Overwhelmed by IT skills

wanderer672

Hi Boards

Does anyone feel overwhelmed by how much you need to know working in I.T.?

The issue I'm having is when I have one certificate I don't know which cert to take next and which cert not to waste my time on or what I.T. skill should I learn next.

Does anyone experience the same thing?

I know the most simple answer would be to learn them all because they are all valuable skills to have in I.T.

Kind regards,
Andrew

davo2001

I.T is a broad term, its like saying I work in the aircraft industry. If you are serious about it then you need to specialise in a specific part of it.

It's not practical to "learn them all".

The term "Jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind.

wanderer672

Hi Davo2001

I've done CompTIA Network, CompTIA A+ and Microsoft Networking Fundamentals.

I want to work in Server Administration or Desktop support.

Would that be learning Active Directory, Powershell and SharePoint etc.

Kind regards,
Andrew

CINCLANTFLT

wanderer672 wrote: »

Hi Boards

Does anyone feel overwhelmed by how much you need to know working in I.T.?

The issue I'm having is when I have one certificate I don't know which cert to take next and which cert not to waste my time on or what I.T. skill should I learn next.

Does anyone experience the same thing?

I know the most simple answer would be to learn them all because they are all valuable skills to have in I.T.

Kind regards,
Andrew

My original answer... focus on one area... I focused on networking and security and then focused on Cisco certs etc...

Follow on answer... this is one of the reasons I got out of IT... you are forever having to learn the latest technology...

Fysh

davo2001 wrote: »

I.T is a broad term, its like saying I work in the aircraft industry. If you are serious about it then you need to specialise in a specific part of it.

It's not practical to "learn them all".

The term "Jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind.

This is very good advice.

If you're looking at job ads, especially for any kind of support roles, you're probably seeing a lot of unicorn person specifications (especially in the context of the salaries offered!) which can skew your idea of what's actually needed.

The problem with certs is that they only fundamentally show you have been able to pass the cert exam, not that you can practically apply the relevant knowledge. So the value of the certs when decoupled from relevant experience is variable, and you need to investigate whether it's relevant to your field.

If you're in support, for example - certs relating to the technologies you want to work with are if nothing else a good demonstration of ambition and desire to learn (and with e.g. Microsoft you can get hands-on experience by setting up a virtual test environment in Azure or on a home lab; this is true for most of the larger vendors, though the complexity of environment you can obtain in this way is limited). An ITIL foundation cert can be useful as well.

Do some research into what area of IT you want to work in and that should start to identify relevant qualifications to pursue. If an interviewer or recruiter gives you grief about why you don't have All The Certs, your answer should be that you'd rather pursue strong knowledge in a particular area than patchy knowledge all over the shop. Tbh the kind of places that need/demand a wide range of experience either pay the money for people with a strong cross section of knowledge and certifications, or more often just make do with practical experience without certs.

Also worth noting that there's a forum for IT Certification discussion.

Fysh

wanderer672 wrote: »

Hi Davo2001

I've done CompTIA Network, CompTIA A+ and Microsoft Networking Fundamentals.

I want to work in Server Administration or Desktop support.

Would that be learning Active Directory, Powershell and SharePoint etc.

Kind regards,
Andrew

Of what you've listed, I would focus on server admin - start with the MCSA (70-410,411 and 412) and see how you get on. (You could also look at the Hyper-V exam, 70-409, That'll give you a good grounding in running infrastructure services on Windows server, setting up and running Active Directory and so on.

You should put some time into getting to grips with PowerShell as it's the way things are moving for a lot of Microsoft products, and for Server Core & Nano Server it's pretty much vital - on top of which, it provides a lot of useful tools for managing cloud services like Office365 and Azure. It's increasingly present in the exams, so the sooner you get to grips with it the better off you'll be (plus it's interesting and can be really useful for automating away boring or time-consuming tasks).

Once you have the MCSA done, there are a lot of further options you can pursue but you'll want to have a better idea of where to focus before you start choosing the next exams.

PeterTheNinth

Fysh wrote: »

Of what you've listed, I would focus on server admin - start with the MCSA (70-410,411 and 412) and see how you get on. (You could also look at the Hyper-V exam, 70-409, That'll give you a good grounding in running infrastructure services on Windows server, setting up and running Active Directory and so on.

I have to make a few points here. With regard to the exams, there are a couple of points:

1. ARE THE COURSES/EXAMS GOOD TO HAVE ON YOUR CV?
I was at a Microsoft course last year, when the presenter asked us all to put up hands who was thinking about sitting the exam that was related to the course. He laughed to himself and said "Do you know what we think of the exams in my country". They are a joke, we dont even bother looking at them on CVs.

Then, having been one of the people who had put up his hand, I found myself in the ridiculous position of having to defend why I was sitting one of the Microsoft exams, ON Microsoft's own property! But, because of exam dumps, and the fact that the exams are a pretty poor examination of your skills, they are generally not considered of great value on your CV. Most employers seem to value experience much higher.

Interestingly, after the course I found a video of this same guy on youtube saying "I recently finished my MCSE, as this demonstrates to my customers that I know how to install and configure Windows Server 2012". Which sort of made me lose all respect for him.

2. ARE THE COURSES/EXAMS BENEFICIAL FOR YOUR JOB?
I read a lot. And it is hard work. So I like to know that the time I put in to reading endless Microsoft / Cisco publications are something that will be of benefit to me. I was on the MCSA study path. I completed the 70-410, then was about to proceed on to the 70-411 exam. But I took one look at the list of topics on the 70-411 exam, and I found it hard to justify investing my time in reading the books and sitting the exam. We deal with small businesses and there was really nothing in 70-411 that I would use on a regular basis, and thus after about one year it would all be forgotten. And I wouldnt feel comfortable going in to an employer with MCSA on my CV and remembering nothing of the material. So I would never study for a qualification just for the sake of having the qualification. That is what my science degree is for :-)

For this reason I chose to change to study the 74-409, which I got and I use some of the stuff on this every day. I then did the CCNA, which covers the TCP/IP and general networking. I'm now studying for wireless, as we are branching in to that. And looking for somewhere to sit the WCNA exam for Wireshark.

PeterTheNinth

Also, if you are planning on working in support, one of the things that is often overlooked is the ability to get on with people. After all you are essentially working in the service industry. A LOT of IT people are like the know-it-all, aloof, condescending IT guy from The Office. But you will progress much more quickly if you are liked.

Books like Sell Or Be Sold or How To Make Friends And Influence People can help with this.

Fysh

PeterTheNinth wrote: »

I have to make a few points here. With regard to the exams, there are a couple of points:

1. ARE THE COURSES/EXAMS GOOD TO HAVE ON YOUR CV?
I was at a Microsoft course last year, when the presenter asked us all to put up hands who was thinking about sitting the exam that was related to the course. He laughed to himself and said "Do you know what we think of the exams in my country". They are a joke, we dont even bother looking at them on CVs.

Then, having been one of the people who had put up his hand, I found myself in the ridiculous position of having to defend why I was sitting one of the Microsoft exams, ON Microsoft's own property! But, because of exam dumps, and the fact that the exams are a pretty poor examination of your skills, they are generally not considered of great value on your CV. Most employers seem to value experience much higher.

Interestingly, after the course I found a video of this same guy on youtube saying "I recently finished my MCSE, as this demonstrates to my customers that I know how to install and configure Windows Server 2012". Which sort of made me lose all respect for him.

2. ARE THE COURSES/EXAMS BENEFICIAL FOR YOUR JOB?
I read a lot. And it is hard work. So I like to know that the time I put in to reading endless Microsoft / Cisco publications are something that will be of benefit to me. I was on the MCSA study path. I completed the 70-410, then was about to proceed on to the 70-411 exam. But I took one look at the list of topics on the 70-411 exam, and I found it hard to justify investing my time in reading the books and sitting the exam. We deal with small businesses and there was really nothing in 70-411 that I would use on a regular basis, and thus after about one year it would all be forgotten. And I wouldnt feel comfortable going in to an employer with MCSA on my CV and remembering nothing of the material. So I would never study for a qualification just for the sake of having the qualification. That is what my science degree is for :-)

For this reason I chose to change to study the 74-409, which I got and I use some of the stuff on this every day. I then did the CCNA, which covers the TCP/IP and general networking. I'm now studying for wireless, as we are branching in to that. And looking for somewhere to sit the WCNA exam for Wireshark.

That guy sounds like a tool. Then again, I've mostly heard bad things about training courses delivered by Microsoft (several people have characterised them as being delivered by people who just finished the "how to deliver this training course" course and who have little real-world experience, amongst other things). Certs by themselves carry less weight than certs + experience, but getting them does still demonstrate the ability to pursue further training and develop your career, plus the ability to set and achieve goals for yourself.

I'll grant that some of the stuff in 411 and 412 are more (only?) relevant to large organisations (and, in certain contexts, is becoming obsolete - e.g. patching install images will have been replaced with patching golden master VMs for many organisations), but if you're dealing with server admin work it rarely hurts to go through the material. Whether you take the exam or not is up to yourself, though. If nothing else the subject matter for the exams can be a useful guide for new learning material.

PeterTheNinth

Fysh wrote: »

That guy sounds like a tool. Then again, I've mostly heard bad things about training courses delivered by Microsoft (several people have characterised them as being delivered by people who just finished the "how to deliver this training course" course and who have little real-world experience, amongst other things)

Yeah, I was fuming when I found that video later that day with him saying how great the certifications were. I mean the guy had made me feel like a gobsh1te for saying that I was going to sit the exam earlier in the day.

And the worst thing about it was he actually talked me out of sitting the damned exam. I had been doing really well, really focused on the exams up to that point. But after leaving there I just had a "Well if Microsoft, and employers, dont give the certification any credibility ... then why bother?"