What are the BEST Certs to Have?

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home | Feature Articles | What are the BEST Certs to Have?

What are the BEST Certs to Have?

Which are the Best Cisco Exams?

I get asked this a lot. 'What are the best certs to get and the best exams for me to get them?'

Good question. Here they are:

If you want to be a Cisco engineer in my personal opinion you should have the CCNA and the CCNP. The CCNA will give you a good grounding in Cisco networking basics. Out of all the certs I know of, this is the most relevant to the real world and give you a good level of hands on ability.

The CCNP gives you a great level of knowledge about the most common routing protocols, switching concepts, voice and security basics, IPv6 and redistribution. With this knowledge I believe any person can install, maintain and troubleshoot at almost any company to a good level.

Certhunter

Beyond this it is very much down to you. I am very anti- Cert hunting. I used to log into various certification forums and it was ridiculous the amount of certs people used to collect. It is like a hobby to them. Why on earth would somebody spend 3 years doing their MCSE and then jump into programming? Eh! Why does one guy feel it necessary to fill in very post with three lines of his certs plus where he served in the army 20 years ago!

Choosing a Wife

Work out what you enjoy because they are all different skill sets and paths. Do you enjoy design or are you more interested in hands on and support. Does voice really appeal to you or more so security?

If you don't know, how the heck do I? Would you bring a woman to my house and ask me if you should marry her? All I could give you would be some general advice about common values and interests.

Pleasing Employers

Don't make the mistake of doing exams just because you see a job advert somewhere saying you should have X or Y to apply. Most of them are like a wish list. I would love my plumber to come and paint my house and service my car while he was here but it ain't ever going to happen. If he offered I would be highly suspicious.

Work out what YOU enjoy first. In broad terms it is going to be standard routing and switching first and then either design, voice or security unless you want to jump from CCNP to CCIE. Nothing wrong with that.

Paul Browning

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