would this be a better solution than just going right for the MCSE?

Ricka182

No. MCDST can be used as an elective for MCSA only, not MCSE. And MCSA does not count towards MCSE, but some of the exam do. I know it's confusing. There are no prerequsites for any M$ cert. If you wanted to go right into MCSE, you could. But I think you'll get a better overall understanding, plus some good time=experience to stregthen your resume/cv. You can check out what each cert requires below....

MCDST
MCSA
MCSE

josephadaly

Ok so in your sig it says you have your mcdst. How long have you been doing desktop support and how hard would you consider the test to be? Do you currently work in the IT field?

Ricka182

I don't do support. I'm doing field service, which entails driving around and fixing old POS systems. Not very IT, but kind of close I guess. Hopefully, I will be making the move towards support/admin by the end of summer. Not that I really want to get into tech support, but I have to start somewhere. I'm hoping to get more of a high level support position, or administration/management would be good. Someday, I'll be doing more Cisco related stuff, but for now, I'm staying on the M$ track.

As far as the MCDST exams, I took the 272 in Beta a while back, I thought that was fairly simple, but I could have done better. 271 was about the same. I used the free training course from M$, available here. I'm already using my A+/Net+ combo for MCSA, so once I finish 215 and 218, I'm on to MCSE. But I willl probably wait a bit and try to get some more relevent experience versus having lots of certs. "Paper-Techs" don't get a lot of respect, so I can wait.