Network World

Cesar,

Welcome to the certification industry. You're going to find that certifications aren't going to provide you with the level of comfort you're looking for when it comes to job placement. I don't want to turn you off of certifications, but you should know that certifications alone will not 'land' you a job. No matter which certification path you choose to travel, you're going to need experience to back up those certifications.

From the sounds of it, your experience is leaning towards the MS side of the house. If you have A+ and Network+ equivalent knowledge, you may want to look into getting your CompTIA certifications first, as those will also provide you with a stepping stone to your MCSA/MCSE certifications.

Whatever you decide, make sure that you visit www.CertGuard.com to make sure you're not risking your certifications by using braindumps. We've got tons of great information that will help you avoid those illegal sites.

Best Regards,

Robert Williams; Taylor Ripley
CertGuard, Inc.
www.CertGuard.com
http://www.networkworld.com/community/user/4864
http://www.networkworld.com/community/integrity/

I started out with an MCSE...then found Cisco....networking is much better. More elegant. Touches all aspects of IT. Better technology.

Plus, networking is HOT:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24717

Michael J. Morris
CCIE #11733, JNCIA

It today’s IT world, you will need to have multiple disciplines to become truly successful. A strong combination is the Cisco certifications and the Microsoft Certifications. The Cisco certifications will provide the network links, connect your network links together, and provides much of the perimeter security. By combining the Cisco certification with the Microsoft certification, the Microsoft certification will give you a thorough background on what network services and applications that needs to communicate over the network and through the network perimeter.

For more information about Microsoft technology and certifications, check out my block at http://www.networkworld.com/community/regan. Some blogs you may find interesting are:

What does it take to get a good job? (http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22707)

Everything you need to know about Microsoft certs (and then some) (http://www.networkworld.com/chat/archive/2007/121207-patrick-regan-microsoft-cert-chat.html)

For prospective individuals the problem isnt so much the workforce, the problem is lack of guidance and perpetuation of misconception to entry level candidates.

People need to learn first and foremost to understand the concise, yet distinct difference between a systems admin and a network admin. The two functions represented as the same (system/network admin) are as logistically incorrect as they are technically incorrect.

Typically you will not have the same person managing routers and switches as you do your server farms (plural, typically email server farm, AD server farm, remote access, print server clusters, etc). These are to incredibly different job functions and roles.

That being said MCSE's are a dime a dozen these days, over saturated in many geographical areas, and with the rise of Linux and OS X over the past 3-5 years, have lessened in "value".

Cisco constantly adapts their exams to retain their integrity and maintain that the bar is kept at a certain level. In addition CCNP's also make more money on average than MCSE's (Cert Mag survey 2006 http://www.certmag.com/images/CM1206_salSurveyFig1.jpg).

Personally I think there is more room for growth as an administrator/engineer in networks than there is in systems, but thats only my opinion.

I would recommend this candidate go in to networking as this is the field that is continuously growing and being "reinvented" every 3-5 years.

-Thomas

Cesar - It doesn't really matter whether you choose a Cisco certification or a Microsoft Certification as opportunities abound in both fields. The best route for you would be to choose the career path and technology that most interests you.

If you want to work your way up to become a Network Engineer, then the Cisco CCNA certification would be the way to go. The CCENT, or Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician, certification is the first step toward receiving your CCNA. It provides acknowledgement of the effort put in to pass the exam, but it is still only ½ of a CCNA. Though there might be an occasion where someone could use it to show that they are on their way to becoming a CCNA, in the long term there is not much value in the CCENT by itself. It is an entry point not a destination.

Working to obtain Microsoft certification, such as MCSA, can help you in System Admin roles. Although not generally as high paying as the Network Engineering type positions, it would be the step to the Networking arena. Which route you take really depends on the company you are working at as well because sometimes they interchange those two skill sets. The smaller the company the more interchanging, in larger the companies the job roles tend to be more defined.

Keep in mind however, that any certification needs to be backed up with solid experience. As an IT staffing agency, we find that the certifications definitely help candidates get noticed by hiring managers, but what truly counts at the end of the day is real world experience. The best positioned candidates are those that have both.

Gaining valuable experience can sometimes be one of the hardest things to do. If this is true for you, you may want to consider working as a consultant to help get your feet wet. One of the attractions of contract work for many IT professionals is that they are able to work with a broad range of technologies, in a variety of industries and work settings.

Good luck!

I think you should do both if you can. Start off with the Microsoft certs first, try to get at least an MCSE or MCSA. Then go for your CCNET, and continue pushing and pushing, hopefully until your reach CCIE.

But more important that all of this, make sure you're selecting a career path because of passion, not money. You can always make money in any profession, so make sure you're truly passionate about what you do. There are too many 'IT professionals' that are in the industry because they thought it was the best way to make money, but could care less about technology.

JNCIA/JNCIS material and they pays for test.
http://www.juniper.net/fasttrack

It will make everything else easy.

- persue Juniper to become a better Cisco engineer (as someone else mentioned Juniper is offering free training and testing called Fast Track and Juniper documentation and material are outstanding and sometimes free such as below)

http://www.juniper.net/training/certification/books.html and )
http://www.juniper.net/training/fasttrack/
http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/juniper-nsp/2003-February/000548.html

- persue Cisco to become a better server admin
- persue unix to become a better MCSE
- persue MCSE to be well rounded

And, so forth but always keep learning.