A+ Certification

nobeastsofierce

I'm interested in getting this certification, anyone got any input as to good places to take the test, or courses (evenings/intensive) to prepare?

Feelgood

Hi nobeats,

To be honest I wouldn't do an evening course as they are extremely overpriced. Get yourself a self study guide such as:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Certification-All-One-Guide-Sixth/dp/0072263113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226529643&sr=8-1

Or if you have a few quid get the CBT Nuggets training videos which will teach your everything you need. CBT is computer based training, its like video instruction though they are really good and still cheaper than evening courses!

http://www.cbtnuggets.com/webapp/product?id=373

The A+ is not an extremely difficult exam, you should be able to pass with self study no probs..hope this helps.

Boeyenk

The certifications you should do are Mircosoft certifications. All the rest is not recognised.

aidan_walsh

Boeyenk wrote: »

The certifications you should do are Mircosoft certifications. All the rest is not recognised.

Not recognised by who?

Boeyenk

.....woops!


.......AS MUCH

aidan_walsh

Boeyenk wrote: »

.....woops!


.......AS MUCH

Depending on the certification, this may again be false. Sun, Cisco, CompTIA and many other vendors all create highly recognised certifications. The key is having the relevant certifications to what you want to do.

Boeyenk

have 2 or 3 of these and I am sure you're getting a job anywere in the World!

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/certifications.mspx#SERVER

Ginger

Again very broad strokes

Its horses for courses. You wouldnt hire an MCSE for a Linux sysadmin role or SCJP for a .NET role. It just doesnt make sense.

All vendor certs are just that, vendor certs. Declarations by the vendor that at one specific point in time the person knew enough to pass the exam. Each exam has a relative difficulty depending on its relation to the market and product.

In other words, some exams are rated harder than others when directly compared.

Now, vendor locking is common in development circles as its usually quite hard to have a person well versed enough in different vendor techs to be considered useful or to pass the exam requirements. However that generally tends not to be the case in IT admin spheres due to the nature of their business.

CCNA with MCSE are considered the best mix for SysAdmin people.. and I am open to correction on that one, it is just one of my observations.

Again another observation that the most well recognised/valued IT cert in the world is probably the CCIE due to its requirements, difficulty and the fact that it is required to be a gold/silver level cisco partner. It is considered one of the toughest IT certifications to get by a long shot.

Currently there are about 19000 CCIE's worldwide and only 63 in Ireland(http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/certified_ccies/worldwide.html) vs the 140,000 MCSE 2003 worldwide (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/certified.mspx)

And lets be fair, Cisco were probably the first to bring about the vendor certs in 1993. MS joined fairly shortly afterwards I think.

You can get certified on anything and if for example you are putting in a VMWare ESX solution, you would hire someone probably who is a VCP. So if you have the cert that the employer wants, bonza for you, if you dont, it probably wont make a blind set of difference, it may even hinder you (eg applying for a Linux job having been an MS head for a long time!)

Now back on topic.

The A+ is considered an entry level certification, proving knowledge of basic IT concepts and hardware capability. A lot of front line support positions require it or something that justifies the same.

While it is an entry level cert, it gives you an edge over someone else, and its very well recognised for what it is.

It is probably easy enough to complete on a self study basis. That is said if you have a passing interest in technology and are willing to out in some hours boning up on the subject matter.

Hope that helps

shergar76

OP If you're still interested in A+ there is FÁS funding available giving you 70% off the course price. I think a few of the IT training companies still have some funding left. If you're looking for evening's the only company I know of that does this is New Horizons, you can do the exams there too.

97i9y3941

anyone pass them comptia A+,how did ye do it?,doing it myself at mo,thinking i will have to get the dummies book and read it over again,the online thing is not bad,just have to read it over again i guess

Fieldstown

shergar76 wrote: »

OP If you're still interested in A+ there is FÁS funding available giving you 70% off the course price. I think a few of the IT training companies still have some funding left. If you're looking for evening's the only company I know of that does this is New Horizons, you can do the exams there too.

FÁS Funding is available and is currently at 50%. All funding contracts for technical IT certifications have now got a max of 50% funding. It was 70% in 2007.

Rosedale6

For all you who are studying the Comp tia hes a good testing site free of charge to see how your doing with your studies. I'm doing the Comp tia at the moment and find this site very useful.


http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/search.php?search=a%2B%2C+comptia%2C+quiz&tag=true

97i9y3941

thanks rose,how you finding it,what you scoreing in the tests,getting between 50-80 myself,need alot of studying i do!

Rosedale6

Fred83 wrote: »

thanks rose,how you finding it,what you scoreing in the tests,getting between 50-80 myself,need alot of studying i do!

Im getting between 70 and 85 in most of them so im almost there. Ive done my studying from books and Internet research. Im starting a 6month course after christmas, but am hoping i only have to be there a few months as i know quiet a lot of it now.