CompTIA and other certs in the UK

[Taylor7500]

Looking to get started in a career in IT, and the usual no experience means no job and no job means no experience loop is being a bit rough. I figure if I can get some certs to my name that could help my odds and really prove to employers that I know my stuff rather than them having to take my word for it (degree in a hard STEM subject with some focus on computing, but not computer science).

My question is this, are the CompTIA core certs of A+, Network+, and Security+ in any kind of demand in the UK market? From what I can tell they're more in demand in the US but I still see one or two people saying they're important here, and a few of those training schemes seem to focus on getting the CompTIA certs covered before they try farm you out to one of their clients.

If I'd be better off pursuing other certs, then I'd much appreciate it if you could tell me which ones are in demand or which ones are worth looking at to help get my foot in the door.

 

[dlockers]

They're not particularly in demand but they could be a differentiator between you and another candidate. Best to crack on and get them done as it'll take you all of about 5 minutes (in the grand scheme of things).

Less time ruminating about a Cert and more time doing the learning/getting the test booked, the better. Else I'll guarantee you'll be here again in 2 years asking the same question.

CCNA is also great but a lot harder and very much Cisco specific for a large part of the syllabus. Look at for MS sys-admin time certs too (MCTSs etc).

 

[Taylor7500]

Fair enough, much appreciated. Just figured I'd ask since getting the three core ones will cost the best part of £1000 and in my position that's no small amount to lose if I'd be better off getting a Microsoft or Cisco one etc.

 

[dlockers]

Fair enough, much appreciated. Just figured I'd ask since getting the three core ones will cost the best part of £1000 and in my position that's no small amount to lose if I'd be better off getting a Microsoft or Cisco one etc.

If you aren't willing to self-study and feel compelled to pay someone to educate you on such basic entry level certs, you're already bust before you've begun I'm afraid.

Everything you need, bar a notebook and pen, is available online.

And I mean that with the most sincerest, go get'um attitude. Most IT jobs depend on Google to survive past hour 1. You need to get used to researching on your own otherwise you'll kid yourself through the door with a cert and then be unable to go any further without someone force feeding you the answers.

 

[Taylor7500]

It's not that I'm not willing, but it's literally months of my income to be able afford the full set so I'd rather be sure to get the right ones than spend so much on one set and have them be worthless.

 

[dlockers]

An A+ exam voucher is £138

Edit: Sorry didn't spot you were talking about all 3. It is a decent investment. Get the first one under your belt, see how you feel - then I would put on your CV "studying for Network+ and Security+".

Apply for first line support roles in small business IT support orgs (loads in the Midlands I can point you to). Ask if they'll support you to do the other few certs.

 

[Taylor7500]

Yes, and in my current (and admittedly not great) job, after costs to keep on going, I don't have a lot of cash left over to spend on myself.

In any event, it's not chump change to buy the four exam papers to get the three core subjects covered so I just figured I'd ask in case people were going to tell me that CompTIA is trash and people are looking for MS certs, or something like that.

 

[jsmoke]

A+ is pretty basic level, entry level technician/PC builder, the problem is you'll never get to touch serious equipment without the CCNX certs and lots of experience.

It's tough getting started in IT as it's so competitive, you need the CS degree, a masters in IT, programming skills and then the personality to march.

 

[dlockers]

Yes, and in my current (and admittedly not great) job, after costs to keep on going, I don't have a lot of cash left over to spend on myself.

In any event, it's not chump change to buy the four exam papers to get the three core subjects covered so I just figured I'd ask in case people were going to tell me that CompTIA is trash and people are looking for MS certs, or something like that.

Apologies I didn't spot you were talking all 3. As I said - start with 1, get yourself a first line gig. Things may get worse before they get better but your trajectory will be fairly unconstrained providing you have the knack.

 

[Taylor7500]

Apologies I didn't spot you were talking all 3. As I said - start with 1, get yourself a first line gig. Things may get worse before they get better but your trajectory will be fairly unconstrained providing you have the knack.

No worries, I appreciate the advice either way. Yeah I figure it's worth looking at the A+ first and going from there. Pretty sure I know my stuff but definitely worth going over the course content properly to make sure there's not something I've skipped over. After that I guess it's just, like you say, getting a starter job in the industry and go from there.

I suppose the big question is that if I wanted to develop from something like IT support to something more involved like programming a few years down the line is that a viable transition? Or is it a no-go?

 

[dlockers]

No worries, I appreciate the advice either way. Yeah I figure it's worth looking at the A+ first and going from there. Pretty sure I know my stuff but definitely worth going over the course content properly to make sure there's not something I've skipped over. After that I guess it's just, like you say, getting a starter job in the industry and go from there.

I suppose the big question is that if I wanted to develop from something like IT support to something more involved like programming a few years down the line is that a viable transition? Or is it a no-go?

Get your foot in the door and follow your nose. In my experience, level 1 support was enough to drive me towards learning to script/basic programming just to automate half the crap I had to deal with. The idiot before me decided logging tickets "was beneath him" and got fired when redundancies came around because he had nothing to his name. I had made retrospective ticket creation/ closure semi-automated using some basic macros in my spare time.

A big chunk of IT is scripting now - Infrastructure as code, AWS 'scripting', headless servers so it is almost unavoidable to delve into programming.

'Serious' programming you need to be gifted or university level educated.

The great thing about smaller firms is that you don't have an army of bureaucracy to fight through and often using your own initiative is how problems get solved. After a year or two you'll be chuffed at what experience you've picked up or decide it isn't for you.

 

[Taylor7500]

Fair enough, thanks for the information. I did learn some basic programming for my degree but it was definitely taught in the scope of making a simulation to do science with it rather than for IT industry standard, so even though I can apply it to make things work and complete the basic programming challenges that certain job apps will send you before the interview, I have blind spots all over for things which were outside the scope of my degree.

Still, for now as you say I suppose the important thing is getting a foot in the door and getting onto the ladder, and worrying about what comes next from there.

 

[dlockers]

If your degree wasn't too long ago and you did reasonably well, you could try grad schemes of some of the big firms (Deloitte, IBM, CapGemini etc...).

 

[Taylor7500]

Appreicate it - I did try those and did reasonably well, but unfortunately just fell short. I remember one company I was in the top ten but they were only hiring eight and I just missed it.

Still, no point wallowing - I'll keep on looking around for those as well. Thanks.

 

[ivrytwr3]

As above CompTIA A+ is basic, i remember doing mine and it started out as "this is a keyboard, this is a mouse" lol. But doing the A+, Network+ and Sec+ would be a good tick in the box.

Also look at:

CompTIA CySA

CASP+

SANS 401 bootcamp (but very expensive)

Then you can build up to your big hitters such as CISM, CISSP, CISA etc.

Eta - of you're looking at the security side.

 

[dowie]

Looking to get started in a career in IT, and the usual no experience means no job and no job means no experience loop is being a bit rough. I figure if I can get some certs to my name that could help my odds and really prove to employers that I know my stuff rather than them having to take my word for it (degree in a hard STEM subject with some focus on computing, but not computer science).[...]

If I'd be better off pursuing other certs, then I'd much appreciate it if you could tell me which ones are in demand or which ones are worth looking at to help get my foot in the door.

It really depends on what area of IT you want to work in, if you want to answer phones in some generic support role or do desktop support etc.. initially then AFAIK those basic certs are quite common and well recognized.

But a degree in hard STEM subject with some focus on computing... that's way more interesting and keeps plenty more doors open, is there a particular reason why you're being vague though - what STEM subject and what focus on computing? Did you program for example - some stats in R or Engineering stuff in Matlab or computational physics stuff in C++ or fortran etc..?

I suppose the big question is that if I wanted to develop from something like IT support to something more involved like programming a few years down the line is that a viable transition? Or is it a no-go?

In a lot of cases, it's going to be almost worthless - answering basic IT stuff in a call centre or being one of the bods in some office going around fixing printers or installing stuff has little relevance to a software development career... like working as cabin crew on a plane when you want to be a pilot!

It might be vaguely useful if the organisation also employs developers and you can apply internall but marginal at best.

Application support type roles would be a bit different - you don't really need comptia stuff for these, more useful is stuff like say a good knowledge of SQL and Unix in order to query the relevant application database, look at what processes are running and search logs etc... + in house training specific to the application being suppported. This can be a useful role at a vendor to transition into development as you'd quite often be liaising with developers and writing change requests for them etc.. and familiarising yourself with a lot of the functionality of the application and some of the technical aspects... which is all useful if you then progress to helping to build it rather than diagnose stuff going wrong with it!

Perhaps some sort of Bootcamp course would be useful or short courses on Udacity or coursera - udacity has some careers help and nanodegree programs - or just self learn, get some books (second hand if necessary) build some stuff and create a Github you can show people. You've got a degree already, you don't need to take too much time to add some basic programming skills on top - I'd look at landing the job you want now tbh...

 

[dlockers]

Appreicate it - I did try those and did reasonably well, but unfortunately just fell short. I remember one company I was in the top ten but they were only hiring eight and I just missed it.

Still, no point wallowing - I'll keep on looking around for those as well. Thanks.

Try again. I know for certain they are absolutely desperate.

 

[Taylor7500]

is there a particular reason why you're being vague though - what STEM subject and what focus on computing?

Apologies - just general internet caution. My degree subject was physics. There was a second year programming module about making an N body simulation of the solar system under gravity, in java. That was fairly basic and was more about whether we could translate physics equations into code. The third year course was to simulate a particle accelerator and was all about inheritance and the basics around that, as well as polymorphism etc. My masters project was also a simulation of an ongoing experiment at fermilab - unfortunately I didn't write the simulation myself (time constraints of a masters vs a PhD or actual job) so it was more about putting in the data, understanding how it worked, and going from there. I was unfortunately scuppered when the author of the simulation left his job and the country before he was able to send me the source code. Also did an internship with some basic C++ stuff - more simulations and data analysis.

As far as I can tell, I know the basics and I understand the logic of it all which is a good base to build on, but as I say this was always taught in the scope of a physics application so I have blind spots all over - for instance at an interview I was doing well until I was asked about deadlocking and I just didn't know the first thing about it, which was never a pleasant position to be in.

Application support type roles would be a bit different - you don't really need comptia stuff for these, more useful is stuff like say a good knowledge of SQL and Unix in order to query the relevant application database, look at what processes are running and search logs etc...

Yeah, I've been learning some SQL just from online resources, and have asked my boss at my current job to see if I can access our DB with SQL rather than the web interface - that's in the works, but on the CV as far as I can tell just saying I've done an online course in SQL is unlikely to mean anything so if there's a cert or some kind of recognised thing I can go for then I'll definitely look into it.

Try again. I know for certain they are absolutely desperate.

Thank you, I'll take a look.

 

[dlockers]

After that final post, definitely find a graduate scheme from the big ones. They're crying out for people like you.

 

[explicit4u]

Apologies if i've missed it but how long ago did you graduate?

A physics degree is way more valuable than any entry level CompTIA cert, especially if you want to get into programming (I did those entry level certs because I didn't finish my degree!). There should be plenty of junior programming/development roles and grad schemes desperate for graduates like yourself, try not to worry too much about what you don't know, the whole point of junior roles is to fill in those gaps, just go for it.