IT Certifications

[Greatscott]

IT Peeps… Got a question for you…

What is a CompTIA certification really worth?

Work forced me to get a CompTIA certification, was going to do A+, but given that it takes two tests, I chose Network + instead. So, now that I have it, is it really worth anything?


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[smack2006]

It looks good on a resume but that’s about it.


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[durok]

My experience:

I worked at Dell many, many years ago (when PCs were all beige, had floppy drives, I was there for the MMX Pentium CPU release) but then left just before the big tech downturn and became a licensed locksmith for about 7 years. Afterwards, I decided I wanted back into tech but just having worked at Dell building and testing PCs and running quality control on their assembly line that long ago wasn't good enough for my job hunt. So I went to a local community college on the government's dime (I served in the Marine Corps) and got CompTIA certified on A+ and Network+, and that got me hired pretty quickly as an IT tech at the VA. Since I was a contractor, it wasn't that great - and after several years they decided to no longer allow contractors to work from a VA facility, so to keep my job I would have had to move out of state to one of two contractor locations. I said "No thanks!" to that horse-puckey and got hired at an extremely large home improvement retailer to work IT for them. They're much better at taking care of their employees - was only a contractor for a brief time and got hired on direct. We've been tele-working since roughly March 2020. My CompTIA certs are obviously expired now, but I could get them updated through my current job if I wanted to bother - however, my resume is pretty much up to snuff now because of my last couple of jobs.

I will say that when I was taking the courses I was showing up early and BS'ing with the instructor - he said it was pretty apparent to him that I was going to be a bit bored by much of the course and let me demonstrate much of my prior computer experience by discussing the history of PC hardware during the class as well as take over reading aloud from the course material whenever he felt tired or whatever... After I took the exams he put me up for an instructor position at the community college for their continuing education courses (which is what type of course CompTIA certifications are, typically) and I was very interested in doing that instead of actual IT work - until I found out that even though the hourly wage was fantastic, I would simply not get paid if they couldn't fill a class for me to teach. That financial uncertainty made me turn down their offer and seek a regular IT job.

My ultimate job would be as an instructor, I did plenty of training new hires at Dell, and my desired career path with them was to become one full-time, but they changed gears while I was there and instead of hiring internally for instructors they began contracting out to a company that required a college degree in Computer Science.

Maybe I'll get a job someday as I wind down my working years (I'm 57 now) teaching some aspect of computer hardware or software use in a less stressful environment than straight IT work!

[Chiphead]

Originally Posted by smack2006

It looks good on a resume but that’s about it.


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I concur!

Yet, I am currently working on a bachelor's degree (and then a Masters) though WGU just so I have a piece of paper stating I know sh!t. So far the first three semesters have been getting certs, including CompTIA. I am looking at taking the Network+ exam next week.

I have been in the industry for 20 years. I managed an ISP for 15 years (one-man-band, everything from installs to network engineering). My employer sold the ISP and turned my focus onto cyber security. I work for a electric utility coop.

If I were to hire a person, I would take certs on a resume with a grain of salt. My thoughts would be "Great! you knew enough to take a test, but do you REALLY know what you are doing." Then I would proceed to test the potential hire.

[Greatscott]

Originally Posted by Chiphead

I concur!

Yet, I am currently working on a bachelor's degree (and then a Masters) though WGU just so I have a piece of paper stating I know sh!t. So far the first three semesters have been getting certs, including CompTIA. I am looking at taking the Network+ exam next week.

I have been in the industry for 20 years. I managed an ISP for 15 years (one-man-band, everything from installs to network engineering). My employer sold the ISP and turned my focus onto cyber security. I work for a electric utility coop.

If I were to hire a person, I would take certs on a resume with a grain of salt. My thoughts would be "Great! you knew enough to take a test, but do you REALLY know what you are doing." Then I would proceed to test the potential hire.

Three things that REALLY drove me nuts about the Network+ exam...
• Acronym soup. I thought we had a lot of acronyms in the military, the military are amateurs compared to the CompTIA exam. There is just no need for it, other than designing the test for failure. At $338 a shot, its not like they want people to pass....

• I REALLY wonder who taught these people to troubleshoot. The methodology they teach for the exam is really backwards.

• Many of of the troubleshooting scenarios seriously lack the amount of detail needed to make an intelligent choice.

I fully understand what that piece of paper brings. Right before retirement I went to a hiring conference. One of the employers had four interviews, the first three were in groups that got smaller as the progressed, then the last interview was one-on-one. One of the guys in my group seems to know just about everything they asked, and you could tell he wasn't bullshitting in the least bit. I was hoping that if I wanted this job that there were at least two available, because I was quite sure this guy would be the first candidate. When I got to the one-on-one interview they congratulated me on being their top candidate. Then they told me the job was in Pennsylvania, the company was out of Tri-Cities, WA, so I assumed that is where the job would be as well. I thanked them for their consideration, but told them that I had no interest in Pennsylvania (West-coast guy). Then I asked why I was #1 when the other guy seemed to be very knowledgeable about everything they asked. The lead interviewer explained that I was #1 because I had a degree (AS), and the other guy didn't...

[durok]

Don't know if this is going to be helpful - but there are websites that let you take practice exams for the CompTIA tests.

I knew from experience (reading the practice questions in the course books) that some of the questions seemed somewhat illogical, so I took the practice exams repeatedly which forced them to eventually feed me practically every question.

I'll say that was the best way to go about it, I even took note of the answers that to all intents and purposes seemed to be wrong and still have them saved somewhere on my PC.

Course this was many years ago...

I was pretty frustrated at the time, seeing those obviously poorly written questions.

But - I needed to pass the damn things!

[Greatscott]

That is, for the most part, how I passed the exam, just hitting the practice exams really hard. But, it also helped that my first college course this semester was networking, so a lot of stuff like subnet masking was covered.

[durok]

Example question (from about 9 years ago) - so I answered with the correct option but got dinged for it because of incorrect semantics on the part of the exam answers!

[Aleksks]

That depends on what speciality you envision for your career: programming an app is quite something else as maintaining a corporate network.
__________
https://www.northlandusa.com/

[hpiguy]

Originally Posted by Chiphead

I concur!

Yet, I am currently working on a bachelor's degree (and then a Masters) though WGU just so I have a piece of paper stating I know sh!t. So far the first three semesters have been getting certs, including CompTIA. I am looking at taking the Network+ exam next week.

I have been in the industry for 20 years. I managed an ISP for 15 years (one-man-band, everything from installs to network engineering). My employer sold the ISP and turned my focus onto cyber security. I work for a electric utility coop.

If I were to hire a person, I would take certs on a resume with a grain of salt. My thoughts would be "Great! you knew enough to take a test, but do you REALLY know what you are doing." Then I would proceed to test the potential hire.

You are one of the few that still do things this way I'd bet. I'm really glad there are still some of you out there. However, most HR creatures just look at certs and degrees as CYA material these days. And if you have none or few of those, most times your resume goes directly into the round file unfortunately.

[skurge]

been in IT for over 20 years now, am a systems admin. have ZERO certs. have never had a single one.

[Greatscott]

Well, I received my CompTIA Network+ certificate today... This is kind of how it made me feel...
I guess I just wait for the guy with a deer rifle?

images by Scott O, on Flickr

[Chiphead]

Originally Posted by Greatscott

Well, I received my CompTIA Network+ certificate today... This is kind of how it made me feel...
I guess I just wait for the guy with a deer rifle?
r

Congrats! I passed the Network+ last Wednesday.
Now I am onto the PenTest+ cert. This one I am actually excited for.

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by smack2006

It looks good on a resume but that’s about it.

X2, can you actually do/fix stuff?


IME most the tests/certs are all about making money selling books to learn and shilling classes to train you...not worth a dam lol.

[Uziel Reed]

Thanks for the tips. IT certification is quite important for me now, because I will study at the university and want to continue studying statistics and statistical analysis. Quite often I am helped by the website https://assignmentbro.com/us/statistics-homework-help where I find very useful information on statistics and statistical analysis.

[dugans]

Long story short:
I had to start a new career after 20 years in the trades due to injury and found that my computer hobbyist skills were fairly marketable - BUT....


In my experience entry to good jobs in IT nowadays seem to require one of 3 things:
1) being a genius and starting your own company and selling it for millions of dollars before you hit 25 years old. Nobody will really question you.
2) Know someone or otherwise have an "in" at the company so that any requirements and interviews are basically not needed.
3) have some certs that show you meet at least a minimum level of knowledge.


All that said - most of the certs really mean little, as has been said before.
But most places looking for even entry level Helpdesk won't talk to someone who does NOT have at least an A+.

[GA Dawg]

Originally Posted by dugans

2) Know someone or otherwise have an "in" at the company so that any requirements and interviews are basically not needed.

I have been in IT since the 90's and this is absolutely true. It also applies to pretty much any industry.