Helpdesk - MS certs??

j.s. pill II

I'm looking for a bit of advice and guidance on the best certs I can equip myself with for an entry level helpdesk role.

Bit of background - I've 6 years of working in Insurance under my belt but was made redundant recently. I've a degree and masters in politics already and would be very reluctant to go back to college. I did comptia a+ on my own, I genuinely enjoyed doing it and kind of blindly started doing N+ as a follow up. My inclination right now is that my time might be better spent pursuing the Microsoft 70-680 & 70-685 certs. Some of the topic areas are touched on in A+ but the MS certs seem to be a lot more in dept and hands on which appeals to me a lot.

I've been having a lot of difficulty trying get good reliable, up to date info on the MS certification process so any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Specific questions I'd like to ask are:

* Are the certs well regarded/relevant?

* If I was to complete one cert, would I be able to start applying for jobs and note on the CV that I'm pursuing the other one or am I better off getting them both done before I start applying?

* Am I on the right path at all!??


Advice appreciated

Thanks

L1011

j.s. pill II wrote: »

* Are the certs well regarded/relevant?

Relatively well regarded and fairly relevant - there are exceptions, the Vista cert was a joke.

j.s. pill II wrote: »

* If I was to complete one cert, would I be able to start applying for jobs and note on the CV that I'm pursuing the other one or am I better off getting them both done before I start applying?

Start applying now with your A+. Definitely continue applying after one. Experience is more valuable than certification, the earlier you can get in the door the better.

j.s. pill II wrote: »

* Am I on the right path at all!??

For deskside or telephone support for desktops, yes.

j.s. pill II

MYOB wrote: »

Relatively well regarded and fairly relevant - there are exceptions, the Vista cert was a joke.



Start applying now with your A+. Definitely continue applying after one. Experience is more valuable than certification, the earlier you can get in the door the better.




For deskside or telephone support for desktops, yes.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm taking it there is no point looking at any W8 certs at this stage given that few enough organisations are going to be using W8; for a while at least?

On a related note, I have a fairly good chance of landing a few months of tech support work (nothing major, helping end users with their 'devices') starting fairly soon. If I want to note that I'm working towards the W7 certs on my CV what would be the best way to cite this? ("working towards MCTS in XYZ" or something to that effect??)

Finally, I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information on other forums about when the above certs are going to be retired. 70-680 doesn't seem to be on the retirement list according to microsoft (see here under 'windows client'). I can't seem to find any info re retirement for 70-685. I understand that the certs are still valid so long as the technology the relate to is still in use but I just want to make sure no problems arise with regard to deadlines for completion.

Thanks

L1011

I wouldn't bother with the Win8 cert right now. "working towards" is fine, once you've got some certification to prove that you actually do follow through on it (which you do)

685 isn't on that list as it is not an MCTS exam. Certs are valid as an award for 3 years after award even if they haven't actually been retired since; as goes retirement they usually kept them for about three to four years after the technology was widely replaced in the past but there's no strict rule on it - I had* to rush-do a Server 2008R2 exam which was withdrawn in July - and that's still their most commonly used server OS.


*my college has the option of swapping exams for credits at a much cheaper rate than modules cost, about a quarter of the price; but the list only had one exam that was still available on it. Surprisingly enough they're going to get rid of that option soon...

j.s. pill II

MYOB wrote: »

I wouldn't bother with the Win8 cert right now.........

Thanks for the response again

On another point, I will admit that I am a bit confused regarding how server certification comes in to all of this (bear in mind a lot of this is new to me so be prepared for some stupid questions). Let me elaborate on this point for one moment: 70-680 and 70-685 don't seem to cover any material directly relating to servers. Taking the name of 70-685 first, 'Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technician' and look at the content on the MS website I would conclude that it's geared towards understanding W7 Enterprise (!). Now Enterprise is always going to operate in a domain environment. I've had a look at the content for the server exams (like 70-410) and obviously that's where they cover servers! What I'd like to ask essentially is: Would having the 70-680 and 70-685 alone be of any use to be in an organisation that has a W7 Enterprise/domain set-up? Would I be expected to have knowledge of servers, active directory etc. at entry level?

My main exposure to helpdesks would be from being the guy who rings them. I might give out my VNC number and they might poke around on my client for a bit etc. etc. What I'm seeing when they take over is essentially configuration of a local machine. I don't know what, if any actual server work these guys are doing on a day to day basis or how their work is demarcated and divided between server and local tasks.

Can anyone shed a bit of light on this for me??

Much appreciated

L1011

It seriously varies depending on the size of the organization. Big orgs may have desktop/application support teams that do little server work bar maybe using ADUC to reset passwords. Smaller places can't really have such a line

j.s. pill II

Makes perfect sense. So logically, it would be better to focus on larger organisations when you're starting off for that reason.

Now presumably, some kind of server certification would be be required in order to progress in such a setting? It would seem that I might be jumping the gun a bit at this stage, nonetheless, I'll need to do a bit more reading up about them myself to get a better idea of what might lie ahead.

In the meantime I'll need to get things moving on the W7 certs. I notice professor messer has videos for the 70-680. Can anyone recommend a book? There are a lot of very divisive reviews on amazon for some of the text books that are out there.

EDIT: I've narrowed down the main text options to Don Poulton's MCTS cert guide and William Panek's W7 configuration study guide

And one more question: if I'm certain I want to go down the windows support road is there any point having N+ at all? Just want to know what people think before I give the book away!

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks again

Cuddlesworth

j.s. pill II wrote: »

And one more question: if I'm certain I want to go down the windows support road is there any point having N+ at all?

Sure, it teaches you about networking and provides you with a cert.

Krusader

/*

j.s. pill II wrote: »

And one more question: if I'm certain I want to go down the windows support road is there any point having N+ at all? Just want to know what people think before I give the book away!

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks again

I would say a CCENT would be worth doing rather than the N+

j.s. pill II

I started studying in earnest for 70-680 this week. From having glanced through the material, nothing seems to jump out at me as being conceptually too difficult for me. There is a lot of very specific information to learn and cramming it all into my brain is going to be a challenge.

I've been researching resources & practice exams etc on other sites. I am getting a bit concerned about how difficult the exam itself seems to be regarded. For example, I came across this piece of advice with regard to 70-680 on Techexams.net:

It's difficult but not impossible. It just requires a lot of study and prep time, and also requires a fairly knowledgeable level of experience with Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 before you are really even a candidate to begin studying for and taking the exam, IMO.

If I was just starting out in IT, or if I didn't have much experience troubleshooting and installing Windows 7 in an AD environment, I would NOT begin with this exam. I currently hold the A+, Server+, Network+, Security+, and Storage+ certs. I made it a goal to obtain those 5 certs before I even considered studying for the MCSA/MCITP stuff. I learned quite a bit in studying for the CompTIA stuff. Although I must admit, there was a huge leap in difficulty between CompTIA and Microsoft exams, so be prepared for that.

Bear in mind this guy is currently a systems administrator with 15+ certs under his belt! Nothing that's worth doing is going to be easy and I have plenty of time over the next few months set aside for this - I'm just concerned that I may be biting off a bit more than I can chew right now.

Any thoughts on the above?

j.s. pill II

The Glass Key wrote: »

RE: 70:680 just check when the exam expires? iirc you can only take it up until early next year?

The exam itself is not retiring next year. It can form part of an MCITP and it's the MCITP itself that is being retired. I came across posts on other forums that said that the 70-680 was marked for retirement at one stage this year but MS reconsidered. Not sure of the details re what exactly happened but all I know is that I don't have to worry about it expiring next year.

The Glass Key

OP, in regard to your original post I would put on your CV that you are currently studying for the 70-680 and will be taking the exam on such and such a date, note even that you'll need that day off. If when you pass the exam you haven't got a job you can fire your CV back into all the people that already have it noting that you have passed the exam and that you will next be going for ......

Note just re-read some of your posts and I've tried professor messer and tbh they are some of the most annoying CBT material I'v ever encountered and I've tried them all. Learn Key have a really annoying guy (Spurlock?) but somehow professer messer really puts me off, I can just about put up with James Conrad (iirc) who does the 70-680 for CBT Nuggets but its horses for courses.

Best book imho is MCTS 70-680 Configuring Windows 7 Self Paced Training Kit Ian McLean and Orin Thomas, I might be wrong but I think its very similar to and covers the same information as the 2 official MOC's for the exam MOC 6292A & MOC 6293 or at least for the first one.