new career CCNA

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Hi Ziyad,

Simply put you have no experience and you most likely put on your CV that you are CCNA certified, which you were advised not to do... THIS is the reason you're not having any luck when apply for jobs.

CCNA would be good enough if you had the relevant experience to back it up, say 3-4 years 1st, 2nd line support and 2 years+ 3rd line support, IT is not a career that you can just walk into and if you do actually get your foot in the door it's certainly not a walk in the park.

Adverts like Computeach tell people it's an easy career change, 'One minute I was a bin man, the next I have a nice suit and a Jag' and as your finding out this is not the case.

Like anything in life you have to work hard for a long time to get anything out of it, IT is no different but you MUST start at the bottom, a certification is only there to back up your experience.

Good luck,

Phil

 

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Ziyad would do well to follow the advice and wisdom found in this post. Repped.

 

Hello Mate. 1st of all having certificate means you know something. im agree with you that experience essencial. i have few routers and switches and 7 desktop and 2 laptop, i connected all together working with them just fine. as i said i cant go to some company ask for them that, hi, i wanna work for you as a 1st line support. and when they ask me what do you know? and i dont want to tell tham that nothing or basic(Comptia A+, Network+ or i have a certificate 70-271 which is xp cert.).I rother study and get certificates and going to exam and studying everyday 12-13 hours. this is a experience too. Most of collegues here didnt get what i want. i dont want to jump to enterprise company and work as a system admin or network admin. i want to get job as 1st line support too. but there is no jobsfor beginners. actually for all 1st line support jobs they want experienced guys. i just had another exam today i passed 70-640(mcts), now gonna study for 70-642.
So most of you guys here insteadof giving support to new guys, you just saying no, dont get ccna because this is not good for you. you cant get job. This is not helping anyone. You should say well done go for it. Anyway PHIL 182! you are wrong mate. you will see. having 70-271 is not good enough. you should get at least 70-620 and study ipv6. which i will do that after i get my mcitp.
Thanks everyone for reading and replying to my messages
God bless you all. and i wish all the best for all new starters. Go for it and get your certificate and go to forums and try sorting peoples problems. this is best experience for you while you studying.
thanks again

 

Can someone tell me a typical salary on 1st level / 2nd level and 3rd level support? Just a very vague average.


Thanks.

 

I don't think you're grasping what everyone is telling you. Look at it like being a doctor, you can go to med school but you still need to intern and work your way up the ladder before you become a doctor. Picture me walking into a hospital with a medical degree, but I haven't completed any residency and want a job as a doctor. This is basically what you are doing. Certifications are not a replacement for experience. If you apply for a job and they see that you have no experience but have certs, the first thing they will think is that you know the theories but have no real world experience. It's one thing to know the theory, but in the real world you need experience to tell you when to use that theory.

I will restate what everyone has already said as clear as possible: With no experience, your certifications will be worthless. Certs without any related experience are not going to get you a job. The only exception are entry level certs like A+, Net+, and MCDST which are designed for people who are starting out. And if by some miracle you do get a job, I would question the competence of that IT department hiring someone with no experience just because they have a cert. Do yourself a favor, leave the high end certs for later. Like someone said before, you will forget most of the things you've studied once you finally get a chance to fill those roles. By then it will be too late. If you want an example of how to progress quickly in IT (the right way) hop over to the employment forums and look at "How I Got Into IT" and "My First Year in IT" . You'll see that these guys rose up the ranks just like many of us have had to do. You're doing yourself a disservice by not listening to the people here. We've been in this game for a while, and we're only telling you these things for the sake of your career. I hope you make the right choice, man.

 

join technet and get a vista trial from them otherwise you can still buy vista.

As said by other people on here you should do A+,N+ and MCDST plus the upgrades. Having the CCNA without the experience of real world cisco kit support could do you more harm than good.

There are certs for people who want to get into IT and certs for people who already work in IT within specific areas and the ccna is for people who manage and support cisco hubs and switches on a day to day basis.

 

Sorry have to disagree, and not knocking the value of certificates, but all they do is prove you can pass an exam, anyone who has worked in IT and passed an exam in any software/hardware area will tell you that 9 times out of 10, a problem that occurs in real life will never be found anywhere near an exam, in fact its a rare occurance.

Also with the plague that is braindumps, passing an exam with no experience raises suspicions that the person in question may have cheated, an unfair assumption, but based upon experience.

A live environment, with proper processes and procedures to follow before you make changes, is a million light years away from a test environment.

The advice given to you here has been spot on, I took and passed CCNA after 8 years in IT, 3ish of those spent working for a network reseller, so I had experience in real life, and that experience cannot be gained in a home, or in a training providers lab, skills yes.

Let me put it this way, employers want and pay for wisdom, a ccna course will teach you skills, but skills need to be put into practice to gain experience, then when you reach a level of experience then you can be classed an effective IT professional in that area then you gain the Wisdom employers need to help them run their businesses.

On the other hand, gaining the skills, but not being able to put them into practice, then unfortunately the skills stagnate and eventually are lost from memory.

Thus in essence wasting time, money and some of that precious gift called life.

 

You misunderstand the term "experience". When we say "experience", we are meaning what employers consider experience... which is doing IT stuff in a real-world environment... not studying and doing exams. Although doing those things are worthwhile, it is not what employers consider "experience" when they ask for "1 to 2 years experience doing network administration" in a job listing.

Better you know what employers mean now rather than in an interview situation...

You are mistaken. Every single one of us who works in IT started out at a place where they hired someone without experience. After all, before we got our first IT jobs, every single one of us had no experience. And those jobs are still out there. If you don't see them, perhaps you don't know where to look for them.

Because we are not telling you what you want to hear, you think we are not helping you?

Dude... the reason why we say that advanced certifications won't help you get your first IT job is because advanced certifications don't have anything to do with entry-level IT work.

You have to look at this from the employer's point of view. Let's say I had an entry-level job to offer. Not a server admin job, not a network admin job... just an entry-level job, doing desktop support, or field service work, or PC repair, or working on a help desk. When I see your CV and see all those advanced certifications, I'm going to think one or more of the following:
1) Wow, this guy passed all these certifications with no experience whatsoever. With all the braindumping going on out there, it's more likely he's braindumped the exam. I can't risk hiring someone who might have that level of integrity.
2) This guy's got a bunch of advanced certifications, none of which relate to the job I'm offering. He's likely to want MCSE or CCNA-level money. I'm not gonna waste my time or his by bringing him in for an interview.
3) Hmm... this guy's got a bunch of advanced certifications, none of which relate to the job I'm offering. It is obvious that he's looking for something better than entry-level work. If I hire him, he's likely to leave me as soon as he finds a server admin or network admin job, leaving me to find, hire, and train someone all over again. I can't risk hiring him.

And let me tell you... number 3 is by far the most likely thing that employers are going to think. If you want an entry-level job, getting a bunch of advanced certifications is likely to do you more harm than good.

NOW do you realize that we are trying to help you by warning you?

You're taking the attitude of a small child. You keep wanting to put your hand on the stove, and the adults keep moving you away, telling you that you shouldn't. Well! The nerve of them! If they loved you, they'd let you do whatever you want! After all, putting your hand on the stove couldn't POSSIBLY hurt you! The adults just want to hold you back and keep you from doing what you darn well please! Right?

But... you and I both know that's not true, Ziyad. Why would we want to discourage you from doing something that would be beneficial to you? And why would we want to encourage you to do something that could harm you?

I would encourage you to listen to those who have laid their hand on the stove before you and heed their warnings. Nobody wants to see you struggle to find your first job.

 

I'll see what? That you're over qualifying yourself? I'm an Application Support Technician, I have the MCP and today just got the MCDST because it backs up the EXPERIENCE I have, so before you belittle these qualifications which I and many others have worked hard for, listen to the advice of your peers.

These certs also perfectly compliment my job role, why on earth would I want to take the '70-620' VISTA exam when we have just upgraded to windows 7? Our customer base uses prodominatly XP as well and are planning to completely skip VISTA like most others...

Also FYI I got into IT by volunteering and doing an NVQ not by over certifying myself and applying for every job without having any experience, good luck with that.

You don't have to follow our advice but at least take it on board... Oh and the MCP was good enough to get a 16% pay rise ;)

 

Some excellent advice so far on this thread, especially the last few posts. I get the feeling it might be head against a brick wall time with this guy though.

 

Working at home with your own routers and switches is not classed as real world experience.

Real world experience is being employed and trusted by a company, for a reasonably long period of time, to do a certain job role, efficiently and professionally.

As has been mentioned already, working in the real world, will expose you to pressure and problems that you will never see mentioned in theoretical text books.

Certifications are there to add some theory to the things you are doing on a day to day basis or are going to be doing in the very near future. On their own, they are pieces of paper that say you passed a test. Sadly, a LOT of people cheat in order to pass the tests (braindumps) and they have successfully managed to devalue the certifications.

 

Hmm. Ok. You right. I think i was bit excited because i passed exams and was looking forward for nice job. but i do understand you and other friends here. I do apologize to Phil182. Sorry mate i was little bit rude. But you all right. Maybe i was bit stressed and had a pressure on me, i was desperate to get to new career. But like you all say, i will get my A+ and Network + first then i will see what will happen.
Thanks BosonMichael. Your explanation helped me very muh. and im sure it will help many others who is like me.

 

Good to see that you have seen the light. I would suggest that you look into the MCDST since it is expiring in June, and could be a good way for you to pick up some things that will get you in the door to an entry level job. Not saying that the other two (A+, Net+) are not important, but the MCDST would be good since it's gone once July 1, 2011 rolls around.

 

It's entirely natural for you to feel like you do... to feel the pressure to excel and to do it as quickly as possible. But there's two ways to approach your career development: you can take the more certain path of climbing one rung at a time, or you can throw caution to the wind and try to jump rungs. Jumping rungs *might* work... but you're much more likely to not advance at all or, even worse, to fall.

I am glad you have taken this advice to heart, Ziyad. It would have been easy for you to disregard the advice and to find something to be offended about... but you didn't. Props to you for that. Successful people listen to those who have already been where they want to go and have already done what they want to be doing. Continue that mindset throughout your career, and you'll do quite well, I think.

 

I'm happy to eat my words on this occasion.

 

Hello everyone. hope you all ok. i just passed my comtia a+ essencial exam. it was very hard. but to pass second part of comptia a+ i need a experience. i need some advice. i was looking for jobs but most of companyes looking for experienced people. what can i do. i really need some advice. thank you

 

You don't need experience for the 220-702 A+ exam.

Getting into IT isn't easy at the moment. There are a bunch of people who are looking to get their first shot at IT. That's why we suggest picking up relevant entry-level certifications (such as the A+, Network+, and MCDST) to make yourself look more attractive to employers.

The reason why many companies are looking for experienced people is because experienced techs are much harder to find and are therefore actively sought by companies. Once you get into IT and start building experience, it is not as difficult to find employment.

 

Hi ziyadIT

Im glad you eventually saw the light and took heed of some of the guys on the forum. They are here to help but only if we listen.

In regards to Comptia A+ part 1 and 2 you dont really need expereince for the second part. Just a willingness to learn and apply that. I took Comptia A+ after being doing my degree 6 years ago and starting my own company with my family which had nothing to do with IT. So i had to get back into it.
It took me a few months of self study and Bam Comptia A+ certified.

The guys are right though trying to find a job and jump straight into the deep end with ccna is not good. You do need the basic Certs first. Get your foot in the door with a 1st line support Job and work up from there.

You certainly sound determined, so good luck

 

Thank you mate. im trying very hard. and hopefully i will get something.

 

You probably will. Just stick with it - don't give up.