CCNA plus career advice

theknif

theknif

theknif

Associate
Joined
3 Jun 2008
Posts
11
Hello

I think this is the best place for my problem, but if it isn't I can repost. :cool:

I'm pondering over taking the network+ and ccna and starting down the computer networking route. Before I do though, I want to try and guage if it is a decent niche to go into.

Basically compared to something like dev work or other areas of tech is networking a growing field?

Is the pay better or worse than a developer? Is it one of the higher paying specialisations?

I live quite close to leeds, so I'm not near major cities. Would this hamper my chances after moving from more entry level positions?

I can't think of any more questions right now, but any advice anyone offers is doing me a big favour. cheers/
 
there are certainly well paying networking jobs out there if you are willing to work/study hard. just google networking jobs in your area. i have been doing a network + and ccna course for the past 3 years in my own time. i am only about to take the n+ exam part as its been hard to motivate my self around work. i originally started doing the course when i was in a dead end job. im currently thinking about going back to uni as i can put all my time in to study. if you want to do well in IT i believe you need to specialise in something as a general IT technician mainly involves monkey work imo.
 
courses like CCNA and such can help, but there are simply so many people with a CCNA and similar qualification that it has almost become worthless as so many people have it, the further cisco certifications though are much more worthwhile.

highly skilled people with in depth knowledge of networking can make a great deal of money, but this comes with many years of experience, and its experience that is more important at getting a job then a CCNA or network+. Like the majority of people starting in IT, you will proberly have to go through a couple years of 1st line tech support to pick up a bit of experience, after that you may be able to get a job slightly more specialized in networking, but it will still be MANY years before you start making lots of money.

Also you ask if the pay is better or worse then a developer, what sort of developer are you talking about?
 
theknif said:
Hello

I think this is the best place for my problem, but if it isn't I can repost. :cool:

I'm pondering over taking the network+ and ccna and starting down the computer networking route. Before I do though, I want to try and guage if it is a decent niche to go into.

Basically compared to something like dev work or other areas of tech is networking a growing field?

Is the pay better or worse than a developer? Is it one of the higher paying specialisations?

I live quite close to leeds, so I'm not near major cities. Would this hamper my chances after moving from more entry level positions?

I can't think of any more questions right now, but any advice anyone offers is doing me a big favour. cheers/
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To answer as many as I can...

I wouldn't say it's a growing field, but it's sustainable in size, well paid and has potential for advancement.

Pay. Well it depends, in general it's not too bad at all. CCNA at the right place will maybe see you up to 25-30k, CCNP will be good to 45k or so. Beyond that you need more qualification, specialist knowledge and to be very good at it. Consultants for banks will be making £120k. I'm an infrastructure architect for an ISP, I do pretty well, I could make more an a contractor for a bank but I'm happy where I am at the moment...I doubt many delelopers are making the same sort of money. In short, yes, it's generally well paid.

Location is a tough one, I've always worked in and around London really. My employers have generally been banks, airlines, big property groups. It is probably possible to find decent paying positions outside of london but I doubt they're as numerous. That said a lot of ISPs have head offices outside london so it'd worth checking who's nearby.

At the end of the day I think you need to enjoy it. I love my work, troubleshooting live issues is a bit stressful but design work is bliss. I can sit down, design a solution, build it in the lab, think about how I might improve it...I'm big on how elegent solutions are, I want my designs to be perfect rather than just do the job...I think you need to have that sort of obsession to enjoy the work over a period of time...

EDIT: To give you an idea, I'm (very recently) CCIE along with other vendor qualifications (JNCIP for Juniper and MCSE and RHCE for good luck) and I'm still in my mid twenties. I'm proof you can go a long way quickly...
 
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dist - I was mainly talking about java developers/net etc.

bigredshark - CCIE at 20ish? That's pretty impressive. How did you decide that networking was where you wanted to be?

I really thought that as I'm only average (at best) at putting together code, I would take a stab at networking.
 
theknif said:
dist - I was mainly talking about java developers/net etc.

bigredshark - CCIE at 20ish? That's pretty impressive. How did you decide that networking was where you wanted to be?

I really thought that as I'm only average (at best) at putting together code, I would take a stab at networking.
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I wish, I passed my CCNP when I was 20 though. I orginally did more server side work, exchange and active directory design initially but I wasn't enjoying it and to be honest it was too irrational (troubleshooting exchange is a horrible job).

Networking was a bigger area to work on and it's usually fairly rational (that is, if you understand how a routing protocol works, you can step by step through why it isn't working and 99% of the time you'll find your problem.)

In the end I'm comfortable with it and it's usually fairly reliable. If something isn't working then you can be fairly sure it's your config and not a bug or bizarre fault which will strangely disappear if you reinstall the OS.

Server side stuff has been useful though, I do a fair bit of SAN stuff at the moment and in an ISP environment there's a lot of unix to deal with (most decent network engineers know unix and shell scripting, if not perl, pretty well).

There are a good few transferable skills from programming though, the structured way of approaching a problem is useful. I'll design entire solutions on paper and document them before I go near equipment, then I'll build the solution up stage by stage...basic connectivity, then routing, then QOS...
 
bigredshark said:
EDIT: To give you an idea, I'm (very recently) CCIE along with other vendor qualifications (JNCIP for Juniper and MCSE and RHCE for good luck) and I'm still in my mid twenties. I'm proof you can go a long way quickly...
Click to expand...

Very impressive. I hope to one day achieve a CCIE myself, but considering only ~16,300 people worldwide have that certification, it is very unlikely i will get it untill my mid to late 30's after MANY years of experience (im in my early 20's atm).

From what i have read about, and from the advice given to me by the OU, like any IT field networking has a lot of people competing for jobs, and unless you get very lucky, or have friends already working for companies who can get you a average/good IT job to start you off, then even with a degree its very likely you will start off as 1st line support for 2-4 years, then you can start looking at making £20k-£25k.

If you are lucky then you may end up like bigredshark and make a decent living, but although what i have said may sound sort of 'glass half empty', but networking is the field i want to get into, and im just passing on advice that ive got both here at OcUK and from my Open University careers advisers and tutors.

I was even thinking about trying to get a masters degree in networks and distributed systems, but at a cost of £9000 from the OU, its not something i can do full time, i would have to do it alongside whatever job i can manage to get after my degree.
 
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Dist said:
Very impressive. I hope to one day achieve a CCIE myself, but considering only ~16,300 people worldwide have that certification, it is very unlikely i will get it untill my mid to late 30's after MANY years of experience (im in my early 20's atm).

From what i have read about, and from the advice given to me by the OU, like any IT field networking has a lot of people competing for jobs, and unless you get very lucky, or have friends already working for companies who can get you a average/good IT job to start you off, then even with a degree its very likely you will start off as 1st line support for 2-4 years, then you can start looking at making £20k-£25k.

If you are lucky then you may end up like bigredshark and make a decent living, but although what i have said may sound sort of 'glass half empty', but networking is the field i want to get into, and im just passing on advice that ive got both here at OcUK and from my Open University careers advisers and tutors.
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Well, I do a lot of technical interviews for us and we get a lot of candidates but we do a lot of interviews to get people. The problem isn't attitude, it's ability. Too many people can't answer basic questions about things like most specific routes, the difference between and firewall and a packet filter etc...

If you're good then the work is there, I'd employ a CCNA who knew his stuff over a paper CCNP any day. But some of that comes from experience. If I asked 'What might prevent an OSPF neighbor from coming up?', somebody who's seen it in real life will likely have better answers than someone who's just studied it.

Thats not to say attitude doesn't matter, but I struggle for candidates with technical ability rather than the right attitude at the moment.
 
But there lies the catch 22 problem, Cant get a job because you dont know the technicaly stuff, Cant learn the technical stuff first hand because you cant get a job. And although i have never has a first line support job myself, i cant see that being a great learning experience as wouldnt any more technical problems be simply passed on to people who already know that stuff? thus not learning the answer yourself.
 
Dist said:
But there lies the catch 22 problem, Cant get a job because you dont know the technicaly stuff, Cant learn the technical stuff first hand because you cant get a job. And although i have never has a first line support job myself, i cant see that being a great learning experience as wouldnt any more technical problems be simply passed on to people who already know that stuff? thus not learning the answer yourself.
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Indeed it is the catch 22, depends who you work for. Our policy is to try and talk the lower level support guys through resolving problems if possible rather than just taking over but not all companies will be like that. Similarly it's all in the tickets what was wrong and what was done if you want to read it.

But yes, it's not ideal and you need to get a break with a good company to get on the ladder...
 
bigredshark - What was it that made you get into computers in the first place? I think I see what you mean about the quirks that OS's have, and I see things like that quite a lot. Would be a nice change to branch out into something different.

dist - Did you do the ccna from the OU? There are some interesting courses they offer.

See the problem is that I'm not in London, nor can I ever see my self moving hundreds of miles to get there. I prefer the area where I live now. Even travelling into leeds on a daily basis will involve about 25 miles each way. It's not even a question of doing networking purely for the money, if I wanted the money I would have done a Law degree or trained to be a Dentist.
 
Hi there,

The best advice I can provide is to find the area that you're interested in and follow that, for example - I'm interested in networks, but not all the gubbins of windows, so it would be daft for me to look into becoming a PC / desktop engineer as I wouldn't enjoy it over the long term.

As it stands, I wanted to be in networks from before the time I left school - I had a few rubbish jobs as I couldn't break into the industry then an internal vacency came up at a work place - Junior Telecoms Engineer (I remember it well!) and I've been here for 3 years now and I'm now Senior Network Engineer (I passed my CCNP last month).

CCNA gives a great foundation, particularly now as they've updated it with Voice and ADSL - before you invest too much, you can get study guides and CBT from a well known bidding site. This will allow you to guage how well it grabs your interest. (You also need the CCNA to gain any other Cisco qualifications - you can take the exams, but won't get the certificates until you pass CCNA)

I'm 24 now and I'm studying for the next certification which is the CCVP and maybe look to do a CCIE in a few years. I realise that I'm very fortunate, and I encourage the training and development of people in my team - where would I be without the support I've been given?
 
andyd said:
out of interest how many exams are there in the CCNA?

Thanks

Andy
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You have 2 options:

1 - Take entire CCNA exam in one go, I think its 90 minutes and about 50 or so multiple choice and sim type questions.

or

2 - The CCNA can be split into 2 sections (ICDN1 and ICDN2)and you can study a section at a time and take the exam for that. Once you take and pass both you have your CCNA.
 
pdw8 said:
You have 2 options:

1 - Take entire CCNA exam in one go, I think its 90 minutes and about 50 or so multiple choice and sim type questions.

or

2 - The CCNA can be split into 2 sections (ICDN1 and ICDN2)and you can study a section at a time and take the exam for that. Once you take and pass both you have your CCNA.
Click to expand...

thank you thats pretty helpful :cool:
 
pdw8 said:
You have 2 options:

1 - Take entire CCNA exam in one go, I think its 90 minutes and about 50 or so multiple choice and sim type questions.

or

2 - The CCNA can be split into 2 sections (ICDN1 and ICDN2)and you can study a section at a time and take the exam for that. Once you take and pass both you have your CCNA.
Click to expand...
Am I right in saying that taking the CCNA in two sections also gets you a CCENT?
 
MarcLister said:
Am I right in saying that taking the CCNA in two sections also gets you a CCENT?
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Almost, if you take the ICND1 and pass you become a CCENT. If you take the ICND2 and pass as well then you get a CCNA which superseeds the CCENT.

I think Cisco came up with the CCENT as a qualification for roles where IOS, routing etc is not required so just covers basic networking and then more of the physical side like cables and connections.
 
Chief Wiggum said:
Hi there,

The best advice I can provide is to find the area that you're interested in and follow that, for example - I'm interested in networks, but not all the gubbins of windows, so it would be daft for me to look into becoming a PC / desktop engineer as I wouldn't enjoy it over the long term.

As it stands, I wanted to be in networks from before the time I left school - I had a few rubbish jobs as I couldn't break into the industry then an internal vacency came up at a work place - Junior Telecoms Engineer (I remember it well!) and I've been here for 3 years now and I'm now Senior Network Engineer (I passed my CCNP last month).

CCNA gives a great foundation, particularly now as they've updated it with Voice and ADSL - before you invest too much, you can get study guides and CBT from a well known bidding site. This will allow you to guage how well it grabs your interest. (You also need the CCNA to gain any other Cisco qualifications - you can take the exams, but won't get the certificates until you pass CCNA)

I'm 24 now and I'm studying for the next certification which is the CCVP and maybe look to do a CCIE in a few years. I realise that I'm very fortunate, and I encourage the training and development of people in my team - where would I be without the support I've been given?
Click to expand...


What area of the country are you in, if I can ask?
 
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