Toughest certifications

I hear a lot of how hard certian cert tests are. I am just asking the opinion of everyone "What brand of cert tests on average are the toughest to pass?" Cisco, Microsoft, CompTIA, and any others I am leaving out. Let's hear 'em.

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earweed

Paul Boz wrote: »

CCIE (any of them), GSE, and high-end Juniper exams represent what I would consider personal technical challenges.

Most would say these are tough but sometimes the challenge makes something worth it.

Forsaken_GA

mikedisd2 wrote: »

Networkers are the plumbers of the Internet. That's why they're always blocking access and performing DNS flushes (push, push those packets through).

Well, if there's one thing that years of playing Nintendo has left me with is that being a plumber isn't so bad, there's a pretty girl waiting for you. You just need to find the right castle.

veritas_libertas

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Well, if there's one thing that years of playing Nintendo has left me with is that being a plumber isn't so bad, there's a pretty girl waiting for you. You just need to find the right castle.

That has to be one of the best quotes I have seen, rep points for you!

slinuxuzer

mikej412 wrote: »

so I'm not sure how people make it through the CISSP exam.

Funny story about this Mike, I recently sat the CISSP exam, only one person can go to the bathroom at a time, and it took me 4-5 hours or so, but about half way through the exam I was visually frustrated at the questions and looked up and saw one of the procters smirking a little bit, he wasn't being mean, but he obviously thought it was funny.

RouteThisWay

Hyper-Me wrote: »

But for me, I didnt want to pave the roadway (network), i wanted to drive the sports car (servers) on it.

Nice!

Forsaken_GA

Hyper-Me wrote: »

But for me, I didnt want to pave the roadway (network), i wanted to drive the sports car (servers) on it.

If living in Atlanta has taught me one thing, it's that if the roads aren't properly maintained, it doesn't matter what you're driving. You can be driving a Porsche if you want, you're still stuck in traffic next to the Dodge Shadow.

And of course there's always the perk that you can put in your own express lane and make sure nobody else can use it

mikedisd2

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

And of course there's always the perk that you can put in your own express lane and make sure nobody else can use it

Hah! I just installed a BES server and it crashed and burned coz it couldn't navigate merging lanes. I'd rather be paving the road any day. What good's a sports car if you don't know the terrain?

msteinhilber

The ICDL.

I've been studying for years.

Hyper-Me

I guess my vote would be Understanding Women.

IF it were a certification, it would have a 100% failure rate.

TheShadow

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I guess my vote would be Understanding Women.

IF it were a certification, it would have a 100% failure rate.

One thing is there would be zero **** sites.

Deathgomper

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

you're still stuck in traffic next to the Dodge Shadow.

That would be me. I used to drive a green Dodge Shadow, it was so filled with garbage my friends dubbed it "The Garbage Sled."

Slowhand

mikej412 wrote: »

I'm not sure if there's a specific brand.... but I'd say the hardest certification exams are the ones on subjects you have no interest in.

I'd say this is the toughest type of exam for me. Whether it's the subject-matter, or a reason like the one I'm looking at now with the remaining MCSE exams I have to take, (internal monologue: "aww, why couldn't I have taken these years ago so I could be doing the MCITP exams now? Waaaaaahhh!!!)

Other than that, I'd say that the toughest exams I've taken are ones involving subjects that I don't have as much experience with. This was true for Trigonometry, it was true for the CCNA, and it's probably going to be true for every future test I take; if it's not something I'm already into, it's going to be tougher to learn about.

Mike-Mike

man, those are some expensive certs listed... how do people pay for that? is that something the individual pays out of pocket? or if you're that high up is that something your company pays for?

Bl8ckr0uter

Mike-Mike wrote: »

man, those are some expensive certs listed... how do people pay for that? is that something the individual pays out of pocket? or if you're that high up is that something your company pays for?

I think that every time I hear someone taking a SANS cert. $900 a challenge and 2K+ with a class is nothing to laugh at.

Paul Boz

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

I think that every time I hear someone taking a SANS cert. $900 a challenge and 2K+ with a class is nothing to laugh at.

Usually 3k+ for the class itself. In my case I've had my employer pay for two of mine. I paid for the GSEC challenge out of pocket. At my last job (where Dynamik works now) you get a $4k annual training budget. I blew my first year's on the GCFW and got a 25% discount on the GCIH. I used the other $1000 on Cisco certs. Basically my employer paid for $7000 and I paid for $1000. I paid for my GCFW gold paper attempt out of pocket but its only a few hundred by comparison. My new employer is paying for GCIA, Cisco IPS training, and ArcSight architecture / administration training next year. I have to do one non-vendor specific (which is where the SANS training comes in) and one vendor-specific. I'm doing two vendor-specific b/c I need to learn ArcSight more but my boss wants to send me to that outside of my training budget. I'm looking at around $12k in training in 2011.

Bl8ckr0uter

So the trick is to get good enough that they will pay for training for you lol. I got it. Well that isn't going to happen at my current shop

tpatt100

I was tempted to pay for one of the GIAC Security training classes out of pocket. Not because I can afford it but since I am taking the CISA in December I wanted a GIAC security cert to round out the well known security certs.

chmod

CCA

RHCE

CCIE

Pen tester exam