Comp TIA Certifications - Study Suggestions / Exam Prep

[marianne202]

My son is getting ready to take his A+, Net+ and Security+ exams. He has completed his college coursework and will graduate in May. He has also been working in the college's IT dept. for the last 2 years. We are trying to locate some good study materials and sources like IC for these exams. He can also take his CCNA exam, since he completed the coursework, but he really doesn't care for Cisco. Would this be beneficial if he doesn't really want to work with Cisco products? Any suggestions or ideas please pass them along. He plans to spend his summer getting his industry certs. and transferring into EC's BS in cybersecurity program. He will most likely be spending his summer in test centers! Does Comp TIA use Pearson Vue or Prometric? We don't have either close by, but I'm at least familiar with Pearson Vue from my ECE's. Thanks!

[bluk30]

Hey Marianne,

I work in InfoSec for a large accounting firm and have been "in the community" for a few years now doing white hat hacker stuff.
I noticed in your other post that your son wanted to go down into a similar path into the security side of things.

May I give you my honest opinion?

The CompTIA certs are hit and miss when it comes to usefulness. Some employers see them as purely entry level, some see N+,S+
as intermediate, some don't even care about them. The CCNA on the other hand is widely respected in the field. Everyone knows
what it is, and many InfoSec jobs require demonstrated knowledge of Cisco. However it looks weird for an entry level hire to come
in off the street with one. It can actually work against you.

InfoSec is mostly a mid-level career path, the doors usually start opening when they are in the business for 5 years or so. Most companies
hire helpdesk and tech support people and then allow them to move up internally for their security positions based on the willingness of the
person to learn more and get more certs and training. They don't tend to hire people off the street for those gigs, they want a vested
employee that they know will be trustworthy. Same can be said of most administrator jobs. You don't want Joe Unknown to come in
and start screwing with your servers until you know he is competent.

If I were to choose a strategy, I'd tell him to get A+ and N+ right now and find a position with a company that has room to grow.
Then after a few months to a year he can start working on the S+, CCNA, MCSA level of certs. It will give him a good reputation as
someone willing to develop themselves, and most employers will pay for the certs. They are also a tax write off if he's already
working in IT. He should build gradually and not get everything all at once.

As someone straight out of college, no one expects him to have every cert in the book and it may look weird for him to be over-qualified
at his age. Remember, most people in IT will never make it past A+. For him to come in with A+,N+,S+, CCNA and several degrees at his
age is like seeing a 9 year old with a PhD. IT people can be pretty xenophobic about letting people into their "community".

As for study guides these are what I used and they worked quite well:

- Professsor Messer (totally free A+,N+,S+ videos through his website. High quality) - Professor Messer, CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, Linux, Microsoft Certification Training
- Mike Meyers' A+ and N+ books are excellent (all of the All-In-One guides are pretty spot on.)
- If he's familiar with Torrenting (and what college kid isn't) then he can easily find actual old tests with practice questions as well as the books mentioned

CompTIA uses PearsonVUE, and to be honest all of the CompTIAs were easy. They are multiple choice and really no big deal if he has
done his homework. They're like mid level CLEPs in terms of difficulty.

[marianne202]

Thanks for the great info! He is really disappointed because the college has been trying to get him a permanent position approved, but no luck due to bad budgets. They love him and he loves the work, most days. When he finishes in May he will no longer be able to work as a workstudy, so the permanent job was his only hope of staying. We wanted that experience on his resume, since he also had a year and a half fixing computers at his high school as a TA. Since we live in such a small town IT jobs of any kind are far and few in between. Some people at the school have been referring people to him on the side, but nothing steady. Our nearby Staples won't hire him without some certs, so we figured it would be the same for everyone hiring in IT. We will start off with the A+ and Net+ first and go from there. He won't be happy to hear he will most likely need to learn to like Cisco...at least enough to work with it. I totally get what you are saying about too many certs that don't match the level of experience / age. Well that will give him more time to work on his CLEP/DSST's for his EC degree!! He probably won't like that either!!! He would rather play WOW or create youtube covers / banners! It's all too techie for me! Thanks again for helping us map a logical plan for him.