Can I just rag on CompTIA for a minute?

[spartaman64]

21 hours ago, YoFavRussian said:

But a majority of the people out of my class didn't pass it even through a full semester of straight study time. 12th grade by the way, must be a lot of people with handicapped intelligence now.

 

The certifications aren't always worth your time anyhow, sure you can have an A+ and a Net+ but are you really qualified with almost no prior experience? Experience is a must in the IT field any position you can get you should take and build a reputation. Seriously with the amount of strange stuff a certification sometimes will mean almost nothing to an employer.

really? my class was a mix of 9-12 graders and like 80% of people who took it passed but then again not everyone in my class chose to take it so maybe it would have been lower

[wasab]

You should understand techology is quick changing, especially so for softwares. What you learn today can be obsolete in mere months. I remember YouTube delete video button use to be here in settings and one update to their site later, I couldn't find it anywhere. 

 

It is constantly learn and adapt or you become irrelevant.

 

Your certificate that you get today won't be relevant a few years down the line. I mean someone with a certificate in 1970s and knowing how to use a dos computer won't mean squat in today's world of windows 10, Linux, Macs, and iPhones/Android 

[wasab]

22 hours ago, TetraSky said:

What do you mean you'll never have to take it again. Your certification expire in like 3 years.

https://certification.comptia.org/faq/a/how-long-does-the-a-certification-last

It used to be a lifetime and those who got it before that changed get to keep it as such, but for anyone who get the certification now, it's only good for 3 years. Which, while it can make sense because tech is ever evolving... 3 years is just WAY too f'ing short. It should've been at the minimum 10 years (Just look at tech from 10 years ago and today... Other than it being more powerful, it's basically the same shit)

 

It should be 1 year at the maximum. Seriously, like one time there was a windows update and they did away the entire control center. Two months later, they brought it back in another update. 

 

What people need to learn are general knowledge that will never expire regardless of technology. E.g. for example writing. Knowing good grammers and correct spellings will never expired regardless how word processors evolved and how writing utensils and tools change. 

 

Any certificates that focus on specific technology are utterly useless in my opinion. 

[LAwLz]

On 8/29/2019 at 3:06 PM, The_Prycer said:

I took a few college classes and Comp Sci was basically "Intro to Computers."

That's probably because you took the introduction courses.

All degrees start out easy if you're already invested in the subject, because they are designed so that a complete novice can pick them up. But the difficulty level ramps up quite quickly and the classes you take in year 3 are very different from the ones you take in the first term.

 

 

On 8/29/2019 at 4:03 PM, wasab said:

You should understand techology is quick changing, especially so for softwares. What you learn today can be obsolete in mere months. I remember YouTube delete video button use to be here in settings and one update to their site later, I couldn't find it anywhere. 

This could not be further from the truth. What you said is only really true for things like consumer electronics.

Sure new processors and versions of software might come out, but the fundamentals don't change. For example even modern programming languages are heavily based and influenced on C, which is almost 50 years old now.

Almost everything in networking is in one way or another based on stuff that dates back 40 years too.

The same holds true for other computer science and engineering fields too.

 

 

On 8/29/2019 at 4:11 PM, wasab said:

Any certificates that focus on specific technology are utterly useless in my opinion. 

That's because you are ignorant.

Routing protocols for example have not really changed in 20 years. Would you say having a certificate in that is useless? There have been some changes but most of them have been "replace the IPv4 address with an IPv6 one, and some very minor other changes". The fundamentals have been the same since forever.

IPSec, one of the most common frameworks for VPN tunnels, was standardized in 1995. Since then we have gotten some newer cryptography standards but the framework is still the same.

Even with old protocols that have been updated, like DNS, HTTP and so on, are mostly just extensions to the original protocol. "Let's do DNS but add on certificates!".

 

 

 

 

One thing I rarely see get brought up in these threads (because most people who write in the have no idea what they are talking about and just repeat what others have said) are things like partner programs.

The company I work for are partnered with several companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Cisco. In order for us to keep certain partner statuses we need to have a certain amount of certified people on staff.

 

For example here are the requirements for a gold certified Cisco partner. Among the requirements are 12 unique certified employees with at least four CCIEs.

The benefit of being a partner is, among other things, rebates when ordering products, better support and contact channels, early previews of new products and trends, free or rebate for courses and training, and the list goes on.

 

Wanna be a Microsoft gold partner for Cloud platforms? Then you need at least two developers who got certain certifications such as Microsoft Certified Aure Solutions Architect Expert.

[Kisai]

43 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

One thing I rarely see get brought up in these threads (because most people who write in the have no idea what they are talking about and just repeat what others have said) are things like partner programs.

The company I work for are partnered with several companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Cisco. In order for us to keep certain partner statuses we need to have a certain amount of certified people on staff.

 

For example here are the requirements for a gold certified Cisco partner. Among the requirements are 12 unique certified employees with at least four CCIEs.

The benefit of being a partner is, among other things, rebates when ordering products, better support and contact channels, early previews of new products and trends, free or rebate for courses and training, and the list goes on.

 

Wanna be a Microsoft gold partner for Cloud platforms? Then you need at least two developers who got certain certifications such as Microsoft Certified Aure Solutions Architect Expert.

It's not relevant unless you're an actual IT house itself though. If your major client is a major multinational, and you're just outsourced from another IT company, your credentials don't mean anything.

 

The credentials (as far as CCIE/CCNA is concerned) do matter if you're actually building a network, but you're not building a network for one company every day, you're doing it maybe once, and then replacing kit a decade later. Chances are you're instead working for an IT company who has other companies as clients, and you just get shuffled between projects.

 

But in the terms of stuff like CompTIA A+ and Network+, and similar courses, these are beginner-tier certifications, and they don't help you earn more, nor do they really say anything about you since it's just memorization of often stale or inefficient information you never end up using.

 

You can also tell the difference between someone who has "just a paper certification" and someone who has a decade of experience and the certification is just a nuisance hurdle. Those Geek Squad people at Best Buy? Likely there is only one A+ person in the entire company. The OEM's will certify an entire store to work on their hardware as long as you have one person who took their training. Yet do you need it? Not at all. When I last worked for one of these stores that sold computers and electronics, everything just got sent to Nexicore, and you know why that is? So they didn't need anyone certified on anything at the stores. (And the manager of the store I did work for, thought these things were being sent to "Mexico", so that tells you how much management knows what the techs do.)

 

Outsourcing removes the need for certifications by centralizing where those certifications are held. So instead of having 3 IT people at each office, they outsource the IT to one company who then sends the same IT person to each client they have in the city. Saves the clients money by only bringing the IT staff in when needed, and saves the dispatched IT staff's time by allowing them to prioritize and triage tickets to people who actually know how to solve the ticket rather than keeping expensive IT people at a company that have to know everything.

 

What would be the ideal state? The ideal would be that you have at least three IT people per office, one hardware, one network, and one software person. Between them all you have the appropriate certifications, experience and appropriate muscle to move equipment.

 

I tell you this much, you do not need a certification to pull a 60lb UPS out of a rack.

[wasab]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

snipe

And renew them countless times cuz they will expire? Why would they expire if they are relevant for a long time?

[2FA]

4 minutes ago, wasab said:

And renew them countless times cuz they will expire? Why would they expire if they are relevant for a long time?

Because the companies don't make any more money from people that have gotten their certs unless they expire.

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, Kisai said:

It's not relevant unless you're an actual IT house itself though. If your major client is a major multinational, and you're just outsourced from another IT company, your credentials don't mean anything.

The jobs I would consider "good" are the ones who put you in charge of things like design though.

I mean, I think it's quite telling that you bring up stuff like Geek Squad when talking about jobs. Geek Squad is a terrible job and not one you should aim for. It's like saying you want to work at McDonald's.

 

4 hours ago, Kisai said:

What would be the ideal state? The ideal would be that you have at least three IT people per office, one hardware, one network, and one software person. Between them all you have the appropriate certifications, experience and appropriate muscle to move equipment.

If you think you only need 3 IT people at a company then you must only have been at small ones.

 

4 hours ago, Kisai said:

I tell you this much, you do not need a certification to pull a 60lb UPS out of a rack.

No, but I don't think people should aim for jobs where they just pull UPSes out of racks. They should aim far higher than that.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, wasab said:

And renew them countless times cuz they will expire? Why would they expire if they are relevant for a long time?

They expire for a few reasons.

1) The ones in charge of the certification wants to make more money.

2) Some things do change, although in general 90% of the test is the same from one refresh to the next (usually between 3 to 5 years). Just because some things change slightly does not mean everything is wasted. Like I said and showed in my examples, most of the underlying stuff is decades upon decades old.

3) Being certified means that you know your shit. The thing about heavily specialized subjects is that you forget it if you don't constantly work with it. If a cert never expired then you could take it, not work with it for 10 years, forget everything about it and then still be certified. A cert is proof that you have recent experience and fresh knowledge about the subject. Not that you might at some point in time have been able to pass the test.

[Suika]

On 8/29/2019 at 9:11 AM, wasab said:

Any certificates that focus on specific technology are utterly useless in my opinion. 

This is such a wild take to have when some of those specialty certifications net you 6 figure jobs. Surely they aren't useless and just for show if they justify such a demand from employers.

2 hours ago, wasab said:

And renew them countless times cuz they will expire? Why would they expire if they are relevant for a long time?

A certification isn't going to look credible to employers when some dude who got his CCNA 20 years ago comes in and asks how to telnet into a router.

 

I think it's fair to rag on the CompTIA A+ cert, I think everybody goes through that phase, so go study for a different cert and get the A+ off your resume with more relevant experience.

[The_Prycer]

15 minutes ago, Suika said:

 

 

I think it's fair to rag on the CompTIA A+ cert, I think everybody goes through that phase, so go study for a different cert and get the A+ off your resume with more relevant experience.

That's my end game. I'm trying to work my way in to Cyber Security Analyst or even some Cloud based positions, but I know it takes time so I'm just working my way up the cert ladder until I don't care to go any higher. I figure I should have Net+ and maybe even Security+ by the end of the year and given the amount of Cisco routing commands I've had to learn since we upgraded our infrastructure, I figure a CCNA is in the works for next year.

 

But that test was so dumb. It was definitely designed so you'd have to buy the official study guides or risk failing and certain questions were left purposefully open ended to be confusing. 

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

If you think you only need 3 IT people at a company then you must only have been at small ones.

 

According to Wikipedia, the company I work for has nearly 5-digit numbers of employees, double digit billion dollars in assets, and operates in 75% of the countries in the world. Apparently two years ago or so they decided to outsource all their IT to an an IT company that everyone in the world knows, and they in turn outsource to an IT services company, and they hire independents to do the actual work.

 

They do not have any company-employed IT staff at the office, and smaller offices have to courier their computers to the office to have IT services.

 

If that sounds scary... just ask yourself what kind of accountants, or shareholders demanded to compromise the company productivity so they could save the cost of employing IT staff.

[GDRRiley]

On 8/29/2019 at 1:50 AM, LAwLz said:

There are never any real recruiters in these threads either. You know, the people who actually determine if certs are valued or not when applying for a job.

While I'm not a recruiter I know California state government will accept ether relevant certs or a degree.

certs is a good way to not go to college and get your foot into the door of many companies but you are  going to want a degree to climb the rung. I've got at least 1 family member who can't move up any more at EA because he lacks a bachelors degree

On 8/29/2019 at 6:06 AM, The_Prycer said:

Now I'm sure someone with a 4 year Comp Sci degree knows things about computers, but I've found through my professional life that there are some really dumb people with degrees.

and thats why I'm an IT degree. I wouldn't recommended my school for it till they replace 2 of the most dumb class requirements. needing discrete math to start basic IT classes and assembly programing, which I'm sure was put in because we spent 2-3 weeks talking about hardware.

[LogicalDrm]

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