Just finished my bachelors in Networking and System Administration

Wondering if you guys had any advice for job searching, interviewing, practices, tips, recommendations for doing things, or just in general!

Downloading Linux Cinnamon Mint, gonna get some practice on linux, it's been a while. - Recommendations are welcome

Thanks

I think Cisco Certifications especially CCNP holds more weight than the bachelor's in Networking, may want to look into some certifications.

How long does it take to get a CCNP, and what are the costs to this? I assume it's all online?

I recommend hiring a resume builder, many retired human resources people open their own firms strictly to help people put together perfect resumes. Find one you can sit with in person don't try to build a resume from an online tool or template. Set up a LinkedIn profile and start linking to people. You can sit for any certifications you think you can pass but ccna and ccnp aren't easy ones like the a+ or something. Your best bet is going to be some sort of field tech work for one of the wireless ISPs. Check all of the web pages, verizon, tmobile, att, etc they all have "careers" pages. I know field work may not be what you thought you were going to college for but it's the easiest way in the door. Getting your ccna may be something you need in the next few years but i wouldnt set your sights on the engineer job title just yet, unless your degree is from MIT. Unfortunately it's a competitive industry and you will have to continue training/education for the rest of your life to keep up. On the plus side you can move up fast, make 6 figures in your 30s, and they'll pay for all the continuing education you need to get those raises.




ccnp and ccna courses can be taken at community colleges or tech schools either one should take about a semester full time each to get through fully prepared for the exams.

ccnp is split up into a few portions switching, routing, troubleshooting, i feel like theres another one i cant remember. in terms of college credit its around 12 hours, ccna about the same. but it's typically organized differently, you will be at the data center 40 hours a week for the duration.

No they can not be done online just like any other CompTIA certification, you will have to sit in a highly secure and regulated testing environment.

also, he's wrong about them holding more weight than a bachelors there's a million 25 year olds sitting in their moms basement with stacks of certifications wondering why they cant get a job. You may want to pursue these certifications as you try to grow in a profession, but you should have the educational background to get some sort of "In" with a company making $20/hour easily, with room for growth.

No he is right certifications get you jobs and hold much more weight. IT is a specialized field a degree shows you are general this is good for fields like software engineering or landing entry level IT jobs which you could land without any education. Specialization occurs when you obtain certs and specialize in different areas of IT. CCNA / CCNP is good if you want to go the network engineer route (you will never get past network administrator without atleast one of these certs). You want to be a system admin get REHL if you want to go linux side or get MCSA if you want to go microsoft side. This is the only way to get a decent tiered sys admin job that isnt absolutely entry level. The big money right now is in virtualization getting any of the VCP cets like vcp5-dcv is almost guaranteeing you six figures with some experience and other certs on top. As a guy who managed 100s of IT staff / lead engineer roles during my career take it from the first post get certs. None specialization in IT you can still land a job but you should pick a path and specialize thats how you make real money and get good jobs in IT.


Any of these certs (besides vcp) can be self studied at home with online resources and challenged in a testing center for around 100-300 dollars depending on the cert.

This post was edited by HackeZ on May 11 2015 02:22pm

Craigslist and simply hired are good places to search. If I were you, I'd avoid help desk and look for desktop support or jr admin jobs.



CCNA would be fine, but CCNP with no relevant experience won't do you any good.

It does him alot of good actually, CCNA is a good entry level cert but CCNP isn't only proof he knows what hes doing, it saves a company 25% on there annual cisco sales costs. For a large company this could mean his wages entirely covered in equipment saving annually thats pretty enticing reasons too hire

Edit: thinking back to the cisco pitch meetings from the cisco reps it might be 15% not 25.

This post was edited by HackeZ on May 11 2015 02:32pm

just sayin with a bachelors you dont need to worry about payin out the ass for certs and wasting another year of your life
You take that network admin job to get in the door somewhere. i know that was quite a wall but i did say in there that in the it industry you will continue training/education/certifications the rest of your life. but if you get a good employer like i mentioned they'll pay for it. i think the certifications are a waste of time at his point in time because even if he gets them he's still going to end up in the same entry level job when he gets done, he'll just have to be broke for another year without a job, and not gaining experience. You're gonna need 3-5 years experience before you can start making any real money you got plenty of time to worry about certs, get a job.

avoid things like this, you dont want to work for a desperate craigslist employer you wanna real job.

The problem is that very few companies are going to hire network or systems admins without prior experience. His best bet is to apply for anything that's not help desk or call center. And even then, depending on where he lives that might not be an option without relocation or a ridiculous commute.



I don't think you know what you're talking about. IBM, GE, even state and federal agencies post openings on craigslist. Yeah, you need to weed through some garbage, but good jobs are posted there.

E: I do agree though, spend more time job hunting than trying to get certified.

E #2: Op, you're probably better off asking there questions elsewhere. It might be worth your time to check out the forums on dice dot com or tech exams dot net. Those are full of professionals who have better and more meaningful input than most of us here. I'm willing to bet that none in this forum have worked in IT for more than 3-5 years at best, and both of those communities are full of lifers.

This post was edited by Qord on May 12 2015 07:54am

If you're solid in Unix fundamentals, you can probably consider a career in Build and Release Engineering. It's not difficult to get into on the ground floor, and there's a surprisingly large amount of material you can learn online.

Another option is to get into Software Testing -- even without programming fundamentals, you can usually make a good career out of it. And depending on where you work, you can even put your Networking background to good use.