Need some cisco guidance

[Mattitude]

currently doing a 2 year course at my local college full time, my next year will be my network degree, i am currently doing a degree in I.T which covers a lot of area's.

I have nearly completed my CCNA and i have the chance to continue my cisco studies next year. Question is what do i do? I was thinking a CCNP?

What would a employer think of a graduate with a CCNA, CCNP and some Microsoft certs?

 

[pdw8]

To be honest I think you will really struggle without any real world experience in a Cisco environment. A friend of mine is a senior manager at a major Internet carrier and he throws away cv's by the hundreds unless the person has at least 2 year job experience regardless of certs.
Some will say its a way to get a foot in the door and 5-7 years ago a CCNP would get you some interesting roles but now the market is flooded with graduates with loads of certs but no experience.

Sorry if thats not a positive answer but I can only tell you what friends and colleagues in the industry tell me.

 

[paradigm]

To echo the above, you really do need some hands-on experience. I'd much prefer to take someone on with real world experience of day-to-day usage of the required kit, than someone with paper knowlege.

This isn't to say don't persue it, but certainly don't assume that gaining a CCNP is going to be a huge help in starting your career. A better bet would be to finish the CCNA and try and do a placement somewhere. Work on the CCNP whilst working your first role, and then move on in 12-18 months.

If I get my way, the next person I take on at work will have little actual qualifications, but is someone I know is more than knowledgable due to his years of hands on experience.

 

[mr.bond]

To echo the above, you really do need some hands-on experience. I'd much prefer to take someone on with real world experience of day-to-day usage of the required kit, than someone with paper knowlege.

This isn't to say don't persue it, but certainly don't assume that gaining a CCNP is going to be a huge help in starting your career. A better bet would be to finish the CCNA and try and do a placement somewhere. Work on the CCNP whilst working your first role, and then move on in 12-18 months.

If I get my way, the next person I take on at work will have little actual qualifications, but is someone I know is more than knowledgable due to his years of hands on experience.

Would you not want someone who has both experience and qualifications?

 

[s0ck]

Would you not want someone who has both experience and qualifications?

These people command big moola, though.

When you have the choice between uni boy and experience boy, the choice is very easy if you have half a wit.

 

[wij]

You're between a rock and a hard place:

People will say they won't employ you without experience, but how do you get experience when nobody wants to give you work?

Best thing you could do is get a support type job that may even pay for your training, whilst allowing you to gain a bit of valuable real-world experience. Which, given that a lot of people are doing CCNA courses and the like these days will really help to set you apart from people with just paper qualifications.

 

[Mr-White]

Before you decide on what cert to do you need to decide what you want to do, theres no point doing a CCNP if you decide you want to do security or VOIP in the future. As others have said, holding a professional level cisco cert will enable you to command a nice salary in the future but having a CCNP on a CV with no experience will put you on par with the people who brain dumped the exams and will make you look less employable. My advice would be to hold off until you have more experience.

MW

 

[Dist]

Although experience is always greater then qualifications, dont companies need a certain % of their staff to have qualifications to be a cisco partner and things like that? So if a company is a cisco partner then it would need to keep employing people who have qualifications to stay that way.

(This is not from personal experience though, it's just my observation of what i would have thought would happen)

Before you decide on what cert to do you need to decide what you want to do, theres no point doing a CCNP if you decide you want to do security or VOIP in the future. As others have said, holding a professional level cisco cert will enable you to command a nice salary in the future but having a CCNP on a CV with no experience will put you on par with the people who brain dumped the exams and will make you look less employable. My advice would be to hold off until you have more experience.

MW

Why is CCNP pointless if you want to do security of VOIP? I thought once you get a CCNP you can move onto the CCIE which have specific tracks to specialise in, such as security.

Also you mentioned about CCNP without experience being a potential bad thing, but is that always the case or dependant on how its obtained? Because once i finish my OU degree i was thinking about studying a postgrad course at the OU in advanced networking (which is basicaly 4 CCNP courses). If i do a dissertation on top of the 4 courses it will give me a masters. Would that look good on a CV, or just stupid without experience (although i do plan to work in an IT job while doing the course, although i dont expect the job itself to be at CCNP level).

 

[mr.bond]

These people command big moola, though.

When you have the choice between uni boy and experience boy, the choice is very easy if you have half a wit.

I agree with what you say regarding salaries, but he didn't say he was in a position where by having to make a choice between hiring a graduate or someone with experience and no quals due to cost (or any other reason).
Hence me asking why discounting someone who has both.

 

[jabroni_83]

i don't think a ccnp will be worth very much to an employer without experience.

i would have thought a good candidate for a entry level networking/support role would be the certs you mentioned without the ccnp.
adding a ccnp without experience would just make me think that the person was good at taking exams. i would get some experience and then take the ccnp.
i was warned about this very thing when i was looking to get into IT - dont try to get too certified before getting into the industry. i think theres a probably a happy medium to show an employer that you know what your on about and are eager to learn, without appearing to think you know it all without ever actually doing it.
theres way too many people in IT who have a string of certs but no experience. in my experience they end up getting stuck on helpdesk.

so, i would stick with your ccna, maybe get an mcsa and then get some entry level work and go from there

 

[iaind]

I'm no authority on Cisco, but I have to echo what has been said about experience over qualifications.
Someone with a CCNA and good experience is 10 times more employable than someone with a CCNP, so it's worth focussing your efforts on getting the experience.
6 years ago, I was at uni doing computer science but after 18 months or so I realised that the course was outdated and nobody would employ me with just a degree.
I made the plunge and dropped out, I volunteered in the IT department of a school for a few months to get the experience. Had to work 2 jobs so I could pay the bills while I did it, but it paid off - after a few months I got a job with a company who was willing to put me through Microsoft and VMWare qualifications.
It was a tough decision but the best decision of my life - my qualifications and experience have tied together nicely (Now a VMware VCP, MCSA and Citrix CCA).
Admittedly its a different situation to you, but my advice would be to keep the balance

 

[bigredshark]

Very bad market at the moment, all the graduates are joined by all the rubbish engineers companies have got rid of to cut costs looking a small number of jobs. You'll struggle without experience and you'll be competing against people who have it. You're looking at getting a low level support role and moving up with time...

I'm also utterly fed up of getting CVs of people who have all the certifications but don't have a blind clue how anything works in the real world.

 

[iaind]

Im not suprised you're seeing a lot of CVs like that to be honest, certifications arent hard to get in reality. The important thing to employers must be demonstrating that you can apply the knowledge in the real world

 

[pdw8]

Im not suprised you're seeing a lot of CVs like that to be honest, certifications arent hard to get in reality. The important thing to employers must be demonstrating that you can apply the knowledge in the real world

Which you can only get through real world experience............so its a catch 22 scenario.

All I can really suggest to the OP is to maybe approach a company and offer your sevices for free (as long as they cover any business expenses) like a work experience placement. Or maybe ask a charity or non profit organisation if you can spend some time with their IT team. That way you can at least get some LAN experience and maybe VPN/firewall.

This all helps when it comes to your CV and experience.

 

[iaind]

Which you can only get through real world experience............so its a catch 22 scenario.

All I can really suggest to the OP is to maybe approach a company and offer your sevices for free (as long as they cover any business expenses) like a work experience placement. Or maybe ask a charity or non profit organisation if you can spend some time with their IT team. That way you can at least get some LAN experience and maybe VPN/firewall.

This all helps when it comes to your CV and experience.

That's what I did (see my previous post) and is what got me my first job. My boss said it was actually more valuable than if i had the equivalent experience in a paid position, as it shows I was doing it because it was what I wanted to do, rather than for the money

 

[Curiosityx]

Personally i would try and fnd a position with a company now who would be prepared to fund your CCNP which will save you thousands in the long run.

As mentioned there are several career tracks following the CCNA, but i dont think youll have a good idea yet of which one would interest you more without real world experience, i think the CCNP is a good place to start as generally routing and switching are the core elements to any engineers skillset whether you take on security, voice, wireless or design.

As mentioned above 2+ years in the field is what most employers are looking for ideally in combination with a professional level certification although i know of several people who hold the CCNA but would tackle the CCIE track with ease. For Cisco partners certifications are normally driven forward by the will to obtain either elevated partner, specialist or master status.

 

[Mattitude]

Yeah i always knew experience would be needed. I get a placement after the course anyway and work experience over the summer holidays. Overall i hope to get a placement at a network firm.

There was a deal with one company after i finished who would give me a 2 year contract and pay for my CCNP which i thought was a better route.

Only experience i have is 3 years as a data installation engineer, installing: fibre, cat 5,6 and coaxial.

with install services from audio and visual, CCTV, door access

so i guess i have the knowhow in the infrastructure side of things lol

I have done 3 months work experience at a network solutions firm, built up servers, configured firewalls, switches, routers and a voip system.

Im just hoping this is seen on my cv.

 

[bigredshark]

To give you an idea of the competition you face - I heard recently that LINX recently were advertising a network engineer position (prestigious but not really high level) and they received 250+ CVs and interviewed half a dozen out of those.

You need to stand out in a big way to stand any chance against those odds.

 

[willhub]

Just a question about CCNA.

I've been told by my teacher that it is apparently illegal to do CCNA at home, I mean illegal to Cisco

Is this true?

Also, my teacher also says, if you apply for a job in IT, they wont look at your CV at all if you dont have CCNA, he says it's impossible to get any job and you are basically screwed without CCNA, apparently you have to take it every year or something and you have to do ALL the chapter tests again and read it all, every year.... Either that or you are jobless, so my teacher says.

This also true?


Thanks
Will.

 

[neil_g]

Also, my teacher also says, if you apply for a job in IT, they wont look at your CV at all if you dont have CCNA, he says it's impossible to get any job and you are basically screwed without CCNA

is he on commision from cisco?

utter rubbish, not all IT jobs require cisco (or microsoft for that matter) qualifications.