Career advice (IT)

homargoodness

Wondering if anyone could give me a bit of advice on a couple of things.

I currently work as a field technician for Dell, not bad but not fullfilling. Think i want to head towards something like a network/server admin.

I'm wondering if doing a Microsoft cert is the way to go for now. Which one though? MCSE? MCITP? Which one is more likely to be useful?

Secondly, I want to travel this summer so I was thinking of doing the cert at an Indian boot camp, anyone have an experience with these? http://www.koenig-solutions.com/ seems to show up a lot and seems reputable enough or can anyone recommend anything better?

Thanks

Jimmy King

Get a cert that is in line with your experience if you get one. A certification that is not in line with your experience does little good. You're not likely to get a cert and suddenly jump to a high level sys admin role. I'm not sure what the state of MS certification currently is since I work on the Unix/Linux side of things.

Based on my own experience moving up through the IT ranks (although on the development side), your best bet is to find a job where you get to work closely with the network and sys admin guys, get to know them, help with their projects, take on some of their entry level work (the ability to do that varies depending on company organization), etc.

Beltaine

It's been a long long time since I've done the cert hustle.

Like a college degree, MS certifications don't hurt your chances. It's basically a balance of how much you want to invest in getting the certification against how much extra income you feel it will generate.

Look around at current job listings that would interest you and see what their cert requirements are. Use that to judge which you aim for.


As far as boot camps go, I did one back in 1998 for Certified Novell Engineer. It's great for getting the cert if you know your your stuff and don't have a lot of time. I didn't really know much about Novell at the time, but my current employer was paying for it, and I'm a good test taker, so I jumped on it.

Passed no problem, but really didn't come away with much more than an average knowledge of the material.

I've considered jumping back in and getting new certs, but I'm happy in a stable job. The investment would do nothing for me in this position, so I'd have to find something new to reap the benefits.

homargoodness

That's fair enough, I'm expecting a very junior role to start off anyway.

Probably should have said, I do already have a degree in Computer and Network Support. We touched on servers/CCNA stuff but it was a few years ago.

Mostly just looking for something to do that will increase my chances if opportunities present themselves in the future (and an excuse to travel in the East little bit!)

PirateJon

The old "puttin in your dues".. Yeah. good times.

for the MS certs, MCSE is about it. You can get others, but they aren't as useful.

i want to head towards something like a network/server admin.

Besides the windows/cisco stuff, I can't tell you how strongly you should learn enough linux to be comfortable with it. MS is moving to a subscription/hosted biz model, and that will mean lots more mixed-OS shops especially at the lower end.

Oh and if you're just picking a cert, CCNA > MCSE.

Beltaine

PirateJon wrote: »

The old "puttin in your dues".. Yeah. good times.

for the MS certs, MCSE is about it. You can get others, but they aren't as useful.

i want to head towards something like a network/server admin.

Besides the windows/cisco stuff, I can't tell you how strongly you should learn enough linux to be comfortable with it. MS is moving to a subscription/hosted biz model, and that will mean lots more mixed-OS shops especially at the lower end.


CCNA > MCSE.

+1

CCNA is definitely going to be more lucrative.

Working for a public school system has required me to learn a lot more Linux than I thought I would as well.