is it worth spending £900 on a comptia a+ cert?

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Firstly I know alot of people self-study this cert and pass BUT I have attempted self-study countless times and just cant do it without a physical teacher. So the question really is whether the certificate itself is worth £900

PS its would be done through a 5 day bootcamp at college.

 

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Does it include exam fees ? In the uk the two exams can cost you £300.

If it does not include the fees then personally I think its a complete waste of money. £1200 all in for the A+ is not a good deal.

I took a college course for my MCSA, it was £500 for 6 months evening classes, I've also taken many other classes, so I'm not against classes.

I can understand not wanting to read a 1000+ page book. Why not watch professor messor videos and use a cram guide ?

What do you think a 5 day A+ boot camp will give you that you can't do on your own ?

If you cant motivate yourself to study, maybe IT isnt for you ?

The A+ is the first 0.01% on a long journey, if you need to spend £1000 every time you need to learn something then its going to be a rather impractical career choice.

 

True good advice

 

I would hate to put a downer on A+, but its a really pointless certification in my opinion.

A good starting point and good for concepts. However I wouldn't pay for the training or the exam. You are better off self studying the material and then getting a job in Desktop support.

Back when I did my A+ about 4 years ago the exam was £180 then. I would hate to think how much it is now, and interviewers have never talked to me about it in any interview.

That being said, if you are starting out it is at least something to go on your CV. My advice would be to do a couple of MTA's (if microsoft is an area you are wanting to do) instead of A+, or at the most learn the material and at a push stump up the £180 for the exam if your CV is bare!

There isn't £900 worth of value in this certification, I struggle to find £180's worth...

Find the area you want to work, and do one of the vendor specific entry level certs. You will find they have a better weighting in the industry (Cisco / Microsoft / VMware / Oracle)

Good luck!

 

As much as I would love to get CCNA I would imagine it would be a waste of time as far as getting a job goes, seeing though no one will touch you without experience with Cisco equipment. I have never really seen a demand from employers for comptia a+ certified people, but I have always been advised the cert is a first starting point.

 

Agreed, however you wouldn't take the CCNA as the entry level.

I started out with A+ admittedly but studied CCENT, this is completely entry level and gives you exposure to managing Cisco kit.
Killing two birds with one stone, getting vendor qualified and gaining exposure to the kit you will be managing.

After passing the CCENT I moved onto a Junior network engineer role on about 15K. Not alot of money at all, but it was my foot in the door, and got me up the ranks.

Making it relevant back to A+, due to the vendor nuturalness (if that's even a real word! ) it will categorically give you no experience, and wont be directly relevant to any kit out there. It does as a good point provide conceptual knowledge, but so does the CCENT / MTA / MCTS / JNCIA as well as being relevant to the technology that pays our wages.

I wouldn't like to see someone starting out spend alot of money on a certification that doesn't have that high a value.

Maybe let us know where you ultimately want to be?

 

I have to admit that personally speaking I always viewed the A+ as a more US based certification than a UK based one, it's not something I really see people asking for over here.

I wouldn't spend that kind of money on the A+ either, if I can get myself certified on VCP for not much more then that (via an academy I should add rather than a VATC) then there would be no way I would advise that kind of money for a course that is attainable via self study.

Sorry to say but if self study isn't working for you with the A+ what's to say that the classroom approach will work? Yes I really prefer classroom based training myself but that's generally for topics that are niche such as SCCM, subjects like the A+ really are attainable via self study, you just have to want it.

I would hate to see you wasting that much money and find at the end of it that you're no better off then you are now.

 

I do value the A+ certification as it gave me a good grounding on fundamental concepts relating to hardware and operating systems. Although yes, it's not quite valued here as in the US, I would still take it as it's a good starter exam. However, I would definitely not pay the £900 for a classroom-led course; it's simply not worth it. I would advise you to grab a study book (the Mike Meyers book is the one I used), self-study and take the test.

 

Thanks for saving me £900 I think I may go for an MTA and possibly a MCSA after.. what you guys think?

 

What IT role are you looking to get into? IT Support? Have you sat an IT exam before? If you're looking to get into Support as opposed to programming and have never sat an IT exam, I would recommend taking the MTA in Windows Operating System Fundamentals. I suspect many would disagree, but if you lack confidence and/or want to get a feel of how the computerised exams work, this MTA will help you out in this regard.

 

Sorry for late reply I've been ridiculously busy at work lately, thought I'd reply as you all took the time to respond. I have purchased some study materials for MTA Windows Operating Systems exam, I will probably do a few of the MTAs first as Im new to this. When I thought about what it is I actually want to do in IT, fixing hardware problems isn't top of my list I would rather stick to the desktop/network side BUT I think these days it really all goes hand in hand so will probably atleast read my A+ study guide book even if I don't sit the exam.