Looking for advice

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Hey good people,

I am new to this forum and have some very general questions on which cert´s might be something I should look into.

About me :
I have 2 years of exp. in the IT Support area (part time) and just started a new full time job also in IT Support.This job however requires me to only support poeple remotly unlike the 2 years before.

My new manager suggested I should take some certification exams to get up to speed with the rest of the team since they have finished their 3 year education (IT-Specialist in Systems Integration)and I am faily new to IT when comparing them to me.

I am based in germany. Therefor I don´t know if any of the CompTIA Certs are good choises for me if not based in the US.

The first cert. I was told to look into is : ITILv4 to get a general understanding of the IT world and Service Management since I am a part of it.

A friend of mine suggested to go and look into the CCNA (which as far as I know is being revamped and changed)and another manager who also works in IT suggested to go into programming / Phython or to look into DevOps cet´s.

I was wondering if any of you could point me in the "right direction". Is it wise to just continue with ITIL and take the next step after Foundation and take the "ITIL 4 Managing Professional" exam next. Or would that focus be to narrow ?

Thank you

 

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Hi and welcome,

You've spoke abit about what other people have suggested you do bu what do YOU want to do? are you interested in programming? I didn't even know ITIL V4 was out, I think I did V3 a few years ago, it's an easy passable exam, it took me two days (5 hrs per day) and I was well over prepared. I can't really answer your question without knowing what your goals/future plans are. With two years of IT support under your belt I probably wouldn't bother with CompTIA A+ but N+ and Security + might be a good shout.

 

Hello Julez. Sorry for my late reply.

I want to become a AWS Certified System Administrator and get the MCSA .

The thing with ITIL V4 is that it´s not out yet but my friend recommended it for me since I do IT support and he says it´s sort of the main thing you need to have under your belt.

After I get the ITIL V 4 I want to start working on my Azure Fundamentals Cert and one day become a AWS Certified Solutions Architect if that then a skill that is still highly employable and if I am any good at it.

On the short term I am looking at the new / revamped MCSA since I only work within the windows enviroment and will do so for the foreseeable future.

I got one qustion :

is it possible to go for the Windows server 2016 certification without haveing the Windows Server 2012 certification ?
From what I have been reading it will be discontinued quite soon. I haven´t found out when that will happen exactly and I don´t know if it would be a good idea to go for windows server 2012 now.

Cheers

 

Thanks for your advice with the N+ and Sec+

 

You don't need the Windows Server 2012 cert to do the Windows Server 2016 cert however you are going to need experience with Windows Server.. I would't walk into this exam as a novice tbh. What's your server knowledge like? ITIL is definetley worth it tbh, boring but alot of companies like you to have it so yeah I'd go ahead and take that particular cert. You might want to look at a certification road map to see what it is you need to get to where you want to be.

 

Hi
my server knowledge is pretty basic. I worked on windows Server 2012 only so far and that only for about a year or less.

Does that mean I can go and start to study for the ITIL v 4 once it comes out (how far do I need to certify for ITIL - is "just foundation" going to be enough ?) and after
how long should I study for the Server 2012 or 2016 exam ?

Found the certification path you mentioned.

Not sure if I am going to need to take the MTA to get to -> MCSA level in
"Client and device management."
Plan was to become a System admin first like suggested above to one day get into DevOps which really sounds like the best path for me at this time.

Cheers and that´s for your reply.

 

You don't need to overthink the first couple of certs you do, you might only keep them on your CV for two or three years anyway. Getting a couple of quick wins is fine. These are to fill a space on your CV, not to define the rest of your life.

Concentrate first on being as good as you can at the job you alread have, learn whatever it can teach you. At your next job interview you have to be able to say what you learned here, nobody wants you to just say "this job was beneath me". If you manage people's Office 365 accounts, then do a cert for O365, if you help them with Office apps, do something in Excel. If your company has an infrastructure team that does servers and Azure, then you can add extras to help you get into that, take some time over that, rushing looks a bit bad.

To get to where you want to go in the end (5 jobs from now), you will need to develop a T shaped skill set anyway... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills. Unfortunately you will also need to develop a high tolerance for corporate speak like that as well .... but ITIL should help with that.

Just getting cert after cert is a grind, everyone gets bored and burns out if learning isn't fun at least sometimes. So always do a bit of learning for hobby purposes. If you won't have any Linux in your day job any time soon, use a Raspberry Pi to feed your cat, or send weather information to Twitter. It won't pay off soon, but it will be worth it.

Learn a bit of web development in any language and framework at all (Javascript with Bootstrap and Node is absolutely fine) so that you will one day have code of your own ready to use in what are otherwise VERY boring tutorials for cloud and container stuff. Now you can put a web site that might be crap, but is yours, into an IIS server in a Windows lab... and you can host it on Github Pages, NGINX or Heroku too (you will learn what all of those are as you go).

Anything that keeps you learning right now is better than anything that bores you so much you stop. Also, Devops sounds so much better than it smells. You are very likely to find that you actually prefer something else.

 

@ FlashDangerpants
Thanks for your reply. I will do as you said and not try to overthink and rush things.
Also the tipp with " do what your company needs / uses" in regards to Excel and Office 365 is a great one. I will defiantly do that.

I didn´t think of the certs as a grind until now to be honest. There was just that incident with the last interview I had and the manager pointed out I don´t have any. He was very skeptical about hiring me because of it.
I mentioned that I learn everything as I go " learning by doing" and he had his doubts but hired me anyway.

That´s why I am so pumpend to get started with cert´s of any kind that might help boost my Resumé.

So thanks for making clear that ITIL will help and that I need it going forward !

 

Just ensure you dont go overkill with spending money on resources for ITIL, I simply bought a course of Udemy for £9.99 watched through it twice and that was it, don’t even think I wrote any notes tbh, it’s a real easy but worthy exam. Admittedly I’ve forgotten almost all of it..The only time I think I’d look it up again is if I suspected it would be mentioned at an interview.

 

I will look into udemy. Thanks for the advice

 

Could you send me the link for what you bought there ?

 

I went straight from desktop support to devops. If you want to go into devops, don't bother with the windows server stuff. Get a linux cert and a cloud cert. Learn git. Learn docker. There's very little competition around for jobs at the moment. You will get a devops job with the stuff I just listed.

 

Can you post the specific link to what you used @JK2447 for ITIL ?
I only see practice exams