General Discussion - How much actual hands on time between tests / certs?

Author

How much actual hands on time between tests / certs?

JerryL

2001-08-13, 10:35 pm

Hi;

I've noticed that on the different forums, once someone has passed their exam, they already have plans for the next exam. This is obviously quite common, and I'm just as "guilty" as the next person.

What I'm wondering is how much actual hands on people are putting between passing the test and getting their cert (doesn't matter which one) and going for their next one.

I know for myself, I don't have a lot of actual Cisco experience since I got my CCNA, and will soon be going for my CCDA. On the other hand, I'm now going for the CompTIA Server+ test, and since I have the experience I'm finding a large amound of the material a refresher. This is because my background is hardware and tech support. How confident are you going from one test to another without much hands on? I guess this leads back to the age old problem of paper certs.

Any feedback on time between certs/tests would be appreciated.

Tks

JerryL

ocpguy

2001-08-13, 11:42 pm

I guess it depends on how much hands on experience you have? I might be the exception to the rule... so I might not be of help.

For example... I've been a DBA for about 3 years now... and also... I recently took an Oracle class at a local school...

So I kinda knew most of the stuff already... and was just reading the study guides...

There are 5 exams... and I took 1 the first week... then the next week I took 4 exams in 6 days. Studying one exam the nite before.

In my case... I took 2 weeks to study the first 3 exams... then took them ... then studyed the nite before and used the test simulators (STS). Again it also helped that I went to school and was already 3/4 of the way thru when I took the exams.

I hear the CCNA is really easy... that all you need to do is study the Cybex CCNA book. I have NO hands on experience... with Cisco.. just basic networking concepts... and I'm thinking about taking that .... just for the hell of it.

As far as MCDBA... I have passed 3 of the 4 exams. I passed 3 exams in a week. I just read the study guides from brainbuzz.com, etc... I didn't study too much because I've used W2k Server before at home & at work... and SQL Server isn't that difficult... as I see it everyday.

But with most of these exams... if you just study the book... you almost don't need hands-on experience... because the tests aren't that difficult. Also, you can get dumps online too.

On the other hand.
I have a buddy that went to school ... majored in Business Admin or CIS... has been working for the last 2 years as a Consultant... where he does Exchange 2000 migrations, W2K migrations, basic systems admin, maintanance, perf tuning, between 5 different companies totalling 35 hours a week.

He just studyed a bit and used the dumps from www.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and passed the exams. This guy kicks a.ss at M$ products and W2k... but he said screw it and decided to use the dumps to pass...

A cert is just a piece of paper... you can take the tests in as long a time as you want... or as short a time as you want. The thing to know is that... regardless of however long you spend in the lab practicing, etc.... people will think you are a paper cert.

Don't worry about being called a paper MCSE/Paper cert. Everybody that has a cert gets accused of that. That's just the jealous nature of it.

The only thing that really counts out there is on the job work experience. That is ... for switching jobs to a new technical field.

So paper or not... the important thing is to be confident and know how to do your job.

darthw

2001-08-14, 7:24 pm

I have to agree with OCPGuy about the "paper cert"designation. I, too, have been accused of being a "paper tech" in spite of 3 1/2 years in the IT biz. Most of the time the accusers have just been afraid I was showing them up (their perception, not my true goal), because they were not pursuing college or certs. In reality, I do the certs to expand my knowledge, and in the case of my first IT job, take advantage of a pay raise for cert program they offered.

As for hands on, so much depends on the subject matter of the exam, how much experience you have with a particular product, how well you retain info, or how stressed you get during a test.

I have MCSE and a lot of NT workstation experience, but aside from some lab time in class and a little NT server maintenance at my previous position, very little NT server hands on experience. I'm also CCA certified, but most of my experience with Citrix has been on the client side.

However, don't minimize what a cert can do for you in spite of the fact you may have little hands on with the product. The CompTIA certs seem meant to expose you to general IT concepts, so you don't necessarily need oodles of hands-on. As stated above, I haven't administered Citrix or NT Server a bunch, but I have had to do a lot of troubleshooting in conjunction with the LAN/WAN Admin, and it helped that I have an overall knowledge of these products and their capabilities. The LAN Admin. didn't have to spend a bunch of time answering silly questions from me in the midst of working with the problem. As another example, I work around Cisco switches and routers, but do not have administrative access to them, but when our infrastructure guys mention access lists or VLANs, I understand the Cisco concepts and capabilities because I studied for and took the exams.

You will never know it all. Many of the certs will give you a good foundation of products, but it is the hands-on that will help you learn. However, I have found that for most exams you may only have to have minimal hands-on with the product.

I usually get a cert about once every two months. When I was working on MCSE, I average 1 every 4 to 6 weeks. Sometimes, I get several in three months, then none for 5 months, depending on my motivation.

By the way, CCDA is a good exam for basic LAN/WAN design concepts. The exam is not heavily Cisco product related as much as some vendor exams.

The biggest thing to remember is to present the certs as a "tool" for learning at a job interview. It shows a willingness to learn and stay up with the latest technology. Certs should be measured along with experience, other education, attitude, etc. to determine if you are a good job candidate.

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