CompTIA A+ Certification & Cisco CCERT

[indydude345]

Hello people, I recently landed a position as a Tier 1 Tech Support Specialist for a telephone & internet company and the certifications listed above are the ones I need to get in order to continue working, but as someone that still does not know much about what is takes to be a good technician (yet), what other areas should I focus on if I wanted to go even further?

I am doing my training in ITProTV and INE, and was given a corporate All Access Pass to every course. Probably good to just learn as much as I can, but I am still curious. I want to be as much help to people as I can and I trust that a lot of users here on this forum have the potential of giving good insight and opinions.

EDIT: Realized it was Cisco CCENT and not CCERT.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Are they paying for the certs? Otherwise I would tell them to fuck off and find another jerb.

Also Craptia A+ is a joke of a cert, and it's simply a cash-cow at this point since they started expiring them (and thus you have to continue to take the test and pay them more money to keep ti renewed)

 

[Red Squirrel]

Certifications in general are just a money grab. Just because you can remember a bunch of stuff by heart does not make you a good tech, or just because you can't remember a bunch of stuff of hand does not make you a bad tech. I wish they would kill this system already. The first search engine made the idea of having to know stuff off hand pretty much obsolete.

That said I would do the two that are required because well, they're required. And then just leave it at that. Though do take advantage of any free courseware CBT stuff provided at work, a company can take a lot away from you but they can't take away your knowledge.

 

[indydude345]

Are they paying for the certs? Otherwise I would tell them to fuck off and find another jerb.

Also Craptia A+ is a joke of a cert, and it's simply a cash-cow at this point since they started expiring them (and thus you have to continue to take the test and pay them more money to keep ti renewed)

The company is paying for them in full, I just have to learn. And I do know pretty much everything on the hardware side of things, it's the networking part I need more education with.

 

[DietDrThunder]

I took the CompTIA Network+ class last April because my company said it is a requirement for our customer. During the first day of class the instructor said that if we took the test immediately after taking the course, we would fail the test. I would have been better off if the company would have given me a week off to study on my own, then taken the test. Also, if I fail the test the first time, I have to pay for any more testing until I pass. I’m an embedded software engineer and this certification has absolutely nothing to do with my work. April is rapidly approaching and I am not motivated to study and take this certification test.

 

[VirtualLarry]

uring the first day of class the instructor said that if we took the test immediately after taking the course, we would fail the test.

Was he saying, that you would automatically force-fail, no matter what your score on the test was, due to the proximity of taking the class and taking the test?

Or was he suggesting that you needed time to process and recall the information taught in the course, before you would be ready to pass the test?

Or something else?

 

[DietDrThunder]

Was he saying, that you would automatically force-fail, no matter what your score on the test was, due to the proximity of taking the class and taking the test?

Or was he suggesting that you needed time to process and recall the information taught in the course, before you would be ready to pass the test?

Or something else?

The instructor told us that he couldn’t possibly cover enough material during the 40 hour class to even give us a chance at passing the test. He suggested we spend a few weeks of evening studying, then take the test.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

The instructor told us that he couldn’t possibly cover enough material during the 40 hour class to even give us a chance at passing the test. He suggested we spend a few weeks of evening studying, then take the test.

That's a fair statement.

 

[bfun_x1]

How about project management? People with PMP certs seem to be in demand in my experience they don't have to know jack squat about what they actually manage.