Cisco CCSP's?

djfattony2000

Does anyone have this cert?

Im studying for it at the minute, have one done and doing another on thursday.

Just wondering if you have it, have you found it useful going for jobs? It doesnt seem to be as recognised as say a CCNP, going by job sites.

Ginger

I think the user _Creed_ has this cert. Might be the best one to ask.

Most recruiters dont know the acronyms being honest. I once vetted a job ad and they had a requirement of CCNA for a development position.

They know the ones that are most common and beyond that whatever HR send out

djfattony2000

Yeh thats probably a fair comment.

I might stick it in my CV that its equivilant to the NP.

_CreeD_

I had only started it when I got my current job and it definitely helped. It isn't as popular or known as the CCNP mainly because while Infosec is a hot topic right now routing and switching still overwhelms it in sheer numbers of deployed systems - a medium business might have 20 switches and 5 routers but only one Firewall/VPN. Also as much as IT in general is stupidly viewed as an expense by most executives and underfunded this goes doubly so for Infosec. Still, while there is less demand there is also less supply. something like 75% of CCIEs are R&S vs. about 11% or so for security and I imagine the pattern is similar for CCNP/CCSP so you are competing with less folks. Lastly Cisco doesn't dominate the security market as much as it does R&S, still it is probably the best known single vendor and I'm always seeing jobs that primarily might ask for another vendor skillset like Checkpoint/Juniper but add Cisco experience as a secondary option. Whereas you'll rarely see Checkpoint wanted but Juniper experience 2ndary.

For your CV the best thing you can do is list the specialist certs it gives you prominently. On my own I have the full title of the cert and then then the acronym at the end but bulleted specialist certifications below it, they may not know what a CCSP means but "Cisco Qualified Firewall Specialist" stands out to pretty much anyone (even if it's only a subset of the full thing).

djfattony2000

Right, Good info there.

Did it take you long to get all 5?