MCP's etc

Villain

Hi guys,

I'm stuck in a rut and need to get out bad, I've been applying for a jobs here and there without any luck.

I have 3 months experience in a hands on role that I done in the local Council's IT dept. I've been working for a year now on a helpdesk that supports over 20,000 internal employees in the US and Canada. We support a lot of applications, covering AS400, SMS, VPN, NetWare Admin and a world of other applications.

However my only official qualification is a Merit in a Certificate In Programming that I got from IT Carlow.

I've realised that if I want to have any hope of getting a hands on job in an IT Dept that I will need more qualifications, so I want to do some MCP's or MCSA etc.

I have a very good knowledge of win 2000 and XP and built machines and set them up for use on a network many times. So basically my question is what courses should I do and where is the best place to do them. I have seen some courses on iact costing around €2000 is that the going rate or can they be found cheaper elsewhere?

I would really appreciate some good advice.

Cheers,
Alan

Johnny Versace

Why do you want to do a course? Buy the course books/exam cram books/go to the dodgy web pages with the exam answers and then just take the exam yourself.

The stuff isn't difficult, there's just a lot to remember...

Dun

I got this book and flew through the XP (70-270) exam - all you really need it for is to familiarise yourself with the Microsoft likely unlikelies - likely to come up on the exam, unlikely you'll ever use in the Real World™™™.

KdjaCL

Fas do the tests for little or nothing, but getting the material can be hard ,Pc World have a great selection of books and some dodgy filesharing apps can get you everything else.

But once you know the stuff as above dodgy websites with test tests, its just a matter of ringing fas and asking about the test.

kdjac

Static M.e.

I was in the same place as yourself a couple of years ago.

I had good knowledge of Win 2k but I didnt have the paper's I tried to do the self study way but I just couldn't get through the books. I had a lot of stuff going on at the time and basically life at home was just to easy to go dosing / drinking etc.

6 months after i had gotten the books i still hadent even attempted the first exam.
Still getting paid **** money, still going no where.

Self study takes along time and you need serious self motivation. The M$ exams arent the easyest once you get past the server and pro one's. So basically you have to ask yourself. Can i self study.

If not then doing one of those course's is the best way. it seems like a lot of money and tbh it is. I did the full MCSE cost me 6-7 k < most places dont pay for exams, they are and extra 150 each and you have to do 7, not taking into the fact that you will / might fail some and extra 150 a pop. >

I took a loan out for 6 k still paying it off and decided to just get the mcse over with
bottom line is this, look on any job spec, the MCSE is one of the certs they are all looking for if you dont have it, its tougher to get that job because you arent competing at the same lvl, even if you know ALL the stuff, HR peeps still want that cert.

My advice is this get the loan and just go and get the full MCSE dont do the one exam at a time thing, well dont pay for the one exam at a time thing. If are going to do that is pay for it, get the full and make sure that A: the company you do it with is very good. and B: they gaurantee < Within reason oc > that you pass the exams.

After you have your MCSE you can get a much higher salery, edit your cv a little to show more work on server's and such. So the cert will pay for itself. And then start self studying for the other certs.

Most places just look for the mcse not the mcsa, so for the extra money just get the full. Infact if you can I would do the exams so you get the MCSE + security.

anyways thats my 2 cents

Villain

Thanks for the info guys.

Static M.e. can you reccomend any places to do the courses, thanks for the post.

ando

Originally posted by Static M.e.
After you have your MCSE you can get a much higher salery

Yeah and what planet are you living on

Static M.e.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ando
Yeah and what planet are you living on

---

explain.

Im not saying your are guaranteed a higher salery or that you can even demand it but YES you CAN get a higher salery because you can now apply for the Admin jobs that ask for the MCSE qualification, which 9/10 times will pay you more than you are currently on in helpdesk / telephone support role. I thought that bit was obvious.

Obviously this does depend on what admin role you plan to take within an organistion but even so I still think that having an MCSE behind you will a foot up on someone who hasn't one in the vast majority of general admin role's on offer these days. Coupled with a some experiance, you will get a better job and more money.

You see different ? explain. pointless comments don't help anyone.

and again this is just my opinion.

Irish1

I did my course in a place in Galway called passax http://www.passax.com/contacts.asp

Which I thought went well, the instructor kevin is nice bloke, keeps you on your toes etc. which you need. I still have all my books and such if you live near Galway / Dublin let me know and I can show you the course books you get.

In Dublin
I heard a crowd called Sureskills were meant to be good but I havent used them yet.

TacT

I used to work at iact and can safely say that if you go to do your mcsa with them you will get everything you need + access to their facilities, support from the trainers for 6months after course completion and a great place to learn. Expensive but well worth it imo. Did my A+ and network+ with them myself..

Static M.e.

Just found this web site

Gives loads of info http://www.petri.co.il/index.htm

ando

Originally posted by Static M.e.

explain.

sorry, my comment was a bit vague. I've been working in IT for 3 yrs now, and gained the mcse2k cert over a year ago. In my experience, gaining the mcse did not increase my salary by a large amount. The only thing that the cert has given me is the attention from a few agencies that have my cv. But even though I've got the attention from the agencies, the jobs they are offering are not decent enough on the salary scale for me to leave my current employer