Broad or Deeper Certification Scope?

Hey All,

I am a very recent college graduate with a pretty technical degree. I have received a job into one of the better know leadership programs around the world. In this role I am able to learn a lot of things from very technical to project management to business best practice all the way to communication but all of it from inside the IT org which allows me to see how things work.

I have always enjoyed certifications and the learning aspect behind them and now that I am no longer the typical poor college kid I plan to get several. CCNA is the first on the list happening in a week and the VCP followed closely after. The reason for these is because they are topics that I already know a good deal about which means the studying/learning part of it is much easier. I also convinced my manager to pay for the VMware class required as a prerequisite for the VCP.

Now on to the hard question for the day. I would like to pick up and start studying for another certification shortly after the VCP. I am sure some of the lower level ones I could learn pretty fast having the background in technology that I do but is it beneficial to have a broad range of certifications (networking, virtualization, security etc). Or would I be better off doing a deeper dive and picking one topic to go into?

Thanks in advance for any answers/opinions on the matter. Also in your answer you should give me some of your favorite certifications that you have from the learning it side of things.

Thanks
C

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Comments

Kreken

I would probably add CCDA after you take CCNA. Even though, there is a lot of marketing fluff in the book, it will introduce you to different line ups of Cisco equipment and will give you a basic knowledge how it clicks together.

davis190

Thank you for your suggestion.

Would you recommend the CCDA over a CCNP? Also I am not sure you really answered my question about whether go broad or stay narrow in focus. I am getting the CCNA and VCP because they are paid for and should both be fairly easy and a quick to do. But I am trying to decide where to venture after that.

Side question. I noticed that you have you CEH. How was that? I have heard a lot of people say that it is not honored everywhere and that the organization that puts it on isn't the best. Thoughts?

networker050184

I wouldn't recommend the CCDA. To answer your question about broad or deep I definitely think deep is the way to go. Become an expert in a certain realm of technology and you will go places.

ptilsen

I wouldn't do CCDA or CCNP if you want to explore. CCNA, VCP, MCSA, RHCSA or Linux+, Security+ or SSCP. Those or a subset of those would be a broad infrastructure base without specializing. CCNP is really a focus on networking. Now there are definitely generalists with CCNP — strong ones, too — but I really don't think I'd advise you start down that road (or CCDA) unless you feel really strongly about networking after CCNA.

As far as what you should do, I think you should do what you will enjoy. That might be specializing, but try to have a strong reason to believe that before you choose a specialty.

davis190

Thank you for your replies.

I tend to agree with networker in that you go places when you start getting specific with and have a narrow focus.

I also agree with ptilsen where doing what you enjoy. My degree was a technical degree but it also had a very broad scope covering lots of different things. There are several of them which I enjoy which makes it hard to chose just one place to stop and dive deeper. I am not sure if anyone else has had the same problem and found a way to use that to their advantage?

ptilsen

I have the same problem. And as a result, I do a bit of everything. Long-term, I will most likely be positioning myself into a pure security or heavy security role, which will allow me to use knowledge from different areas effectively even while not being truly specialized, at least not in one technology area. Also, I do want to stress that there is at least some room for generalization, depending on how broadly (for lack of a better term) you define it. I do just fine as a systems engineer touching potentially any infrastructure technology, and there are a decent amount of similar systems engineer positions. The higher-level specialists do generally get to make a little more, but not as a rule and it's all in the high-five-to-low/mid-six-figure range, not that money is the only thing. I like what I do, and I'd rather be "stuck" around $100K than be in a specialty that doesn't keep me interested.

N2IT

Be the best at anything and you will make a lot of money. I agree go vertical all the way.

ptilsen

^No doubt, but you'll probably never be the best at something you don't love. You probably won't even be good, actually.

N2IT

I agree so make sure you love it or at least like it and then deep dive.

paul78

Just my two cents - but if you are a recent grad and just starting your career, it may make more sense to explore broad topics. Otherwise, how will you know what you want to do for the next 30-40 years of your career. In IT, technology changes often enough that I don't believe that specialization will last very long anyways. I am sure we all know former IT specialists in COBOL, Lotus Notes, and Token ring management. Heck, I used to be pretty good at making 10Base2 cables - I probably even still have my BNC crimper.

N2IT

Paul my mother is on year 14 of a maintenance project for CSC and still support COBOL applications. Ft Belvoir is still using a financial system developed in COBOL. Corp of engineers are consistently asking her to join ranks with them. She makes more than C# developers and probably works about 30% of the effort. ***Your point is understood though.

it_consultant

IMHO one of the biggest pains I encounter are "specialists" who either A) only know a little more about their "specialization" than I do, and

specialists who have little to no exposure to the broader IT environment. The latter can be downright dangerous - everyone who starts in IT should start as a JOAT. First of all, an experienced JOAT will be better at your specialization than you are after you get all of your training because in order to survive they have to be. You will only surpass that person after a ton of on the job experience. Secondly, the skills you pick up as a JOAT (rapidly learning new technologies, being comfortable wearing many different hats, etc) helps you down the road when the specialization you picked is no longer relevant. Thirdly; in our little world of IT we often mistake people with a specialization in a specific manufacturer as a specialization of the whole topic. I run into this with Cisco and Microsoft guys all the time. So you are a CCNP, great, now tell me about Junipers, Alcatel-Lucent, Brocade, HP, Extreme, Enterysis, Arista, and open flow controllers. So you know Server 2008R2, now tell me about VMWARE, CENTOS, and Red Hat.

It is a fine place (and a well paid place) to be a JOAT with areas of interest plus it makes you very marketable and flexible. Instead of searching for networking roles you are searching networking and sysadmin, or sysadmin and phones, etc. If you find yourself in a job that started out as one thing and evolves into something else, you won't be distressed that "I'm not doing what I was hired to do".

networker050184

I disagree with about 99% of what you are saying it_consultant, but this definitely rings true.

it_consultant wrote: »

Thirdly; in our little world of IT we often mistake people with a specialization in a specific manufacturer as a specialization of the whole topic.

Putting all your chips in knowing a single vendor is not a smart move. Vendors come and go, but technologies are a much safer bet. Now certification wise, if a single vendor holds the most weight then by all means concentrate on that vendor. Certifications expire anyway so if another vendor takes up the market then it's easy to change your certification route at that point. So many people here seem to equate certification with learning. Like you can't learn about something without taking a certification for it. I know many platforms and technologies that I have worked with and read up on over the years. It's just not worth the investment to do a certification on them when it won't be beneficial to my career. For example what is an Adtran certification going to do for me career wise? Not nearly as much as a Cisco or Juniper one so that is where I focus my certification.

it_consultant

The question was specialization, not just certification. Obviously Cisco is a better choice than Adtran for certifications for you and I. I know plenty of Cisco guys that would just blink if you said "Ad Tran" let alone the fact that it is one of the most popular CPE manufacturers. Hell, I am doing the CCNP track right now so I am kind of saying one thing and doing another

. I wouldn't trade my JOAT experience and go back and get my CCNP back when I got my original CCNA in 2007. The exposure I have had in storage, sysadmin, networking, etc has been very valuable and will continue to be valuable moving forward.

N2IT

Just for record I am talking specializing in a field not a specific vendor hardware or technology. Programming, Networking, Project Management, etc. Not Cisco or MS Project. (Although being skilled in those at a high level can do more good than harm). From my experience being a JOAT has severely hurt my earning potential. Guys who got into development or administration right away and deep dived make far more income in my world than JOAT's who float around and work on project after project. Again this is from my experience.

it_consultant

N2IT wrote: »

Just for record I am talking specializing in a field not a specific vendor hardware or technology. Programming, Networking, Project Management, etc. Not Cisco or MS Project. (Although being skilled in those at a high level can do more good than harm). From my experience being a JOAT has severely hurt my earning potential. Guys who got into development or administration right away and deep dived make far more income in my world than JOAT's who float around and work on project after project. Again this is from my experience.

Realize that "Development" is not a specialization per se, that is sort of a JOATish terms in the world of programming. A programming specialization is like .NET or something, which can be very lucrative for the developer who can do that very well. On the infrastructure side, I feel like it is a little different. JOAT experience, in my experience, is valuable.

N2IT

Maybe so, I work in an app dev company and the C# developers here who pretty much just have that experience make good coin. They have the foundation down so of course they can swing from one language to another pretty easily. But none of them know much about routers, switches, storage, processors, even Microsoft applications like office. Then know development and that's it and I don't believe they are at any risk. In fact they have placed themselves in a great situation as far as I am concerned.

paul78

Switching languages is very different than switching platforms though. I don't really come across too many developers that can easily switch between .NET development and Java development. And even less that can do low-level software development. Developers that have exposure to different technologies tend to be better whether they are specialized with C# or some other platform. Just my observation.

As an aside – I actually think that specialization in a particular business vertical is more likely to be a valuable pursuit over a long term career than specialization over a technical vertical. I view IT as a supporting business function and if you have experience in that business vertical, you are more likely to be successful. For me, I’ve always worked in the brokerage sector of financial services and it’s a sector that I understand well.

ptilsen

I'm going to disagree with some of this on the dev side, although Paul has much more extensive experience, and I won't pretend otherwise. However, I've had a bit of a mixed history with development, and based on my admittedly limited experience, I actually feel like being a language generalist is at least as valuable as specializing. I think that people tend to specialize and get paid well for it, but I don't think that's out of need. Most of programming comes down to concepts and theory — looping, conditionals, instantiation, initialization, searching, sorting, validation, stacks, arrays, messaging, design models, and so on. While certain languages are very different syntactically and are typically used for very different purposes, I don't feel like switching languages is particularly hard. Outside of low-level programming (which is almost entirely C or C++), there isn't enough depth to most languages to really justify deep specialization, at least in my opinion and from what I know.

I'm an infrastructure guy with mostly scripting experience and less than half a computer science degree, so obviously take that with a grain of salt. However, I've done VB .NET, I've actually made plenty of .NET calls in PowerShell scripting, and I've done quite a bit of Java now. While learning the details of whatever language is obviously required, most languages in use today are ultimately derivative of C, and their structures and syntax are usually very similar. I switch from Java to PowerShell every week, and I've reviewed plenty of C# while looking at Technet code examples for .NET classes. I'm easily able to convert C# to PowerShell, even though I don't know C# or even C++. It actually functions pretty similarly to Java, just with .NET class calls instead of Java library class calls. I've also started reading through K&R2 recently, and while I'll admit I'm not that far, so far it's Java with some of the low-level memory and String complexities and, of course, the imperative paradigm (easy to switch to since I came from a VBscript/batch/VB background). Syntax and functionality are so similar I've had to skim and skip quite a bit.

Anyway, my point is that since I know most of the concepts, diving into new languages in my limited spare time has been easy. I can't imagine most good software developers really just learn one language really well and stick with it. They probably stick within C/C++-derived OOP, but I doubt being a C# or Java specialist really means anything financially over being a polyglot. I really have to question switching from C# .NET to Objective-C or Java being even a big deal. Web apps are different from writing hardware drivers, for sure, but I would be even transitions that large are more akin to going from working with HP switches and routers to Cisco firewalls. Different need, different vendor, but still founded in mostly the same concepts and technologies.

A developer not knowing routers, switches, servers, storage, I get, but I don't see there being no value in knowing that stuff, either. Even as I head more down the programming path, I'm not feeling like my infrastructure knowledge is worthless. Some of it (what I don't use at work) feels a little underutilized, sure, but I value almost any IT-related experiences I've had, even when they don't directly relate to what I do now or what I will do in the future.

Finally, I'm not sure I agree with Paul's assessment on business verticals. I definitely think there can be a ton of value in specializing in a certain business (and Paul has a ton of experience to back that up), but at the same time I feel just as much can be had from specializing in a technology area. At least in my infrastructure career thus far, I haven't found that the technologies or how they're best use really changes that much between industries. In trivial ways or in field-specific specialties (e.g. litigation support, accounting systems, BI, whatever), sure, but at the end of the day I'm comfortable providing infrastructure for health care, finance, retail, manufacturing, software development, legal and other professional services, non-profits, and so on. For many needs, the technology is pretty much the same, and to a great extent business functions can (maybe even should) be abstracted.

davis190

Thank you all for your opinions. I have really enjoyed reading them.

I am personally more on an infrastructure side of things and less on a development side of things. Right now my role is technical project management but like I mentioned before I am in a leadership/rotational program so I will have several roles over the next few years. I would consider myself to be a JOAT right now and I think that it fits my current role very well. That being said I am not sure if this is the type of role that I want to do in the long run.

I think the biggest thing that I gathered from this is that being a JOAT for now isn't a bad thing. Getting certifications and learning technologies will make me a stronger "technologist". A few years down the road though I may want to pick a technology and start to become more specialized within that technology if my career isn't heading in the direction that I want it to.

Another side question. Since I am new to the real working world. Do you guys find that jobs will pay based on the job that you get into or will the same job pay more if you have different certifications?

ptilsen

Well, we (I) have definitely gone on a tangent. I think you have a good plan. Explore. Learn about different areas. Specialize later if it seems like a fun plan to you.

For most jobs, certifications get you considered, but ultimately the perception of your total value along with the limits of the position determine what you'll be offered. However, for consulting firms with partnership requirements and discount, you can get more for having certain vendor certs. MS and Cisco are big deals at firms that are consulting partners, for example.

N2IT

The passion wow man great insight by both you and Paul!

higherho

being broad has helped me out a lot. Knowing Mid level sys admin , CCNA level networking , and a years worth of Big data / Red hat linux experience has made my resume / linkedin profile get hits often. I am feeling though right now that my many hats is becoming a burden on my personal life and stressing me out at work when I actually run into an issue that I might know know because of being broad. So thats why I typically state know your major technology you love and then two supporting. For example;

Virtualization (ESXi ) - Major technology
OS technology (Linux or Windows) - Supporting
Networking or SANs - Supporting

Those two supporting technologies will make you more of an expert than individuals who just focus on ESXi. Rather than have 10 hats on (I had 7 which was pretty nuts) you can chip yourself down to three. Still during the time I had 7 hats (SAN, Juniper, Cisco, Windows, Linux, Big Data, ESXI) I learned a lot from each technology that is not helping me a great deal in my three hats that I wear (Big data, Linux, ESXi).

About developers.... I'm tired of seeing .net apps from 2003. Just saying developers should keep up with technology in their field just as quick as infrastructure people do.

paul78

@ptilsen – You likely picked up on my biases around software development using high-level languages. My background is in low-level software engineering so I do tend to be a bit snobbish with certain types of application development.

I don’t necessarily disagree with your premise that language constructs are very transferable. It’s really about the platform and the platform details can vary quite significantly. For example, Java’s UI objects are very different than .NET’s.

Your point about developer’s not knowing about basics of infrastructure is actually one of my biggest pet peeves. To me, the most valuable software architects are the ones that understand how software will operate in production. When developers do stupid things like hard-code IP addresses in configuration files because they think that the infrastructure should just work; that is simply lack of awareness of other functional components in a holistic IT environment.

I can understand your point about business verticals. I suppose for certain IT fields – especially the more commoditized items like telecommunications, messaging, etc. – it is not likely to matter. I think I was stuck on thinking about software developers. But I would assert that an IT professional with domain expertise in a business vertical would be more valuable.

@higherho – software applications tend to have longer life-cycles so if you are seeing .NET apps from 2003, you are probably one of the lucky ones. It’s probably one reason why N2IT’s mom is still very successful working on COBOL apps.

@davis190 – sorry about taking it off-tangent. The topic you raised is actually brought up from time to time. I have always felt that it’s worthy of reminder and dialogue. And each time I read these threads, I find them refreshing to re-evaluate my own biases. One thing that you may realize as you progress in your own career is that everyone has their own ideas about the ideal career and depending on their goals – you will get a different opinion

– My own perspective is one from a management viewpoint. It’s not necessarily the right one – but my own view of the IT world. Welcome to the TE forums and good luck in your new job!

googol

I am in the broad sense, but also recognize specializing in something and that probably will be the overall "Microsoft stack". I feel there is always a trifecta that meets what companies want and higherho has tapped into that majorly. With Storage/Backups, tend to be *Nix, maybe Virtualization as well, or like many companies out there, it is VMware/Windows/something else, like Networking, Storage, something. I am currently studying for VCP5-DCV which will complete my "trifecta" of VMware/Windows/Networking with emphasis on Windows, but expand that specialization into rest of Microsoft Stack as well.

From being broad, it has enabled me to understand how my things may affect other aspects of IT operations, to put everything together in the grand jigsaw puzzle it can be sometimes. Another reason I like broad is the flexibility to support other things, for job security or opportunities for other jobs if the case need be as technologies move on and new ones take its place. Everything is becoming software defined and virtualized in one form or another, including networking with VMwares NSX, Cisco UCS, etc.

Both ways have its benefits, pros and cons, becoming heavily specialized seems to lead to VARs and consulting, or the select big time positions at major enterprises that want a full time heavily specialized individual. Unfortunately in this world, I have seen that most jobs want multiple hats, they don't always get what they want, but they try for as much as possible on their job postings.

N2IT

Great information posted in this thread. I agree Paul software application do tend to have longer lifecycles from my vantage point. I've seen developers stay in a certain language for years. A great example of this is one of my college mates who graduates a year before myself. He went straight into a Java development role and hasn't looked back. He has worked contracts pretty much his whole life, but still maintains employee through Java development. Not to say this can't happen with infrastructure, it can and it does, but recently I have seen infrastructure become more expendable and outsourcing/insourcing to MSP have gone in full force. Application Dev have done this as well, but you still see in house developers still coexisting with the contract developers whereas the infrastructure employees, former employees have been let go for MSP and other sourcing methods. Overall 'Broad or Deeper' is completely relative and really provides no baseline to measure from. To me broad means to learn several different technologies rather than focusing on one or two niche ones. This could be from a role standpoint or technology standpoint. Also focusing to me means to spend MOST of your time learning a certain core skill not ALL of your time. Some are assuming that focusing on a particular technology means that's the only way you spend your time and for the most part that is simply not true. @ Googol I agree that most people have to wear multiple hats, this phenomenon has really come to fruition as of late. I hang out with a group of IT professionals every Thursday night and several who work for a AT&T recently mentioned that the resource structure is changing at AT&T. People are no longer Informix Developers or Java Developers they are project participants who can be leveraged anyway the company sees fit, (for the most part).

antielvis

The prevailing opinion seems to be "specialize" in something but I think it comes with risks. I've known guy who have specialized in some technologies and I question the logic. Will they follow the same fate as those who specialized in Novell or say something like CITRIX? Maybe specialization should be about a focus on a specific pillar in IT. By pillar I mean taking a product & learning it and all things related to it. So if you master Exchange, know Lync very well too (it's the communication pillar). If you want to master Windows Servere maybe get real good at VMware too (and PowerShell). If you're into IT security as a specialization, maybe toss in mastery of networking (CISCO) or Linux).

I been around in this business for a while and seen many things come and go, sometimes very quickly. Imagine if you were a Novell or Blackberry specialist? Even something like CITRIX isn't what it once was years ago. If you become too "narrow" in your specialization what happens if it disappears? Will you be like those real old guys I've met who were masters of AS400 but now struggle because the platform is mostly disappeared?

One of the issues no one talks about with this industry is the ever growing demands to continuously learn. In 1999, you were set if you were an MCSE or a CNE. Today you need an MCSE, VMWare, SCCM, etc to hold the same type of position you did in the late 90s.