As far as I am concerned, I think going with independant vendor independant certifications like CISA, CISSP, PMP, ITIL etc are the way to go. I myself hold MCP, CISA and PMP and think that the non-vendor specific certification are more beneficial than vendor specific. <br>
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<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 7/21/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Eric F Crist</b> <<a href="mailto:ecrist@secure-computing.net">ecrist@secure-computing.net</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">On Jul 21, 2008, at 9:47 AM, Aaron wrote:<br><br>> A lot of you guys are in the IT industry so I thought it might be a<br>
> good idea to post here to see what experiences people have had with<br>> getting their IT certifications locally. I'm looking at getting some<br>> of these under my belt so I can move off of the dreaded Hell Desk<br>
> onto more engaging and exciting areas. So I guess my questions are<br>> this:<br>><br>> 1. Have you gotten any certifications locally before (A+, MCSE,<br>> RHCT, CCNA, etc, etc)?<br>> 2. Where?<br>> 3. Did you take classes or just tests? Which would you recommend<br>
> doing?<br>> 4. Any literature that you remember helping you out?<br>> 5. What was your general feeling of the process?<br>><br>> Any help would be greatly appreciated!<br><br>Here's my small tidbit of advice, limited as my experience may be. I<br>
have my CCNA - it did nothing for me other than make me fairly<br>knowledgeable. If you end up in a network engineering roll, higher<br>Cisco certs will probably be good for you. As far as MCSE, most IT<br>folks I know laugh at it. I don't know if Windows shops are different<br>
- never working in one myself.<br><br>Other than that, experience is your best friend. It would probably<br>serve you well to get out of the big-company environment and go small<br>time for a couple years. There are a ton of small 10-50 man shops<br>
around in need of full-time IT, even if it's only one person. Get in<br>somewhere like that and do a good job. Anyone, given some free time,<br>can get a certification.<br><br>---<br>Eric Crist<br><br><br><br><br><br>
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