do you always follow a certification path

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It occurred to me that people seem to uses a path to accreditation (if that's the right word) to determine what certs they plan to do, for example 271, 272 to get MCDST

I wonder if anyone here selects individual certs because they specialise in specific areas or products, and may not directly lead to such accreditation.

For example i may not have much experience to do a MCSE, however, i do have a lot of exchange related work so would i do exchange related certs.

I hope you see what i am trying to say , not explaining it very well

 

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A single Microsoft exam these days will typically get you an MCTS certification.

 

I think I probably aim for the end goal rather than specific exams, for instance I am toying with the idea of sitting the exams required for the Vista MCITP, for the simple reason that I deal with Client Deployments, I am also booking myself on an MCITP:EA course thats scheduled to start at the end of March. The next course\cert after that will be my VCP.

I think I tend to aim for the certs (rather than simply exams) that go with my job, at the moment I am a System Center consultant, consequently I sat the SCCM (70-401) exam a couple of years back. The idea for the MCITP and VCP is that I see it being the next logical step from a technology perspective.

Prior to my MCTS:SCCM exam the last certs I got were my 2003 MCSE:S, that's quite a time between certs (actually I did my MCSE2003 back in 2005 so three and a half years between my MCSE and MCTS).

 

I'm following a path at the mo, done the 620 and now doing the 622, seriously thinking about doing the 623 and the 624 before moving onto the Windows 7 certs. I've set myself a goal of starting my 290 on July the 1st and see if I can get through 290 and 291 in 2 months

 

I look at the end goal which is normally a certification - but not always. If I work with WAN routing topologies but rarely QOS or VPN's (bad example but work with me), I may be interested in getting the BSCI and BCMSN only. The problem is I would complete 50% of the certification, furthermore what does an employer see?

I think if I were in their shoes, I'd see a candidate that didn't stick with the certification track to the end. Maybe got lazy, disheartened, whatever and didn’t stick with it. Is that someone I want in my team?

May not be right – but perception is reality, so create the right perception!

Note: Certifications that can be upgraded are still certifications on their own, so they don't apply to the above. For example, the CCNA is a certification in it's own right, and a CCNP is not needed for the sake of having it. On the other hand the BSCI and BCMSN are part of various certifications, but on their own they are just 2 exams.

Edit: I know the Cisco CCNP tracks are changing (March 10, 2010), but the examples are based on what I am familiar with and what is available today.

 

At the moment it is just a goal of mine to make me look better to employers than other people, but if there was a pure hardware track that you could do I would be nailing those as much as I could.