MS/Cisco/Comtia certs

[Elurin]

I'm getting out of the military in less than a year, and have a similar question. When I get out, I'll have 6 years of IT experience (experience in Cisco Routing/Switching/Firewalls, and Windows 2k3 administration), an Associates in Computer Science, and a Top Secret clearance.

I'm trying to decide between MCSE and CCNA within the next couple months. My concern is that going with the CCNA will only allow me to find jobs as a contractor, and never a full time position. Is this a baseless concern, or are there legitimate network admin jobs that aren't on a 1-2 year contract? I enjoy the network side much more than the sys admin side, but if it comes down to it, I'd rather have a more stable job position.

[MrGraham]

With your experience and background I don't even think a CCNA will help you that much, but as it should be easy for you you might as well grab it.

There's about 8 big government contractors, apply to them, you'll get a contract position at first more than likely, then once you're in just learn their systems and apply repeatedly to any related positions in their permanent HQs.

[chaos]

I work in networking and haven't had a problem getting a full time position sicne I got out of the military. I was in the same situation as you, I prefer networking but do have some sys admin experience. These days, if you don't have the Cisco certs people generally will not take you seriously unless you have some very impressive experience. Either that or they will try and lowball you with the money. For me stability is the most important thing, but the money is also important. If you do not understand how much you are worth these companies will have no mercy on you.

Also, it depends where you want to get a job. I'm in the DC area and I get offers left and right, the contract jobs are plentiful but I have not had a problem finding a full time contractor position. Put your resume out on all the websites (monster, clearancejobs, dice, militaryhire, etc etc) and with that clearance you will get a ton of offers from all different kinds of jobs.

Before you get out get a copy of your SF-86 if you don't already have one. IMO you should make the CCNA a priority, if you go for your MCSE you will find that you are only going to get sys admin type jobs, which means help desk, which sucks. Also, get your Security +. I can't stress that enough to anyone who will be working in any kind of government contracting or for a government contractor. You HAVE to have it, or the CISSP,in order to get any job above helpdesk level (at the helpdesk level they will normally accept A+ or N+ but security + is considered mid level, read up on the DoD reg). It's not very hard, especially with a cleared background a lot of the information you already know is similar, and once you have it you do not have to recert.

[chaos]

Originally Posted by MrGraham

With your experience and background I don't even think a CCNA will help you that much, but as it should be easy for you you might as well grab it.

There's about 8 big government contractors, apply to them, you'll get a contract position at first more than likely, then once you're in just learn their systems and apply repeatedly to any related positions in their permanent HQs.

^ good point. In contracting, you always want to work on the company side rather than the customer side. It's just a better environment.

I would say, however, that you need to consider smaller companies. You will make more money and maybe even better benefits. Company I am with right now is paying 40% more than my previous company (in the same position) with free medical, dental and vision and matching 401k contributions. A Lockheed or SAIC or GD is never going to offer that.

[Warrian]

I work for SAIC doing IT work. What's your question?

[Warrian]

Originally Posted by chaos

Clearances last 5 years before the reinvestigation period comes up. They are only valid as long as they are being used, for instance when you left AFROTC and if you had a clearance there, you should have been debriefed and your clearance status put in inactive. You have the clearance, it's a simple admin thing they have to do to reactivate it, but if at the reinvestigation period you are not actively using your clearance, it expires and you have to redo the entire process (i think, i am not sure exactly what happens when it expires).

SECRET clearances are up for reinvestigation every 10 years. TSC clearances are up for reinvestigation every 7 years. My TSC is up for renewal next year. (On my 6th year right now) Where did you get 5 from?

[chaos]

5 is what my old SSO when I was in the Navy told me. I got my clearance finalized in March of 2001 and got reinvestigated shortly before getting out, in 2006, reinvestigation finalized in March 2007. I was really told "6 years technically but you renew in 5" but the 5 number is what always stuck with me.

[column]

I have a question about CCVP if anyone could answer it.

Little background first, been working in the IT industry for 10 years now. 4 years as a PC Tech and the last 6 years at the Helpdesk level. For the last 3 years I've been a Help Desk Lead at the biggest hospital in New Orleans.

I'm just finishing up my CCNA ,and would like to immediately jump into the CCVP to start that carear path. Currently my hospital is still on the PBX level so my goal is to intergrate myself into the IT network as one of the few people that can
help them restructure later on into a IPT type of network.


My question is what type of salaries are VOIP engineers makeing across the country, and if I decide to move away from this hospital is VOIP/IPT going to allow me to make a decent salarie anywhere in the world?

[Mikeboyii]

Totally dependent on the market, in NYC, in the past few companies I've been with

New VoIP engineer with no networking experience: 65k
New VoIP engineer with 3-5 years networking experience: 80-85k
Experienced VoIP engineer (Cisco): 120-125k
Experienced VoIP engineer (Avaya or Nortel): 130-150k
All of the above have benefits.

Avaya and Nortel have a much smaller market share, so when looking for a Nortel/Avaya engineer, companies are typically a bit more desperate as they're MUCH harder to find. This due to the fact that Avaya's TDM-based PBX BLOWS.

[Spawn]

Also column, by what you've listed there are a few other areas that could really get you the 85k+ range if you even had some experience in. Especially with your hospital still using PBX. (This means they will be moving to virtualized clusters in the near future(+/- 5 years))

VMware - Mainly getting familar with ESX and VM Infrastructure. There are a ton of other products from VMware, but those are great starts. Understanding the relationships between the Hardware, hypervisor, and the virtual client can get you many feet ahead of other guys.

Another one to look into that is starting to get alot of focus is ACE certs (Altiris Certified Engineers). If you haven't used it yet, or have any experience using SMS, then you'll be hearing its name in the near future.

The only reason I really mention these two is because: I'm a member of the Dell ECAC and these two were the top priorities for medium / large businesses (the big boys).

A couple of related sites,

Altirigos
Altiris Knowledge Base

[Malakie Torsade]

What's a good way to start self-teaching VOIP and security? Is Security worth pursuing if you do not have a Military background, thus making it harder to get govn't clearance?

I like where I work now, but I like to plan ahead... and just learn new things. Truth of the matter is that I'll never make the kind of money I want to make at this job, so I'd like to be ready when I decide it's time to move on.

[MrGraham]

Build an Asterisk voip server at home and play with it, someone else on this forums was doing it. Study for CCVP.

I'd say security is worth it if you have the means to get some of the tests out of the way, but I don't know much about that. I just know that someone with the background and the certs and a good chunk of experience won't have a hard time finding a company that'll get them a clearance, even without the mil background.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by TKarrde

No. A company has to sponsor you for clearance. It also requires thousands of dollars in fees, depending on what level of clearance you're going for, etc.

Some last forever. Some have to be renewed every handful of years.

And even then you may not get it quickly... I should check if mine ever completed. Last I knew it was processing... but that was about the time I left Raytheon as my internship ended.

[eyeoftheovermind]

Speaking from personal experience now that I have a couple months doing network engineering and getting my clearance sponsored. If you have any contacts doing gov contracting, use them to get your resume in. With a CCNA and sec+ I had 2 interviews from companies off of craigslist/careerbuilder/monster and then an interview with the company that a family friend works for that offered me the job on the spot.(As well as 2 more that called and I didnt interview for as I had accepted the offer after the first interview) One of the monster.com companies that I interviewed for did eventually call back with a job offer but it was too late. Anyway if you have friends doing contracting it should be really easy getting at least a junior position.

[Marthisdil]

Originally Posted by eyeoftheovermind

Speaking from personal experience now that I have a couple months doing network engineering and getting my clearance sponsored. If you have any contacts doing gov contracting, use them to get your resume in. With a CCNA and sec+ I had 2 interviews from companies off of craigslist/careerbuilder/monster and then an interview with the company that a family friend works for that offered me the job on the spot.(As well as 2 more that called and I didnt interview for as I had accepted the offer after the first interview) One of the monster.com companies that I interviewed for did eventually call back with a job offer but it was too late. Anyway if you have friends doing contracting it should be really easy getting at least a junior position.

The only cert worth anything anymore is the CCIE...and that's just because of the practical exam that you have to take at the end. All others can basically be gotten via self-study (harder), or with a little $$ for boot camps.

And I'd never hire someone for a junior networking position on just a couple of months experience.

In the IT/networking field, your experience is what counts. It has to be verifiable too. The only times certs come into play is when an employer is trying to decide between 2 otherwise equally-qualified candidates...Think of them as a tiebreaker.

If you have a CCIE you can basically write your own ticket for close to 6 digits to start in a lot of big towns.

If you are wanting to do some home-based VOIP study...like said earlier, use Asterisk. Download Trixbox (Asterisk with a lot of other admin modules plus the CentOS - all in one package), buy an IP phone, and have at it. All it takes is a single-line card and a single-line from the telephone company, and you can set your house up with auto-attendant, voicemail, fax receipt, etc, etc.