Certification advice sought.

Discussion in 'Training & Development' started by London_exile, Mar 22, 2009.

  1. London_exile

    London_exile Bit Poster

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    Hi all,

    Just registered here. Have posted a thread in the new members\intro section. Anyhoo, for those that see this before they see my first post. here it is again;

    "Been working in various IT roles for about 8 years now. Have some academic qualifications; NVQ and HNC and some IT certs; Sec+ and a couple of security based ones, which in truth I've never used.

    Anyway I'm now at a crossroads. Do I stay in IT and gain more certs or try something else?"

    To open my postings here I'd just like to canvass for some advice on gaining some\more certs. The background here is ; a couple of years ago I tried to do a bootcamp MCSE (after being made redundant from my last "proper" job). Needless to say it all went pear shaped and I not only failed 70-270 twice, even though I've supported XP for most of my 8 years in the IT game. Well I didn't go on to do the rest of the exams as my confidence was totally shattered.

    In truth I probably should not have attempted the MCSE. But since then I've avoided any kind of training and or certification simply because of the negative experience I had last time.

    So, two years later, and am about to be made redundant again. Hence the crossroads I mentioned in my welcome post. So I'm going to have plenty of spare time coming up and wanted to know how to best go about re-trying for the 70-270. And what study aids are the worth getting.

    Thanks for keeping up with this long post. Apologies if it rambled on a bit!
     
    Certifications: MBCS |A+ | N+ | S+ | CCSA | CFIA | CEH v7.1
    WIP: CISMP | CISM(A) | CISSP
  2. kevicho

    kevicho Gigabyte Poster

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    If you enoy IT and see it as a way to have an enjoyable career as opposed to just a paycheck then ID stay, I put off certs for years because I saw something like what I thought the format of the exams was in an NT 4 MSCE sybex book and was put off, but sometimes we all fail and then we brush ourselves off andd try again.

    Maybe starting off doing the COMPTIA exams (A+, net+) might get you going with certs and build up some steam and confidence.

    Good luck in what you decide.
     
    Certifications: A+, Net+, MCSA Server 2003, 2008, Windows XP & 7 , ITIL V3 Foundation
    WIP: CCNA Renewal
  3. Kitkatninja
    Highly Decorated Member Award 500 Likes Award

    Kitkatninja aka me, myself & I Moderator

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    Hi,

    Just wondering have you not thought about topping up your HNC to a degree, you can do this part-time like me. As for your certs, while you may not have used them directly, I can guarantee that you have used the knowledge gained from them at least indirectly - for the majority almost everything is linked, imo to some extent.

    This is up to you. You may leave IT, but them starting at the bottom working your way up again and there's nothing to say that the same thing won't happen again. Or you can try a different field or level in IT, eg moving between the different tiers of support, try to make the move up the career ladder, move from support to testing, etc...

    Ok, no-one said that these exams would be a walk in the park, as not only do you have to know the tech kowledge behind it, but also the Microsoft way... With that in mind and considering that you want to gain a couple of MS certs, I would advise you to look at the MCDST (70-271 & 70-272, which would also give you the MCP cred) and the Vista MCTS (70-620). I believe that those 3 exams are the easiest of the MS exams (not to say that they are easy exams, just easier compared to other MS exams). You need a boost in confidence, I believe that passing these exams would help with that.

    Like I said above look at the 70-271 & 70-272 (which would make up the MCDST) and the 70-620 (MCTS Vista).

    -Ken
     
    Certifications: MSc, PGDip, PGCert, BSc, HNC, LCGI, MBCS CITP, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCE, A+, N+, S+, Server+
    WIP: MSc Cyber Security
  4. London_exile

    London_exile Bit Poster

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    Thanks for your insights. I have been thinking about having a go at the A+. So that might be where I start. You are right to say that I have had a massice lack of confidence to re-try any form of certification since I attempted the bootcamp MCSE. And now, with hindsight it wasn't a certification actually needed.
     
    Certifications: MBCS |A+ | N+ | S+ | CCSA | CFIA | CEH v7.1
    WIP: CISMP | CISM(A) | CISSP

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