Some general advice about my certification path

Hi, first post; hoping to become active on here over the next few months.

Cliff notes on my path: About 7/8 months ago, I started at the bottom so to speak and have started to work my way up to some worthwhile certs. My long term goal is to be involved in/set up a number of on-line start-ups (started/launched a fairly large website a few years back which didn't pan out in the end). With that in mind, I want to gain as much knowledge as possible so I can take on a lot of the development workload without the need for external companies/people (problems in this area caused the failure of my first start up). However, given the climate we are in, attaining the necessary finance required for start ups is not easy, so I know that my short - medium term employment prospects may not involve working for myself - With that in mind, I want to make myself as employable as possible by building up a number of good certs and developing a good portfolio of websites.

Certs I have completed so far: ECDL V5 - Microsoft Office 2010 Master - Dreamweaver CS6 ACE, CIW Web Design Specialist, CIW E-Commerce Specialist.

Outside of the above, I am considering the following:

I have vouchers for CompTia A+ 2012 and CompTia Security+ exams and provisionally I am planning to sit them before the end of the summer.

MCSA SQL Server - All going well with this, go on and get the MCSE.

Something in the client and server side language area - e.g Javascript and php.

Any advice on the above would be appreciated - especially on whether I should be targeting other certs given my situation. Thanks in advance.

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FlawlessVictory

Anyone got any advice?

Kory

A+ might be a little below you at this point, from the looks of things you seem to be driven towards development work. Security+ might be helpful in that regards, esp if you are doing a lot of web based work, though I really can't say. I am a manager who technically does hiring, though I haven't needed to in a long time, but A+ basically qualifies you for entry level help desk work. Your other certs would tell me you are beyond that.

FlawlessVictory

Kory wrote: »

A+ might be a little below you at this point, from the looks of things you seem to be driven towards development work. Security+ might be helpful in that regards, esp if you are doing a lot of web based work, though I really can't say. I am a manager who technically does hiring, though I haven't needed to in a long time, but A+ basically qualifies you for entry level help desk work. Your other certs would tell me you are beyond that.

Interesting, thanks for the reply.

So you would definitely recommend putting MCSE/MCSA a lot higher in terms of priorities?

Any other certs that I should look into doing in your view?

halaakajan

You seem to be more interested in software development side of things. You should think what you are interested in? If you want to learn Software (Development/Design) side of things or Hardware(Systems/Network). You can post your query in Reddit or Stackoverflow to get more feedback and plan accordingly. I think you are confused.

halaakajan

You can't do all things, You might but you won't be good at all of them.

FlawlessVictory

halaakajan wrote: »

You seem to be more interested in software development side of things. You should think what you are interested in? If you want to learn Software (Development/Design) side of things or Hardware(Systems/Network). You can post your query in Reddit or Stackoverflow to get more feedback and plan accordingly. I think you are confused.

Thanks for the reply. I know it may come across to some that I am confused if you go by my original post, but I think I have a fairly good idea of where I want/need to go.

As I said above, my goal is to enter the on-line start up arena again in the future and I want to develop a wide range of skills which will be of benefit to me in this area. However, I am also realistic enough to know that could be a long way off and I should also be tailoring my studies to make myself as employable as possible - e.g A medium term goal could be to work for 2-3 years, build up a good amount of savings and use that as a base to start up my next business.

I am just looking for some advice on the best certifications I should be looking to achieve over the next 6 months or so considering what I outlined above... For example, I think it would be fair to say that studying databases would be beneficial from both my future online start up prospects and also providing a decent short-medium term career path. With that in mind, what are peoples views on Microsoft VS Oracle in terms of the certification routes that both of them offer? (cost of exams and study materials, difficulty of mastery, best job prospects etc).

paul78

Is most of your work with your business with .NET and Microsoft based websites? If so, you may want to stick with the Microsoft stack and work on Microsoft SQL certs instead of Oracle. As for job prospects, you are more likely to have a better story with Microsoft stack than to try to pass yourself off as an Oracle dba if you haven't worked with that app-stack.

FlawlessVictory

Is their a huge difference between Oracle and Microsoft? e.g If I were to go down the Microsoft cert route and for whatever reason I had to work with Oracle in the future, would there be much of a learning curve to make the transition?

I wouldn't say mainly .net in terms of what I have worked with - Mixture with php for the most part.

paul78

From a PHP developer's perspective, the difference between Oracle and SQL is not likely to be a big deal. But from a dba's perspective, it is probably very different. SQL on Windows is also going to be very different than Oracle on Linux or whatever OS is used.

FlawlessVictory

Given my situation as outlined above, I think its a tough/interesting decision on what route to go (talking about database study/certs here specifically). Purely from an employment point of view, it would obviously make the most sense to study say Microsoft SQL and then apply for jobs in that area.

However, it becomes a bit more complicated considering I want to set up my own business in the future and its hard to predict exactly what database platform I will need to be using - In most cases, I am guessing that utilizing the open source my-sql may be the most appropriate approach to take. With that in mind, would it be a good idea to take the following approach:

Study for and attain the MySQL5 developer and/or MySQL5 Administrator certs.
If at some point in the future I intend to apply for a role aimed towards either Microsoft or Oracle platforms, I would then study for and attain the relevant certifications in that area.

What do people think of the above plan?
Would I be right in saying that by studying for and getting the MySQL certs, it would make attaining the Oracle and/or Microsoft certs significantly easier in the future?
Conversely to the above, if I went the Microsoft SQL route now, would I find it easy to pick up and utilise My-SQL in the future if the project I was working on needed it?

Thanks again for the advice.

paul78

It's just me but if I was in your shoes, I wouldn't bother with the MySQL certs at all. I certainly understand that your business is likely to be based on the LAMP stack. But if you simply need to learn more about that stack, I wouldn't bother with the trouble of actually attaining the certs.

It's been a while since I've used MySQL but the admin portions of MySQL is very different than MSSQL and Oracle so having the MySQL certs would not likely be helpful.

If I was you, I would just go with the MS-SQL certs.

FlawlessVictory

Thanks Paul,

MS-SQL does seem like a good way to go all things considered.

I have some experience with SQL through my office certification and some general database work with My-SQL, but my overall knowledge with it would certainly be classified as limited... With that in mind, has anyone on here gone the MCSA - MCSE route and how long has it taken them to complete all the certs? (I know people learn at different paces, I would just like to get a general idea).

Also does anyone know a good bundle price I could get for all the cert exams?