I am considering getting Certified in MCSE, A+, and N+. What type of salary should I get? The training for all of this is about $5500 is this a good price or not. Also should I look at getting Cisco certified as well? Thanks for your responses.

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I am in the process of getting certified for Cisco (CCNA first). The starting salary is @ $80K.
Sorry but I don't know the rest. I was thinking about MCSE also but too many people have that already.

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Binh

 

Without experience you won't get much... maybe $40-$50K to start... so if you have $5500 its a good investment...
As far as Cisco certification... you can fairly easy get the first level, but a lot of people have it and it's not valued that great... to get to the second level is tougher but still possible... but to get to the third level is virtually impossible without a good and solid experience of at least 3-5 years, if I am not mistaken there are only about 200-300 fully certified Cisco people out there...



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I have found two CCNA and CCNP which is Cisco Certified Network Associate and Cisco Certified Network Proffessional. So is CCNA first level and CCNP second level or what.
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Without experience you won't get much... maybe $40-$50K to start... so if you have $5500 its a good investment...
As far as Cisco certification... you can fairly easy get the first level, but a lot of people have it and it's not valued that great... to get to the second level is tougher but still possible... but to get to the third level is virtually impossible without a good and solid experience of at least 3-5 years, if I am not mistaken there are only about 200-300 fully certified Cisco people out there...

 

With the IT industry being the way it is now, companies are a little more selective on who they hire. Not to scare you away but with the falling of startup companies and a lot of the companies facing on a hiring freeze, tech jobs are more scarce than say a year or so ago.

With that said, just certifications will will not guarantee any salary let alone a job. And I doubt just a CCNA will give you $80K salary.

Anyhow, good luck in your certifications as they will help, but real world experience will secure you a job.



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If you are already good at computers you may not want to get A+.
If you are just starting out in the networking field then N+ would be good, but if you already have some experience then you could probably just skip the N+ classes and get CCNA. After you get CCNA you will probably have enough knowledge to get you N+. I would also recommend eventually persuing a degree in IT.

As for CCNP, it is 4 textbooks corresponding to 4 tests, so it is not easy. CCIE is even harder. This has to be something you really want to do because it will take a lot of time and dedication.

 

Oh yeah, MCSE is 7 tests, but I think if you pass the first test then you can consider yourself a Microsoft Certified Professional and put that on your resume. However, that is something I just heard and I am not sure if that is accurate.

Good luck.

 

After taking several A+ certification classes. I tend to think it is well worth it to take it. If you are a beginner, I would not suggest u skip A+ or Net+, think of it this way, these IT professionals already know the material, that's why they say skip it. I wouldn't. But it all depends on how much you know already.

I tend to think that if you are going into Networking go this route, A+, Net+, CCNA

but if you are going more software oriented then go A+, MCSE, then whatever else u want.

I think that A+ is very very fundamental even though alot of professionals say that it's not worth it. I bet half of them won't pass it on their first try, if they didn't read the book or attend a class.

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BDI is right. Unless you know the material then do A+, then N+, and then CCNA. Although CCNA does start pretty basic.