What Cert gave you the biggest pay bump

N2IT

None to be honest as far as pay bumps go.

Pay bumps for me are aligned with operational and productivity metrics.

InfantryRaider

VAHokie56 and Darkerz... if you dont mind me asking... 3 Quick Q's:
1) What were your certs you had before the pay bump mentioned earlier?

2) What certs were the required ones you had for the job you had before the bump and what was your "title" there?

3) What were the required certs for the bump and what was was your new "title" that you obtained?

I am not one of those people that chase "titles" but knowing which different ones to search for with various certs will help my job hunt down the road. Now that I am not focusing 100% of my life to the proactive physical protection of our country my main motivation is to be able to take outstanding care of my wife and our soon to be first son through the same dedication and hard work that has afforded me what I have been able to provide so far.
Thank you in advance, I appreciate any info you are willing to share with me as I am a rookie to this arena in life...

discount81

it_consultant wrote: »

The salaries should not be radically different than in North America as a whole. I think you were onboarded too low and they are taking advantage of you based on your experience and MCITP. I concur with the others that Cisco and Juniper certs tend to put you in a different salary class; so that would be beneficial to you. Are you getting a lot of responses from your resume so far?

I think you will find the salaries in Australia are radically different to North America, it is not uncommon for an experienced Desktop Support in Australia to pull $100k.
Good experienced server admins would be $120k+

Here I very rarely see a Server Admin role over $100k

A little bit not as much as I expected, last year when I got here I was overwhelmed basically had phone interviews before I arrived, and job interviews daily (I was applying for everything that was not Help Desk back then).
I am being more picky in terms of jobs and companies I would like to work for now.

It's strange you mention Juniper, I actually did the Juniper CBT nuggets course for JNCIA I am quite confident I will pass the exam, I will book it in for this week possibly.
After that I may explore Juniper more, as I do prefer it over Cisco.

nel

The most important cert to date was the CCNP and received a "well done" fro my company with zero salary increase. However, it proved to my employer a few things and it gave me the opportunity to get involved in some great projects which gave me valuable experience and the jump up i required. Since moving to Australia, i have moved into contracting (due to visa restrictions) in a architecture/design role and have received my biggest salary bump to date due to a combination of my CCNP, experience and MSc Degree. I hope to use this opportunity to get my feet into the architecture space, a chance i would not have been given at the age of 26 in the UK.

NOC-Ninja

It was CCNP for me.

If you want big bucks asap then I recommend jumping to security certifications like CISSP/ccna-sec/ccnp-sec/security + or voip (ccna-voice, ccnp-voice). In my experience, those will get you to six digits faster than RS.

umarbhatti

discount81 wrote: »

I think you will find the salaries in Australia are radically different to North America, it is not uncommon for an experienced Desktop Support in Australia to pull $100k.

I have been looking for desktop roles on seek and so far have no desktop role that pays over 70k+super.

antielvis

Never had a cert land me an actual raise in salary.

Iristheangel

CCNA and CISSP. Both helped me get the job I have now

antielvis

I'd also think it depends on what type of environment you work in. If you are directly employed by a company, you might get a raise. If you work for a "services" firm (think IBM Global Services) it may open doors to higher paying contracts. If you're self employed, well you can try to ask for what you want, but certs do matter (to some companies).

discount81

umarbhatti wrote: »

I have been looking for desktop roles on seek and so far have no desktop role that pays over 70k+super.

It depends what kind of desktop role you are doing, if it is basic Desktop support then yes 50-70k is probably normal.

I haven't worked in Australia for a while, but the last desktop jobs I had were Desktop SOE Administrator and a Desktop VDI rollout, both of which paid over $100k.

Both of these are contracts, I don't think you would see that sort of money in a fulltime position.

GarudaMin

Desktop support role doesn't get paid much. But desktop engineer role on the other hand is different. I mean creating/maintaing desktop images, rolling out desktops, creating and testing applications on desktops, updating and maintaining desktops, basically working with deployment solutions. Most companies that are planning to roll out to Windows 7 need someone to head that project.

LonerCrow

I wish I can say I've gotten a pay bump. All I've gotten was "Not enough experience" despite having a few years worth of experience as a tech.

N2IT

I find time and time again experience and quantative accomplishments being the biggest driver in salary increases.

panik

I'm based in Sydney, Australia.
MCSE - Windows Server 2003 - Gave me a $20K pay bump and moved me from 1st line support to 2nd line systems administration.
A couple of years working in the UK also helped, along with A+ and Network+

kurosaki00

comptia got me more interviews
but none really got me any pay bump
so far with people I know or have interviewed, no one has known what CCENT is

InfantryRaider

kurosaki00
Being that the CCENT is something I am looking at getting in the near future I was curious if the above comment has changed at all or if it is still just a pretty piece of paper to hang on the wall?

gorebrush

Never got a pay raise from gaining a cert, though have gotten better jobs and thus more money with said new cert.

Current job resulted in a 20% raise but I work 12 hour shifts. My base salary is still the same as before. (I moved internally)

the_hutch

I've never gotten a pay bump because I'm military and pay is based on time in service. But I got my best positional bump (from help desk to network security) from, of all certs, CEH. Looking back on it, I find this amusing, as I don't consider CEH any tougher than Sec+.

InfantryRaider wrote: »

kurosaki00[/URL]
Being that the CCENT is something I am looking at getting in the near future I was curious if the above comment has changed at all or if it is still just a pretty piece of paper to hang on the wall?

CCENT is really not that sought after by employers. Its just Cisco's vendor specific version of Net+. It is however, a good segway into CCNA, which is extremely valuable. From what I've seen, I'd say CCNA is probably the best certification you can get to start out in a reasonably respectable job in IT. I'd say go for CCENT, but don't stop there. You need to spring for the CCNA. And, if possible, get it now before the test becomes way harder with the new release.

About7Narwhal

I am in the same boat with most others around here - The cert didn't really give me a pay increase, but it got me a job that increased pay. Honestly though, the A+ got me from a $7.25p/h to a $12.25p/h job. A lot of people look down on the A+ once you start getting into the higher tier certs, but this one most certainly got me the most bang for my buck.

I am currently applied for a 2 level promotion (change staff level and position type) which I hope my MCTS will help me get. Like everyone else though, the certs don't do anything other than set me apart. The money comes because I prove my worth.

badrottie

No certification in and of itself amounted to a change in pay grade while at an employer. Any change in pay was based on performance and meeting objectives.

That being said, when switching from one employer to another, getting my CISSP definitely helped in getting over the $100,000 a year mark. Having the CISM and moving into an management role also resulted in a significant pay increase.

Dakinggamer87

I have never got a pay raise from gaining a cert but I have gotten better jobs and better pay with my new certifications. I'm hoping once I get my CCNA it will help me move up the ladder!!

SharkDiver

CCNP was the one that finally got me noticed in my company, which led to a better paying position.
Lots of techs in my company have a CCNA, so it was the CCNP that made me able to stand out in the crowd.

Ahriakin

I think certs helping with raises/promotions depends on your dept./company structure. For example my direct mgmt are pretty tech savvy, they understand what I do and have compensated me appropriately as I've improved and applied the knowledge I've picked up studying...but to get that approved they had to justify it to a board of non-technical folks who might stare blankly when told of network level achievements but could latch on to well known (or searchable) cert. acronyms.