CCNP - Please help me make a decision

Author

Please help me make a decision

Cisco_Power

2005-04-11, 8:07 pm

Hi everyone. Im a newbie in the field. No work experience (yet). I just completed my CCNA by STUDYING for it (no dumping). My question is, what do i go for next? I have net+ and a+ already too.
My CCNA instructor denied me an internship at his firm becuase he's scared I might screw up on a router and take down the whole subnet or something, only becase Im a rookie. I would really like to go for the CCNP or CCSP, but Im thinking that for a beginner, no firm would let a rookie touch a router or a switch (CCNP) console or even go poking around its security system (CCSP). Im thinking a firm would logically more or less move a rookie into server administration (MCSE) and other tasks like that (making passwords and user accounts, etc.

So the bottom line is, from all of your experiences for when you were first starting out in I.T., would it be better to go for my MCSE or CCNP/CCSP? Thank you very much.

mawwoods

2005-04-27, 8:05 am

If you are planning on working in a large company, the chances are that job roles can become more and more specific, in which case it may be better to be good in one specific area rather than spread your skills too thinly.

If you are working in a small company, then you may well find that in addition to pure networking qualifcations, you will need to be able to sort out pc (probably hardware and software!).

If you have net+ and a+ then you are not far off an MCSA, so you could just do a few exams and get that. CCNP involves a lot more detail than CCNA, but if you want to get serious about working on big networks, then you are going to need it.

I can kind of understand your instructors attitude, as when you are in intern you have nothing to lose and need to play to learn, but routers are usually a really key part of the enterprise, lose them and everything stops working, not the same as messing up on a pc.

As for the work side of things, again, if you can get into a big company on the IT side of things in any area, it is usually not so tough to move as companies generally would rather keep good staff by moving them to another area rather than lose them. Good luck!

perfectionist

2005-04-30, 7:58 am

I 'd like to advise you to try your luck with companies that distribute or sell networking products such as Ingram Micro.

I joined a company that distributes many networking product of many brands such as Juniper, F5, Alcatel, Brocade and many more. My company has all the products availble for testing and encourage the engineers to take as many certification as possible.

Working in such company will expose you to different real networking environment when you are required to install networking devices for your client.

Darko707

2005-06-23, 2:02 pm

Start with a tech support job, and get some experience under your belt. It is highly unlikely that any company would give you a high level networking position without any experience at all.

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