Discussion on:

Top three IT certifications you can get from scratch

If I've never had any experience in programming at all, do you think the Java certification or the Database certification would be easier/a better first foot into the tech world?

a DBA or a programmer. One thing I would suggest is if you're trying to get into the tech world pick a path and stick with it - at least for now. While some companies do want/need a "jack of all trades" I suspect you're more likely to be able to get an entry level position if you show you are dedicated to the path you have chosen rather than try certifying in a bit of everything.

Good advice for job seekers. "Jack of all trades" often look like they're either too good to be true, or not focused. Acknowledging your weaknesses or 'blind spots' in addition to your strengths, not only gains respect from employers but makes you seem more competent at the things you *can* do.

I'd describe myself as a "jack of all trades" but that's more from experience than design - I know what I want to specialise in but the work just isn't there (looking for a full time domino admin anyone?). As someone trying to get to the first rung on the ladder by all means have good overview of a decent number of areas, but certify in just the ones you want to progress in so you look like you have a decent career path in mind.

especially starting out, aside from anything else the damn things are expensive.

About the only advice I'd give a new starter in the current market, would be to think long and hard about an IT career. If you really want to do it, choose the discipline that best suits your innate talents, and go for it.

At thirteen years old I decided I wanted to be a programmer, it sure as heck wasn't for big bucks, an onwards and upwards career and so I'd have to turn down repeated offers of sex.

Which is pretty fortunate really...

Median salaries plus 4 years experience for these jobs only brings me to what I'm currently earning, barely.

Although I am where I am now (System Administrator & Medical Analytics) partly due to taking a couple of semesters of Oracle Database programming with Boston University 10 years ago.

I am suprised that there were no MS certs on this list.

I agree, what about MS Certified IT Professional? It's a hefty book to read, but pretty good value. Then as far as I remember, only a couple of online exams to take.

I'm going to try and complete it over the next 12 months, I have a loan of the book and so far in the first 2 chapters, nothing has been too tricky so seems like a good cert to get.

Oh yeah and CompTIA A+ also seems like a "not too hard" one to get under the belt if relevant

Got those - like fallin off a log

If you're thinking of going into SW training (MS Office courses, etc.) consider one or more MOUS certifications (MS Office User Specialist) they're a little pricey, but opened doors for me when I was needing part time teaching work. I had gotten the training/testing for free when I worked at a help desk (sweet!)

despite of some comments I normally see on several forums regarding IT certifications, I can tell you certs are very usefull. I see scenarios where we need to hire one IT guy and we have two options... yes, sure, we interview both of them, both seems to have similar skills, but we pick up the guy with A+, N+, CCNA, MCP, MCTS, CEH instead of the other guy with no certs. This is the real life.

Having many years of experience and having hired several - I hire the guy who works on his own car or fixes his plumbing over someone with certifications. Troubleshooting is the name of the IT game most of the time. Yes, tips and tricks from classes and certifications help, but that is quickly picked up. Being able to look at a problem and identify good information from bad and then be able to apply a fix and figure out what else broke is mastery and is not easily taught. I have not been bitten once when using this to hire someone. Yet I have seen guys with CCNA's not be able to wire a network when it was not right out of a text book.

As a person that has looked for work with AND without certs, certs help. The only way to get a job without certs is to already have 10-20 years experiance working with other companies (or one company) and maybe know someone in the company. Other than that first get the "easy" certs (A+, Net +, Microsoft) then work on the harder ones (CCNA and Microsoft servers). I am still working on getting the Microsoft server certs. CCNA is a beast if you have never done networking before.

Its true that, these can be achieved from scratch, for that the career goal should be clear.
For someone who wants certification from scratch, is hungry for deep knowledge .
But what if some one wants having multiple certifications like RHCE+OCA ?? Will it be a positive for future ??

From scratch as in you know "nothing" and then you learn how to pass the exam for the certification.

In what way is this valuable to anybody except the myopic fools promoting the certs?

You are just going to end up with more cookie cutter types, who are useless as soon as they step out of their comfort zone. As soon as the version changes they'd have to take another one. Oh I get it.....

Stop being part of the problem...

Exactly right

Presumably incovenient for the person of courageous convictions who down voted me...

Don't anybody take it away, not being liked by gutless conniving incompetent wimps is a worthy accolade...

I am an IT zero knowledge. If I am going to study, what is the best course will I take or maybe the best path to take to become an IT?

Any help will be appreciated.

Of all the Certs listed in this article, the annual income benefit for Red Hat certifications is not given. Is it because the financial gain is so low, especially since their training is the most expensive by a long shot! I've taken the Red Hat training from Red Hat and for the cost; their classroom training is NOT designed to give the students a better chance of passing the exam than those who do not take their courses. It is my understanding that very few students pass the exam the first time even after taking the classes. For the amount of money Red Hat charges for their classes, their students should have a much higher success rate in passing the exam the first time, especially after taking RH124 & RH135!

The problem I found with the class was that the instructor was more focused on covering the material in a given time frame, rather than making sure the students understand and gain a working knowledge of the material. For example, several Projects and Criterion Test were skipped over in order to stick to the timetable for covering the material.

Not allowing adequate time to complete the projects during the class and not providing lab time after the 9:00am to 5:00pm class to finish and better understand the projects is the biggest downfall of the Red Hat training. Especially, since students can't go back to their hotel, office or home and create a similar problem on their Red Hat machine to solve. These hands on projects provide some practical experience which students cannot get elsewhere or in a production environment, that is, without bringing down the production system. Thus, these projects are extremely important to the student's success in fully grasping the material, as well as, in passing the exam. If not, then Red Hat should redesign their courses.

I would say the A+ certification would be a good one. I'm not diminishing the "goodness" of this cert in any way by my saying you can get this cert from scratch. Instead, what I mean is that this cert forces you to get involved with core IT concepts: hardware, software, networking, and soft skills. The book I used advanced my knowledge. Yes, one can study the book, soak up the knowledge and pass the exam, but if one truly immerses himself in the book and couples that with hands on training (there were excellent lab setups in my book) then he will gain excellent foundational knowledge and hands-on skills. One truly just needs a good A+ book (Meyers'), lab manual, a few pcs and a 5 port switch to learn this stuff from scratch.

I just entered IT 7 years ago and I was over 30 years old. I was going to school for my bachelors degree in Business Administration and I had already obtain my A+ and Network+ certification. I was told by so many interviewers, I need experience not schooling. (Note: I agree with xangpow (A+, Network+, and Security+) are the best certs to start with. You can also pass these studying on your own with having a lab. That's very important.) So after being told I need experience, I quit school, and I received my first IT job a month later. A ton of jobs require A+ certifications and it has boosted my career a lot even over other qualified candidates.

I just applied and had an initial interview for an IT job. I have 20+ years in the field but no college degree and just a couple of Mickey Mouse certs (CIW and iNET+). The job is an excellent fit for my skill set... I have hands-on experience in everything the job requires and have even worked in a similar non-profit orginazation. What do you think my chances are when they compare me to someone with a Bachelor's and an A+, CCNA, MCP, etc. and only 2 or 3 years of actual on the job experience? How fair is that?

The point of certs is to prove your knowledge of certain topics that the company that gives out the cert has deemed important. If you've gained this knowledge through your experience, it wouldn't be a bad idea to take the exams just to put them on your resume.

Of course this is a tad diminished by the "get from scratch" manouvre.

It's almost as though some would suggest that instead of a cert validating experience, it substituting for it....

Can't even begin to imagine, why some would have such a view!

I tried for many years to try and convice potenial employeers that experiance, not certs, make for better workers. Yet, while they all agreed, they all also said that company policy states that they cant hire anyone without any certs. Very few companies hire without at least an A+ cert.

Professor Messer has a web site for certifications. Do you like what he is doing?

If you have 20 years plus in the industry then unless the hiring manager is an idiot I'd say you have at least as much chance, if not more, than someone with a degree, few certs and 10% of your experience. Depends on the field though, some fields seem to like certs more than others.

If you are worried though, why not "challenge" a few certs - with experience in the field I've found that the easiest way. Just pick up a book that gives you the details of what they test for (or get the syllabus from the net), make sure there aren't areas you're missing as I've found there's always at least one area that I've never seen used in the real world - just google it or download a trial version and play. Then when you're ready simply sit the exams, got most of the certs I have doing it that way and it's far cheaper. I've found a few certs scattered around my resume does help a little when job hunting so I just go sit the exams when I'm thinking of jumping ship, that way I don't waste money on the versions in between and I can usually be in and out of the exam in a lunch hour if I find a testing centre close enough.

to me as they would be say if I was doing admin, where the version-go-round seems to be a lot more important.

Can't say how I would do now, if I could wind the clock back 30 years. I'd have to have a degree, and certs, who knows may be I would say stuff this for a lark, and do something else.

One thing I can say, is there would be none of this from scratch drivel.

No mention of a median starting salary, nor what it usually grows to within the first 4 years for any of the Red Hat Linux certs. Can any body expound on it? I know, salary will vary depending on what area of our great country we live in, but some idea would be nice.

Security+, LPI Essentials, Linux+, are other contenders

I got my first main break in IT working for IBM with zero certs and only a little bit of experience that I had gained from helping a friend in his shop. SInce then I have had 3 other IT jobs, one as IT Administrator without certs.

When trying to break into IT, certs dont mean all that much, you need to be able to show potential, and alot of companies dont always want people with certs for entry level jobs, as they can then train them to do it the way they want, thats how it worked in IBM doing tech support, I helped a friend get a job that could just about turn on a computer.

I am now getting certified as I have a defined career path I want to take and I know that its going to take alot of hard work, study and time to get there. And to get into the position I want, I know for a fact that I am going to need some certs.

We had a major failure in a very good complex Cisco networks with about 20 vlans, several call managers, several Unity voicemail servers, 3 ASA firewalls, IDS, , riverbed accelerators, forescout security, etc.

The provider we had with contract dispatch several technicians and no one was able to find out the problem we had with some tunnels and other network stuff.

Another provider dispatch a guy who is CCIE and fix the problem in 2 hours. He spend 1 hour making diagrams and anotations, gather info from cisco devices, etc. When everything was clear for him, he not only fix the issue, he setup the devices to be fault tolerant.

After the fix, I spoke with this guy. He say he learn more by experience, but the specific items he fix in our office, was learn during ccie training. So certs are really important in some cases.

Top Three??? According to whom? It's obvious a blatant Ad, at least try to get something that's believable. This article is just ridiculous. 2 Oracle certs and a Linux cert are detailed in this? No Microsoft, no Cisco, no CompTia.

Where do I nominate this for worst TechRepublic article of the year?

Excellent article. I agree that certs set one apart from the rest the pack, moreover,they're an indespensable show of commitment to ones trade! I like the analogy that certified folks can handle a "third or more support cases" which simply shows the breadth and depth of these exams.

All those in the pack not applying for an IT job?

Unless you've gone majorly academic (honours etc), you be lucky as a new starter to get a "don't call us, we'll call you" note trying to get your first IT role without a cert. Buzzword bingo boys will have you filtered out at the first cut.

And you analogy is rubbish, it's the learning and being able to apply it, that means you'll be more productive. Stop doing yourself and others down, you are certified because you are good, not good because you are certified.

The point here is that when there is a job opening out there, say with 300 applicants, you will have 1 happy guy and 299 folks disappointed to angry at the end of that process. I think it's imperative for us to prescribe approaches that work or have demonstrated to repeatedly bring success to those that seek a job in the IT space... in such a market.

About the analogy; I think its helpful to respectfully disagree with other contributor's viewpoints as a matter of style. While on that, certifications are outcomes based which means that they already have a set standard level of competence expected; knowledge, skills and attributes - which is confirmed for holders and demonstrates potential which hiring managers and recruiters understand, at least for international orgs I've worked for. Hiring managers and recruiters narrow their selection decision to folks who are most suitable for a job. Folks with desirable skills and any additional relevant experience standout and CERTS have proven to be handy when such decisions are made...hope this serves to clarify!

I can say that I havce been on both sides if this fence. I was once a LAN Administrator for a large internet / portal company, and they paid for my certification for Windows 2000 Administration, but when they went under, I found that the one cert wasn't enough, after a while I branched out and discovered Linux, I've been pursuing a certification in Linux ever since, I don't have the "chops" to go for the Oracle Red/Hat stuff.....but the "beginnier" Oracle cert should be easy to get....and if I can ace it, then I can use the increase in my current salary to finance more certs in Linux, which I've noticed pays extremely well....better than a Microsoft cert! I really admire those people who earn their CCNA / CCNE etc. to me THOSE people are "special" in that they have a skill that could be compared to a biological thing! I owuld love to get one of those, but the price to get one is way beyond my reach...unless I take out a loan for one!

When you have a job in IT and no certifications, it is easy to say that certifications are not needed. In a tough economy, you need every extra you can have when you are searching for a job or trying to change positions. Experience is great, but when you have the experience plus industry certification you will have a leg up on the competition. Try searching IT jobs in various cities. Even some of the jobs that those working in the field would consider entry-level are looking for experience, a BS degree, and preferably multiple industry certifications.

If you're interested in exploring certifications in the IT Profession, you'll find that certified professional demand can vary quite widely by geographic area. Payscale maintains a nice system that can filter certified IT Professional pay ranges by certification and geo based on real survey responses from employed IT Pros. This may be helpful in selecting an appropriate certification path that will be better aligned to demand in your area.

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Certification=Microsoft_Certified_Technology_Specialist_(MCTS)/Salary#by_State

If you're interested in pursuing Microsoft certification, you may also want to check out the FREE study guides that help prepare candidates for Microsoft certification, including the new MCSE: Private Cloud certification, available online here:

http://aka.ms/studyguides

Hope this helps!

Keith

http://KeithMayer.com - IT Pros ROCK!