Real World Job Skills vs certification knowledge

From past experience I know that schooling only teaches you how to understand things. In the real world the knowledge of how to do a day to day job is usually very different then what you can learn in a classroom (or on a computer screen).

I was wondering if any of the more experienced members currently working in the IT field have come across books that convey useful day to day knowledge. I have seen Network Warrior recommended on this forum and almost placed an order for it before posting this. I decided just to throw the question out here first.

Any feedback is always appreciated. I know this topic has been discussed many times but sometimes current posts bring in more opinions and new options so please forgive me for rehashing an old topic.

Jon

Find more posts tagged with

Save $250 on 2025 certification boot camps from Infosec!

Book now with code EOY2025

Button

Comments

JeanM

Are you talking specifically in networking area of cisco? If so, network warrior is pretty good, it's next to my cisco ios cookbook as well

Jon_Cisco

My goal is ultimately to work with Cisco networking. I realize that I will need to start lower so I'm just looking for resources to prepare me.
I will look up the IOS cookbook.

MosGuy

For cisco related at the CCNA level. Network warrior is a very good filler, to bridge the gap between studies and real world. The portable command guide book is a useful reference, for times when exam material starts to slip from lack of routine use. The CBT nugget series "CCNA Labs: Cisco for the real world" by Jeremy Cioara is excellent too.

DoubleNNs

I remember looking for similar books in the past. In addition to Network Warrior:

I saw "Network Administrator Street Smarts"
and also "The Practice of System and Network Administration."

They may be outdated and/or a little lower level than what you are looking for however.
I also haven't read either so I can't give a personal review. They're both in my amazon wish list, but I decided to focus on finishing up my CCNA before diving into other books.

JeanM

There is also a 101 labs for ccna as well.

Jon_Cisco

Thanks for all of the feedback everyone.

@DoubleNNs It's funny I was just debating with my wife about skipping a summer course so I could catch up on the stack of books I bought! Hopefully I will have or be finishing my CCNA at that point but I'll have about a year before I am looking to switch careers.