CCNA or MCSA?

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I want to get a job and work from server side. I don't want to waste my time doing help desk. So far, I got bachelor degree in IT and CompTIA A+ and Network+ certification but I am having hard time getting server side entry level jobs. I was studying for CCNA for few weeks but CCNA recently got updated to v3 and studying materials are still not out yet.

Would it be better for me to go for MCSA first before CCNA?
How hard is MCSA exam? I see I have to take exam 410, 411, 412 for server 2012 and exam 461, 462, 463 for sql server 2012. From what I have seen on online job requirements, a lot of companies listed these in their requirement. Is it realistic to pass 1 exam per month if I work 40 hours a week and only have like 15 hours so per week to study?

 

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if you haven't got the real world experience of working in IT trying to get in as a Server Admin is nigh on impossible.

A degree in IT is great but without any real world experience you're not going to really find anyone willing to hire you. It's the same with the CCNA, I know guys in the networking industry who had to start at the bottom of the rung, earned their experience and then took the CCNA, please understand that exams like the CCNA and MCSA aren't there to give you real world experience, they are there to show you have that real world experience.

If you want to work on the server side of things you really are going to have to work in service desk style of role, do a bit of desktop support and show your server admin team that you have that skill set required to move in to the world of server admin, having been a hiring manager before I know that given the option of a freshly minted 'server' engineer with an MCSA or a seasoned desktop support engineer with no MCSA I am going to hire the desktop engineer over the freshly minted 'server' engineer because the desktop engineer has the real world experience.

 

Simon has covered it all to be honest.

I think its VERY VERY rare for someone to come in with no experience and just qualifications at that level.

From my experience, when I started out 6 years ago, I was studying for the CompTIA A+ and I just blitzed everyone. Recruitment firms, companies, anyone that was advertising for a Service Desk / Helpdesk I applied. I had a LOT of rejections, all because I didn't have the experience.

In all honesty mate, as Simon stated, you will probably have to start at the bottom.

 

Probably because they don't exist...
CCNA will not help, it's a networking cert. Where you have a dedicated server team you would usually find a dedicated networking team. If there's a mixed team you need on average about 5 years+ of relevant experience. Everything varies between companies though.

It would be realistic to pass 1 exam per month if you knew and worked with the subjects for a couple of years... Exams are rather hard even for experienced people. Official materials do not cover what's on the exams and that's where experience is necessary.

 

I think CCNA is more Greatest Than MCSA. But that depends on what type of career you are wanting to get into . You really haven't provided much information.