IT Career progress

Szidonia Hajdu

Szidonia Hajdu

Szidonia Hajdu

Associate
Joined
11 Sep 2020
Posts
6
Hi,

I work as an IT Support/ Sales rep for a company, unfortunately I need to do more sales then IT related work. I've studied CCNA a few years ago online, self paced training unfortunately life happened and couldn't finish my course.
Now I'm looking into Cyber Security courses and I can't decide which one to go for or even just forget them and take a different route.

IT Career Switch is the cheapest (£995)and includes CompTIA A+ and CompTIA CYSA+ official certificate but also have to pass CompTIA ITF+, CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Security+ but what I gathered they aren't CompTIA accredited certificates. Also before I could progress onto CompTIA CYSA+ I have to have 2 years experience as an IT Technician (which is good with me at least I would gain more expereinece)

Learning People offer CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Security+ and CompTIA CYSA+ official certificate and won't need to have 2 year experience to carry on with the Cyber training but it's cost £3500

Also spoke with The Training Room and IT Online Learning there offer is similar to IT Career Switch but more expensive but they say all of there exams are accredited by CompTIA.

I'm absolutely thorn between them I don't know which one is good or even if any of them are good.

Did anyone have experience with any of these providers?

Many thanks for the help!!!
 
They offer career help as well and the price includes the exam fees and tutors. The one I did with Cisco didn't have tutors and sometimes it would have been nice to ask someone to clarify things a bit more in depth. Although I might be naive to believe any of these providers better than one another.
I intend to finish CCNA at some point but I want to get CompTIA done first, I should have started that at the begin with years ago.
 
It sounds to me like your best bet it to look for a different job in IT support where its more focussed on support than sales. Provided it's a big enough company you can then progress on to 2nd line / 3rd line and maybe be seconded to a security team if security is the route you want to take.
If not then networks, developement, dev ops or anything else.

Personally I went 1st line > 2nd line > secondment 3rd line > 3rd line and have been 3rd line Citrix/Cloud services/mobility/project/security for a few years. I have none of those certification but have had lots of workplace experience over the past 5 years
The company I am at have also paid for me to go on numerous courses to support the different environments (probably 20k in courses in the past 5 years)
 
Szidonia Hajdu said:
They offer career help as well and the price includes the exam fees and tutors. The one I did with Cisco didn't have tutors and sometimes it would have been nice to ask someone to clarify things a bit more in depth. Although I might be naive to believe any of these providers better than one another.
I intend to finish CCNA at some point but I want to get CompTIA done first, I should have started that at the begin with years ago.
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Get the materials, self study and book the exam yourself. I have always done that and you save money.
 
So what is the best process when looking into security then?

In terms of certifications, I too am interested in this however have no certifications and no direct on the job experience in an entry level position. I know I will need to start out in an IT support role to gain experience while I do some certifications however I wonder where the best place to start would be.

Sorry for asking this in your thread Szidonia.
 
There are a lot of Cyber Security qualifications and courses out there, and it depends on what sort of job you are looking at.

On the offensive pen testing side then I'd recommend looking at the Offensive Security training courses, they've gone up in price a lot since I did them but still relatively good value and a good place to start.

https://www.offensive-security.com/courses-and-certifications/

SANS do some good courses but are very expensive.
 
You could sign up to linuxacademy and do numerous courses.
They are all free on subscription.

Find one you like the look of and complete it. If there's a certificate at the end of it, great... if not, you've just expanded your knowledge.
AWS/Azure have Security specialty exams too, pretty taxing but it's something you could aim for, if you'd like to learn about cloud platforms.
 
Allnamestaken said:
So what is the best process when looking into security then?

In terms of certifications, I too am interested in this however have no certifications and no direct on the job experience in an entry level position. I know I will need to start out in an IT support role to gain experience while I do some certifications however I wonder where the best place to start would be.

Sorry for asking this in your thread Szidonia.
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I'm doing the same, currently studying Sec+ to take my exam in November then will look into Azure Security next year.
 
You guys have been invaluable, I will begin looking at all this tonight. I really want to get started as I will need to get a couple years of experience too in order to apply for better jobs once I have certs and expanded my knowledge.
 
If you have sales experience then don't discount technical pre sales roles ;)

When I did the Sec+ exam way back when the Mike Meyers book was what we used on the course, would recommend it.
 
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The Training Room always pops up for me when I've been looking at similar stuff the past few weeks, but it's one of those things I'm really sceptical about.
 
Ev0 said:
If you have sales experience then don't discount technical pre sales roles ;)

When I did the Sec+ exam way back when the Mike Meyers book was what we used on the course, would recommend it.
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Thank you, I can't decide which book would be better - Gibson, Meyers, Docter & Buhagiar or Professor Messer notes :)
 
philyb said:
The Training Room always pops up for me when I've been looking at similar stuff the past few weeks, but it's one of those things I'm really sceptical about.
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They sounded so good over the phone, described the course and what else they offer (CV upgrade, job placement, career officer etc.) with it but then it gets down to sales. The guy I spoke to was a sales man and a good one at that, I'm in sales too so I saw what he was doing as soon as he started talking about money. He really pushed me to book the course which is £2295 but gave me a £500 discount, ( because he can :) ) so it would be only £1795 if I pay it in full but of course there is financial help if I need it but then it would be the full price, no discount!
After I told him I'll think about it he still pushed me but turned him down, then I started to get calls and emails from his colleague saying that I sounded so eager when I talked with them on the phone so when can I pay the course in full so I can get started :O . It got me so mad!! Never want to hear from them again. Some people might have good experience with them but not me.
 
Szidonia Hajdu said:
They sounded so good over the phone, described the course and what else they offer (CV upgrade, job placement, career officer etc.) with it but then it gets down to sales. The guy I spoke to was a sales man and a good one at that, I'm in sales too so I saw what he was doing as soon as he started talking about money. He really pushed me to book the course which is £2295 but gave me a £500 discount, ( because he can :) ) so it would be only £1795 if I pay it in full but of course there is financial help if I need it but then it would be the full price, no discount!
After I told him I'll think about it he still pushed me but turned him down, then I started to get calls and emails from his colleague saying that I sounded so eager when I talked with them on the phone so when can I pay the course in full so I can get started :O . It got me so mad!! Never want to hear from them again. Some people might have good experience with them but not me.
Click to expand...

I'd never pay that amount if it wasn't an in person course, but their courses do sound "too good to be true".
 
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