IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[Imyremeshaw]

Also how hard is it to get a basic helpdesk job? I've heeard of people who only have a high school diploma and were able to get one (maybe they had connections??). And are these jobs part time?


I'm not all too familiar with the industry like that so any help would be welcomed. Im just ready to leave this damn grocery store job that I'm at now

It's really all about you know at least in my experience, I didn't know anything about IT related things before(have history degree) I started, but if your quick learner and genuinely like IT you should be alright.

 

[King Sun]

Also how hard is it to get a basic helpdesk job? I've heeard of people who only have a high school diploma and were able to get one (maybe they had connections??). And are these jobs part time?


I'm not all too familiar with the industry like that so any help would be welcomed. Im just ready to leave this damn grocery store job that I'm at now

You have to search and scratch from the bottom of the barrell. If you have cable companies in your area try applying for a support rep job. Its not directly IT but its worth a shot. After you do that you can try to move up to actual help desk work or go somewhere else and try to apply for a entry level IT job.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

I gotta potential interview coming up for a gig that has a 20k sign-on bonus. If I get that shyt......

I'm going straight to the strip club and doing this

I want to thank each and everyone of you guys for this valuable knowledge y'all dropping in this thread. Im currently working as IS Auditor for Washington DC firm( graduated with degree in History/Political Sci, lol), just today got taking CISA exam to be certified in what Im doing. shyt was harder than muthafukka, but I love this IT stuff. Even though I work more on the theoritical side of things, I wanna the technical side of IT just to know and be best at what I do. So Im going hard, taking the CompTIA A+, Network, and Security+ test within the next 2 months, then SSCP test in March/April( wanna eventually get that CISSP). Anybody have any recommendations after that? Also, I realize this IT stuff is really all about you know( Im lucker than muthafukka) what can you do other certifications to make yourself stand out from everybody else?

What exactly do you do as an IT auditor? I've sat in on audits before and had to remediate the findings, so I'm assuming you have some sort of a technical background.

Let me know how technical you are, and I can give you some advice. I have my CISSP and been in security for a couple years now. If you have enough years experience, ignore the Security+ and SSCP and go for the CISSP.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

Also how hard is it to get a basic helpdesk job? I've heeard of people who only have a high school diploma and were able to get one (maybe they had connections??). And are these jobs part time?


I'm not all too familiar with the industry like that so any help would be welcomed. Im just ready to leave this damn grocery store job that I'm at now

If you serious bout it, go for the A+ certification and try to get a help desk job. You gotta start from the breh, welcome to hell

 

[Imyremeshaw]

I gotta potential interview coming up for a gig that has a 20k sign-on bonus. If I get that shyt......

I'm going straight to the strip club and doing this

What exactly do you do as an IT auditor? I've sat in on audits before and had to remediate the findings, so I'm assuming you have some sort of a technical background.

Let me know how technical you are, and I can give you some advice. I have my CISSP and been in security for a couple years now. If you have enough years experience, ignore the Security+ and SSCP and go for the CISSP.

I review the Theoretically controls or measures( of a business) are in place to make sure information systems or assets are protected(mainly CMS or DOD IT systems). It's really consists of SAS70 or SSAE16 audits, pretty in-depth audits but if you have ongoing relationship with the company its pretty easy. Actually before I took this job I was teller at a bank, I have no technical knowledge other than reading books( CEH, etc..), I have never applied anything I've read, Its really all review.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

I review the Theoretically controls or measures( of a business) are in place to make sure information systems or assets are protected(mainly CMS or DOD IT systems). It's really consists of SAS70 or SSAE16 audits, pretty in-depth audits but if you have ongoing relationship with the company its pretty easy. Actually before I took this job I was teller at a bank, I have no technical knowledge other than reading books( CEH, etc..), I have never applied anything I've read, Its really all review.

Since you have no technical background, you can read the A+ book, but I wouldn't waste the time taking the exam. The A+ will give you a good background of PC architecture.

For networking you could read the network+, but again I wouldn't take it because I've never seen a job require or ask for the network+

You could take the CCENT exam just to give you an understanding of how networks work at the infrastructure level.

After that I'd say take some of the Microsoft server exams so you can learn about core networking services from the server side. 70-640 (Active Directory) and 70-642 (Network Infrastructure).

After you get a good solid foundation of networking, you can start reading up on the security aspect of it. Reading the CEH now won't really mean shyt because you won't understand why the tools work the way they work. From the Cisco side, you can learn a lot from the CCNA Security exam. From the Microsoft side you can learn a lot by reading their security/hardening guides on Technet. The Security+ exam covers a lot of the same topics as the CISSP, but it's not very technical.

I honestly don't know if getting technical certs is the path you want to go down because if you don't use it, you'll forget what you'll learn over time. Good luck though breh

 

[Imyremeshaw]

Since you have no technical background, you can read the A+ book, but I wouldn't waste the time taking the exam. The A+ will give you a good background of PC architecture.

For networking you could read the network+, but again I wouldn't take it because I've never seen a job require or ask for the network+

You could take the CCENT exam just to give you an understanding of how networks work at the infrastructure level.

After that I'd say take some of the Microsoft server exams so you can learn about core networking services from the server side. 70-640 (Active Directory) and 70-642 (Network Infrastructure).

After you get a good solid foundation of networking, you can start reading up on the security aspect of it. Reading the CEH now won't really mean shyt because you won't understand why the tools work the way they work. From the Cisco side, you can learn a lot from the CCNA Security exam. From the Microsoft side you can learn a lot by reading their security/hardening guides on Technet. The Security+ exam covers a lot of the same topics as the CISSP, but it's not very technical.

I honestly don't know if getting technical certs is the path you want to go down because if you don't use it, you'll forget what you'll learn over time. Good luck though breh

Thanks man, I mean from 2-3 years working in IT I understand alot things, I just dont get the little intricacies of networking or security. Honestly I work with management reviewing SLAs, reviewing DBA processes, and system security policies. I just wanna know the technical side so I can command a better paycheck, and know all the intricacies of IT/IS.

 

[patscorpio]

Also how hard is it to get a basic helpdesk job? I've heeard of people who only have a high school diploma and were able to get one (maybe they had connections??). And are these jobs part time?


I'm not all too familiar with the industry like that so any help would be welcomed. Im just ready to leave this damn grocery store job that I'm at now

its not hard and pretty commonplace to get a help desk job as long as you show some form of pc competency depending on the company of course....alot of us in the thread who do more specialized work start off there..i did it for almost 4 years before i landed my current job..the thing with help desk to make it worth your while is to work at a place where you can actually pick up some other technical skills and apply them rather than answering a phone and searching your help desk database or using google...and you can definitely do help desk part time...during school i was doing 25-30hrs a week..my 2 cents breh

 

[patscorpio]

It's really all about you know at least in my experience, I didn't know anything about IT related things before(have history degree) I started, but if your quick learner and genuinely like IT you should be alright.

right..the nice thing about IT is that are many avenues you can take within it and have the potential to make good, steady money..but you gotta work hard at it

 

[protestor]

Bdizzle,Can you help me out. I got an a+ been working at help desk support for a few years Need to move on.

Im leaning toward MS active directory, exchange that sort of thing. what exams should I be looking into and what equipment do I need to self study

I actually like to learn programming but i think MS land would be better.

I dont want to do hardware.

what do you suggest?

 

[Data-Hawk]

Bdizzle,Can you help me out. I got an a+ been working at help desk support for a few years Need to move on.

Im leaning toward MS active directory, exchange that sort of thing. what exams should I be looking into and what equipment do I need to self study

I actually like to learn programming but i think MS land would be better.

I dont want to do hardware.

what do you suggest?

I dont follow the exam #'s anymore, but for the Equipment part, a couple of Virtual Machines should help. I dont know if MS still does this, but back when I was going for the MSCE, if you buy their certification books, you would get a Windows Server trial version( usually 6 months ). Which you could throw into a Virtual Machine for studying.

 

[Regular Developer]

So do any of you guys use products like Splunk to troubleshoot issues in infrastructure? I'm trying to get an idea of what Splunk's tools do.

Splunk

 

[kbtwofour]

I need some help brehs.

I don't know if I should major in Computer science or networking. One of the courses I am taking next semester is computer programing and logic. I also plan on taking C++ next year.

A lot of people tell me not to major in CS and to major in IT.

 

[krexzen]

I need some help brehs.

I don't know if I should major in Computer science or networking. One of the courses I am taking next semester is computer programing and logic. I also plan on taking C++ next year.

A lot of people tell me not to major in CS and to major in IT.

Are the majors called 'Information Technology' and 'Networking'? At my school we only had Computer Science and Information Systems (I.S.). Either way hiring departments are more interested in computer science. I majored in Information Systems and always got puzzled/confused looks during interviews. Even though all my classes involved networking, hardware/software, databases, programming, html, usability and project management.

 

[((ReFleXioN)) EteRNaL]

Are the majors called 'Information Technology' and 'Networking'? At my school we only had Computer Science and Information Systems (I.S.). Either way hiring departments are more interested in computer science. I majored in Information Systems and always got puzzled/confused looks during interviews. Even though all my classes involved networking, hardware/software, databases, programming, html, usability and project management.

what level of math do you have to complete to get a degree in CS?