IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[↓R↑LYB]

I'll trade you my intact hairline for the info

Your hairline is on its last legs breh, no thanks

 

[↓R↑LYB]

Gonna use some of this tax return to pay for this A+ .


But imma def give myself afew more weeks before i take one of the parts. If i fail one of those mufukkas i'd be so fukking sick


Brehs which one you guys recommend to take first? I was thinking the 802 cus it's harder

I sense an L in your future

 

[AyBrehHam Linkin]

I sense an L in your future

Shiiiiiii

 

[FatherSimp]

Your hairline is on its last legs breh, no thanks

 

[the bossman]

That's the thing tho, I really wanna be the expert, even if i change lanes into security or specialize in voice or something. I wanna be that breh with the CCIE. I wanna shut shyt down

Money is part of it but what I want more than anything is to be recognized for my excellence and reach the top in my field. I want corporate america to come to ME not the other way around

Lord help me, all I ever wanted to be was wealthy or
Somebody to tell me that they felt me

if you plan to do voice, just know you gotta know everything collaboration if you want big money. it's not just voice anymore. you gotta know everything UC i.e. voice, video, IM & presence, video conferencing, shyt even how to integrate with microsoft lync, etc.

It's been 6 months since I passed the collaboration lab. my boss did a complete 180 after in the way he treated me. stopped ridin me on what time I show up to work. he started offering me training in whatever I wanted. co-workers don't question you at all.

long story short I resigned from my last job as a senior uc engineer earlier this month. flew down to brasil where ill be for the next month before coming back home and starting my new contract gig. 200k on W2 so I don't have to worry about taxes. working from home 75-80% of the time. should give me plenty time to get my own business up and running

all I can say is if you really have the desire, get that shyt bruh. fukk all the distractions and bullshyt you will go through to get it, the opportunities that will come your way are just...

I started out in IT 6 years ago and never imagined I'd be in this position right now . the best part is knowing that my career in IT is set for life. I just want to see more black folks out here getting a piece. there is some serious paper out there to be made. salute

 

[Apollo Creed]

if you plan to do voice, just know you gotta know everything collaboration if you want big money. it's not just voice anymore. you gotta know everything UC i.e. voice, video, IM & presence, video conferencing, shyt even how to integrate with microsoft lync, etc.

It's been 6 months since I passed the collaboration lab. my boss did a complete 180 after in the way he treated me. stopped ridin me on what time I show up to work. he started offering me training in whatever I wanted. co-workers don't question you at all.

long story short I resigned from my last job as a senior uc engineer earlier this month. flew down to brasil where ill be for the next month before coming back home and starting my new contract gig. 200k on W2 so I don't have to worry about taxes. working from home 75-80% of the time. should give me plenty time to get my own business up and running

all I can say is if you really have the desire, get that shyt bruh. fukk all the distractions and bullshyt you will go through to get it, the opportunities that will come your way are just...

I started out in IT 6 years ago and never imagined I'd be in this position right now . the best part is knowing that my career in IT is set for life. I just want to see more black folks out here getting a piece. there is some serious paper out there to be made. salute

Where did you start out with initially? It seems its easier to fast track on the infrastructure side compared to the Business side.

 

[MrRDU]

I have a bachelors, A+, and 1.5 years of experience.

Job 1: a pre recorded webcam video interview and an in person interview. They want me to come back later this week for another one. This job pays in the low 40s... in NYC

Job 2: Phone interview with HR, an in person interview, and a take home test with topics that were listed as bonus \there be opportunity to learn these skills here in the job ad.

I'm sad that even if I ended up getting a new job, I'll probably still be struggling.

low 40s in NYC ? I know what little that will get you in NC, so I cant even imagine in NYC

 

[Sonny Bonds]

I ended up getting job #2, I start the first week of April. Pays 45k, but I tried to talk them up to 50. I think what really bugs me is that I didn't get a week off between jobs. They said that a higher up is visiting so they want me to start ASAP.

Edit: I also had to do a second interview.

It's weird that I'm already plotting how long I'm going to stay and what I need \want to learn before I dip. I think working retail taught me to never be too loyal.

 

[MrRDU]

I'm getting started learning Python & SAS to accompany my soon to come MBA. My homeboy said I should go ahead and get this VMWARE Data Center cert as well with very little hassle (no proctored exam). What do yall think ?

 

[the bossman]

Where did you start out with initially? It seems its easier to fast track on the infrastructure side compared to the Business side.

man I started out in a shytty NOC. I had passed the ccna before getting this first gig, but didn't get to use any of the knowledge there. some NOCs are cool giving you access to every device, but the one I was at, your ONLY job was to watch this big ass monitoring screen and if any device or service went down you call the engineer responsible for it so they can troubleshoot (dba, network engineer, sys admin, etc.).

I think it probably is easier for infrastructure because at the end of the day if in the interview you can prove that you have the skills to do the job AND you show that you know how to communicate (verbal/writing) with pepole, then you are hired.

but eventually I want to move to the business/sales side of things. there is major money here too. One of the sales lady at Cisco I know is easily pulling 300-400k annually because of her commission and she is not that technical at all. She wines and dines the customer to get them to sign the contract and then after the contract is signed it's the engineers (who are still paid well mind you, but not like sales) who are the ones pullin their hair out to get that shyt to work.

but I think you can be a stronger business/sales person after coming from the infrastructure side because now you actually know the technology but now you can talk business benefits and cost of ownership shyt that C-level folks care about (how will this help my business? how much money will this save me? how much more revenue will it bring me?, etc.). A lot of C-level folks are very skeptical of pure sales people/ who aren't technical, because they feel like they'll say anything just to get them to buy the product/service. Think of it like a CPA becoming a tax lawyer.

 

[lightskin jermaine]

@GollyImGully here's a network security engineer gig that I got e-mailed about a few days ago. Them firewall cats be eating real good

@ the mj smiley avatar

 

[Apollo Creed]

man I started out in a shytty NOC. I had passed the ccna before getting this first gig, but didn't get to use any of the knowledge there. some NOCs are cool giving you access to every device, but the one I was at, your ONLY job was to watch this big ass monitoring screen and if any device or service went down you call the engineer responsible for it so they can troubleshoot (dba, network engineer, sys admin, etc.).

I think it probably is easier for infrastructure because at the end of the day if in the interview you can prove that you have the skills to do the job AND you show that you know how to communicate (verbal/writing) with pepole, then you are hired.

but eventually I want to move to the business/sales side of things. there is major money here too. One of the sales lady at Cisco I know is easily pulling 300-400k annually because of her commission and she is not that technical at all. She wines and dines the customer to get them to sign the contract and then after the contract is signed it's the engineers (who are still paid well mind you, but not like sales) who are the ones pullin their hair out to get that shyt to work.

but I think you can be a stronger business/sales person after coming from the infrastructure side because now you actually know the technology but now you can talk business benefits and cost of ownership shyt that C-level folks care about (how will this help my business? how much money will this save me? how much more revenue will it bring me?, etc.). A lot of C-level folks are very skeptical of pure sales people/ who aren't technical, because they feel like they'll say anything just to get them to buy the product/service. Think of it like a CPA becoming a tax lawyer.

Yea Im on the business side now and pretty much have always had to make sense of the stuff architects and programmers do to the business stakeholders. I am techie but have not had technical roles if that makes sense and in todays industry on paper they make it appear like now they want business analyst/consultants to have more hands on technical experience when you get to the higher level roles. I was looking into getting into Solution Engineering and than back dooring that into eventually being an architect BUT to get into that most jobs want people who were former sys admins and stuff. Im a senior BA right now so that would he taking a step backwards trying to become a sys admin. July will make 4 yrs of me being in my career post college so to be a senior BA in under 4 yrs is good progress but it seems im approaching some what of a slow down when it comes to hitting the 6 figure mark as a lead. I know i gotta be humble and who knows what the next 2 yrs has in store for me especially since i will he done with my masters by then. Im just conflicted on what i skills i should be focusing on now to set me up for the future because when i finish my masters i want to be at 6 figures within 1-2 yrs of completion.

 

[soulfuljah]

One of the sales lady at Cisco I know is easily pulling 300-400k annually because of her commission and she is not that technical at all. She wines and dines the customer to get them to sign the contract and then after the contract is signed it's the engineers (who are still paid well mind you, but not like sales) who are the ones pullin their hair out to get that shyt to work.

I know plenty of engineers working at Cisco that hates sales because they have no clue about the services they are selling but throw everything to the feet of the engineers who have to essentially tell the customer that sales lead them wrong and they can't get what they are asking (and supposedly) paid for. I didn't know sales was getting paid like that tho.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

@ the mj smiley avatar

Breh, I had a recruiter leave me a VM a few months back cracking up saying they liked me MJ avatar. I think she might have been a Coli poster

 

[↓R↑LYB]

I'm getting started learning Python & SAS to accompany my soon to come MBA. My homeboy said I should go ahead and get this VMWARE Data Center cert as well with very little hassle (no proctored exam). What do yall think ?

How much experience you got and in what area?