Realistic Salary Expectations for CCNP w/ Limited Experience in South Jersey/Philly

Alexf302

Hello All,

To provide some very brief background, I worked in IT professionally from 1997-2004. Since then I've worked primarily in an outside sales role that has essentially nothing to do with IT. My former technology experience includes network installation/configuration, Windows server/desktop administration (NT/2000), a wide-range of troubleshooting, some coding, script writing, and more. I worked my way up the ranks from an intern who had barely touched a Windows-based PC at the time to becoming pretty proficient in much of the above by the time I left the industry.

I am now ready and eager to re-enter the IT field, and I am trying to prepare myself with how big of a salary hit I might have to endure at first.

In order to help prepare myself to make this career change, I obtained my CCNA last year, and am currently preparing to take the CCNP exams. Assuming that the following are true, what sort of starting pay range could I reasonably expect to find?

1) I am very technically-minded and creative. I tend to learn very fast, especially on the job. I like being a problem solver and am comfortable navigating my way through those kinds of questions and scenarios during an interview.

2) I am very comfortable in speaking to and working with all levels of clients, from basic "grunt" workers to upper management right on up to owners/CEOs/etc.

3) I possess highly-polished customer-service skills which I can readily demonstrate during an interview.

4) I live in South Jersey, about 12 miles outside of Philadelphia, PA.

5) I will obtain my CCNP through legitimate study, hard work and sacrifice, and will ensure that I can back up my knowledge of CCNA and CCNP topics during an interview. However, I will be up-front with anyone I interview with in terms of my background and experience, and have no reason to sell myself as some sort of a networking expert who will hit the ground running on Day 1 of a new job.

I certainly understand the term "paper cert" and that real-world experience rules, but in my opinion, when you have acheived a certification as difficult as something like a CCNP with limited to no job experience, either you cheated, or you truly studied hard and knew what you were doing at a fairly in-depth level. This is some pretty complex stuff to truly grasp, and I don't see how someone who didn't "fake" their way through the process wouldn't be a good investment for a potential employer (all else being kosher). That said, certainly the CCNP will not cover everything that you would need to know in the real world, so there will be gaps in your knowledge as it would relate to an actual job, but if you possess the motivation and the intelligence and the knack for learning that is required in order to honestly and legitimately obtain a CCNP, most of that should be fairly simple to pick up in a reasonably short amount of time. I'm hoping that such a capacity for self-learning should help to sell my potential as a valuable resource for whatever companies I look at. Surely there are hiring managers out there who would understand and appreciate that.

So there you go. Any feeback would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

MSP-IT

Are you really interested specifically in networking? I know there are quite a bit of openings around the midwest for sales-oriented individuals who hold a CCNP/CCDP for Cisco sales, and from what I've heard the pay is excellent.

Alexf302

Pure networking would be my preference, but if a sales position became available that would allow me to leverage my Cisco knowledge, I'd certainly consider it. I have no desire to move to the Midwest, though. I'm fairly embedded where I am for the moment.

okplaya

There are hiring managers out there that understand, but not many jobs. As someone who's looked for jobs more than once in this area, you may be able to land something in the 50s or 60s. Just a guess. Hopefully you won't take much of a hit. Good luck.

VAHokie56

I think you go a shot at getting an entry level networking gig , might be more like a NOC role if you have no experience with design and implementation. With that being said not sure about where you live but I feel like around here in VA where I am your most likely looking at contract work 25 to 35/hr. Most of these are typically 1 to 3 year deals with option to hire on for FTE

Alexf302

I hadn't given much consideration to contract work. I suppose it'd be within the realm of possibility if the pay was right and I could get onto my wife's health plan.

FloOz

PM me, I am in your area

Alexf302

Bumping for a new crowd...

bermovick

I see quite a few NJ jobs searching indeed for 'CCNP'. I pass over them since the NorthEast isn't a region I'd be interested in moving to.

Of course since I don't look into the details I don't know what kind of requirements the jobs actually have.

the_Grinch

The no experience is a killer. I'm in your area (not too far outside of Philadelphia myself) and I suspect you'd probably be looking at 45K a year. Personally, I'd get on the job somewhere with the CCNA and then start studying for the CCNP. By the time you are finished you'll have some knowledge under your belt. Couple MSP's that would take you as you are right now I think.

roch_greg

I appreciate your determination, effort and sacrifice. While it is certainly possible to get a straight Network Engineering job based solely on a cert or two what you need to ask is what's the probability?

If it were me, I'd look into obtaining work at the CCNA level first and get some experience like others have said.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

rsutton

I tend to hire people looking for sys admin jobs but I can tell you that if I saw a resume as you described, I would consider it entry level. I do not intend to minimize or dismiss your experience; however so much has changed since 2004 that you would not have experience with 90% of the technology my company works with.

My point is, do not be discouraged if you get refused from mid to senior level positions. You may need to obtain some recent lower-level experience to bring your resume up to speed.

Iristheangel

Exactly what rsutton said.

The caution I would exercise with getting a CCNP with little to no experience is that you're not going to usually be jumping into a position where you're going to be really utilizing that knowledge which will lead to inevitable knowledge fade. You'll probably start out with basic stuff: show commands, turning on and off a port, etc and go from there. With the CCNP, you're advancing your knowledge to intermediate L2 and L3 book knowledge (emphasis on book knowledge). It's going to take you time to legitimately learn that material and after you pass the test if you're not using it daily, you're going to lose quite a bit of it which is a waste. If the point of the certification is to compliment experience and gain knowledge then it's not going to benefit you as much as if you find a job first where you can start to get your hands dirty and then start picking up the intermediate books from there. Half the fun is figuring out ways of applying what you learn in positive ways to enhance a network you're working on or troubleshooting an issue on it

I'm definitely speaking from personal experience as well here. I started out the year with some experience under my belt and thinking it would take me no time to get my CCNP because I was used to CCNA-level exams which were like a month or two of studying. It's now 11 months later and I'll be finishing up TSHOOT at the end of the month. I can't even imagine doing this all without experience or working in it every day because half of cementing the knowledge and weeding out what was BS in the books was finding ways to apply it to my job every day. I see from forum posts that people get these certs without experience but in reality, there is a difference between book knowledge that's applied in labs vs. applying and troubleshooting it daily in a production network.

Heh... I know you didn't start this thread with the question "Should I get my CCNP?" and the thread sort of turned into that so I added my 2 cents. So back to your original question: probably $30-45K a year. The job you get with a CCNP with limited or no experience is going to probably be the same level of job you get with a CCNA with limited to no experience.

Alexf302

I am definitely not expecting anything senior level, nor would I expect anything mid level to be an easy find, either. A "truly" entry level salary, however, is definitely out of the question. With some pain I could make a moderate pay cut work with the expectation that I would have the opportunity to move up the ranks reasonably quickly so as to get back to my current salary level and beyond.

I would hope that my prior success and experience in the industry - horribly outdated though it may be - would at least help me to move into a position I could live with while working my way up to a decent salary. $45k would be below my bare minimum, so I guess I'll have to prepare for the possibility that finding the right job may take some time.

As far as "why CCNP?", I didn't really feel like the CCNA left me prepared to tackle anything but that truly entry level job. It gives you a little information on a lot of different topics, but I definitely want to go on the job hunt with a bit more under my belt.

I understand that I almost certainly won't be working at a CCNP level immediately, so the whole knowledge-leak thing will certainly be a factor, but I've already read a couple of ROUTE exam books and done some labbing, and I feel *much* more comfortable in my ability to apply the knowledge I've gained to a real-world situation than I did having come off of the CCNA. Even ignoring the new topics, such as BGP, redistribution, route filtering, etc, the extra material that builds on CCNA's foundation of things like EIGRP and OSPF have been huge. That's gotta count for something, no?

Anyway, I really appreciate everyone's feedback!

emerald_octane

If I were hiring for a low/mid level R&S gig and I had three candidates, One with no certs but 2 years of experience, the guy with 1 year experience plus CCNA, or the guy with no experience with CCNP, i'd probably hire the guy with 1 year experience plus CCNA.

The guy with 2 years experience is nice but I feel certifications are extremely important. Regardless of how easy people tell me a test (that they've never taken) is, I know the feeling of studying and freaking out the day before and putting one's self through the experience.

But, the testing experience just cannot make up for the on the job stuff. So the guy with the CCNP, as hard as each test is, wouldn't do it for me. Plus, i would question if they are really comfortable with the basics or if they would be bored out of their mind, Constantly suggesting that we deploy VLSM or change the switching paradigm for a remote site, but not having a clue as to how that impacts the rest of the business.

Experience + cert is the business which is what I think everyone is trying to say. CCNP by itself won't guarantee a high salary.

Alexf302

So to shift the original question for a moment, here is another potential plan:

Finish up the ROUTE materials and pass the exam (at this point in my studies I could likely knock it out within a couple of months, so I don't see the point in stopping the momentum now). Afterwards, start digging into the SWITCH materials at least up to a point where I've gotten a good CCNA-level refresher on the layer 2 stuff.

At this point start hitting the job market heavily with CCNA in hand, and a good grasp of at least half of the CCNP to help seperate myself from other "entry"-level CCNAs.

Assuming I land a job appropriate to my credentials, and while there I finish up my CCNP during the subsequent months, how long do you think it would take for me to either push for a promotion wherever I'm at, or have sufficient real-world experience to strike out into the realm of the higher pay-grades at another company? Obviously there are a ton of factors that could go all kinds of ways, but assuming things could go about as well as they reasonably could, what do think I could expect?

Thanks again for all of the feedback!

fredrikjj

Alexf302 wrote: »

I certainly understand the term "paper cert" and that real-world experience rules, but in my opinion, when you have acheived a certification as difficult as something like a CCNP with limited to no job experience, either you cheated, or you truly studied hard and knew what you were doing at a fairly in-depth level. This is some pretty complex stuff to truly grasp, and I don't see how someone who didn't "fake" their way through the process wouldn't be a good investment for a potential employer (all else being kosher).

You could look at like that, but at the same time, the CCNP exams aren't harder than scoring in the 70-80% range in a difficult STEM college class. Depending on the degree, consistently doing well year after year and graduating with good grades from a university is more impressive than getting a (legit) CCNP in my opinion. What the CCNP has going for it is that it can make you immediately useful to an employer if they are currently using those technologies. It also demonstrates, if nothing else, that you are reasonably intelligent and don't hate networking, or you wouldn't have spent 500 hours studying it on your own when you could have just watched TV or played video games instead.

There does seem to be people who look at people who get certifications above their level of experience in a negative light. In particular, getting the CCNP with little or no experience is singled out as a particularly big mistake. Again, by some people. There are others who look at it as a positive thing. Curiously, you don't see the same hate when it comes to the CCIE. Apparently, it's OK to pursue that cert without having already worked with all the technologies. Don't ask me about the psychology behind this because I just find it very strange that some people are advising others to actively not continue to learn.

At the same time, I have no clue about if the CCNP actually helps or not if the goal is to get a job (I'm not a hiring manager), but the idea that it would actually hurt seems absolutely preposterous.

Alexf302

I could see how in some extreme situations that it could be a detriment. I suppose a hiring manager could see it on a resume and just assume that the person must have cheated in some way if they have little or no experience, and then move on to another candidate...But I can't imagine that the negatives would outweigh the positives overall, as long as you can back up your knowledge during a technical interview.