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First a little bit of background on my situation. I’m currently in a desktop support position supporting ~250 users and also assisting with admin duties at times. I took IT training courses for 2 and a half years at a vocational school while in high school. I started a small Windows domain home lab when I was about 13 as one of my parents is a senior admin and I have always been fascinated with technology.

I currently do not have a degree or any certifications. My question is this, how important are certifications/degree when getting hired as a system admin or network admin? Did I make a mistake by not getting a degree?

@VMware @CompTIA

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If you are planning to go into IT, the best thing you can do is get experience. Experience usually trumps the degree. If you demonstrate experience, even volunteer or intern experience on your resume, that counts.

If you don’t have experience, then the next quickest route would be certifications. At this point, I’m going to tell you to not even bother with something simple like the A+, you are already beyond that. I would figure out which direction you may wish to travel and focus your efforts on that path.

For instance if you want to be a sysadmin, do you want to do *nix or Windows? Network engineer, you can start with Net+. It’s a matter of knowing which direction interests you the most.

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Certifications are very important.Work on some certifications to grow your knowledge. The basic certs I would recommend looking into for someone new to IT would be CompTIA A+, network+ and security+.

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Certifications/Degrees are not worth the paper they’re printed on anymore. Their biggest use is getting you pass the HR department by distracting them with shiny stuff.

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Hah, it looks like opinions vary on this. Personally I’d have to say that it depends a little bit on your networking skills. The people kind, not the IT kind. As a couple of people have pointed out, certs and degrees are primarily the things that get you past the HR gatekeepers. Have a browse around on different job sites (monster, dice, etc.) and see how many of the types of jobs you’re interested in ask for a bachelor’s degree. I know most of the ones that I glance at do. Some of them specify “or equivalent in experience” but most HR folks aren’t going to have a clue as to how much real-life experience equals a degree in IT.
That’s where the networking skills come in. If you can form connections with people in the field you want to get into who can then recommend your skills for job openings, that can go a long way toward getting you past the HR gatekeepers. That being said, I am still of the opinion that certification is a valuable way of demonstrating your skills. Good luck, whatever you decide to do!

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Hi User

The answer depends on which country you are going to work. The country’s culture, population, economy etc comes to play on the job market requirements. If it is a country with huge population like India or China there are thousands of people with experience, degree and certifications. So go for the degree & certifications plus gain the experience as well.

However, if you are working for country like Australia then good work experience is a must. Certifications & degree act like a bonus. For instance when there are two candidates with similar work experience then the employer tend to choose the candidate with certification as their best bet to short list. Well, not exactly because the interview will decide the final outcome. But as AITech mentioned certifications will always help to pass the HR gatekeepers.

Currently in Australia there is a shift towards candidates with a degree. Few years back no one asked for that in IT. The roles started to ask for degree or relevant education in IT. I guess in near future the market will make degree as a mandatory requirement.

The simple answer is - if you have less experience and lack of degree then cover it up with heaps of certifications. But try to gain a diploma/degree as part time. Or gain work experience and do Masters as part time.

Since you have some experience/schooling I dont think you have to start from the basics. Look at the job ads and see what are the certifications they ask for the role you are trying to get. MCP/MCSE & CCNA is a good base to start certifications.

I cant comment about Comptia N A etc as it is not often mentioned in Australian IT market.

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Hahahaha so true I have worked with paper Mcse’s that couldnt get passed the old technicians 10 second trick.

You know the one - when a newbie starts you remove their network cable and see if it takes them longer than 10 seconds to fix it.

Top certs i would go for would be Vmware VCP , Citrix and CCNA which seem to be in vogue in the UK today not forgetting (wish i could) the bull**** certification called ITIL.

Quaifications mean nothing - just means you could be really good with transcenders and memorising all the cheat sheets - experience is everything but in truth you really need both these days - in the good old days it was more certifications but now they want everything.

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In London certifications are very important. Even if you have a degree, a lot of the better paid jobs will often ask for and only consider people with certifications beyond the degree. MCSA/MCSE for example, also I have seen many asking for ITIL recently…

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Being in I.T. necessitates being current with technology and available tools. Questions becomes, how are you going to do so, and how can you prove it?

Read—

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Certifications are a method by which you can prove to a hiring entity your assumed technical knowledge.

Experience and abilities get and keep you employed.

So, Yes, certifications are very important. You need some way to show knowledge and certifications are the fastest and most recognized way.

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I’m not going to sugarcoat this or lie to you about doing things “the right way,” I’ll tell you how to do it the successful way and how to save time, money, sanity, grey hairs, etc. I’ve got nearly 20 years experience in IT, software engineering, etc across 3 continents and several countries, and even though some other people may have 20 or even more years of experience, most of that they’re doing the same thing, working at the same place(s), so they don’t really gain much experience and their advice is basically a fart on a cold day.

Certifications can help, but almost nobody checks up on them so if you lie it probably will just work out anyway. As for school, a lot of places say they want a BS in computer science for the job position, but experience actually does go further (as the first reply mentioned), in fact it almost always means more. If you’re still worried about it, you can lie about your college education, again almost nobody checks this, and over the years you’ll gain experience to add to your CV/résumé and you can take the fake college stuff off. I actually went to a real university, but I do know people that have done this.

You just need to find a place that will start you in some sort of IT job for not-that-much-money, gain experience for a couple of years and either ask for a raise or start shopping around. You’ll quickly move up.

Whatever you do, absolutely do not waste your time and money on some stupid thing like ITT Tech/Phoenix/DeVry/Fullsail/etc, you’ll end up with a “degree” most companies consider entry level and $40K+ in debt, all to start at the bottom, where you are. If you have some sort of military situation where you can get college paid for completely or mostly, definitely don’t waste it on something like that, it’s probably the worst choice you could make, other than marrying the wrong person.

The most logical thing to do is just start entry level, and don’t fall for anyone providing an “internship” unless it’s a fortune 500 company, I’ve seen so many young IT-interested people get suckered into working for free, for some mom-and-pop garbage IT company.

So to lay it out easily:

  • It may be a good idea to pad your résumé with experience, if you don’t have it, lie, but not too greatly, you need to have at least the understanding of what you’re lying about. As you learn and gain experience, you can take these things off so you’re not lying anymore.
  • Certifications just look good on paper, nobody checks them, except maybe super large companies or if they’re certifications to do with chemicals or things involving something dangerous. I’ve never heard of anyone checking up on an CompTIA cert, ever. Maybe it’s happened, but if so it was probably some idiot in some HR department at some SMB going to pay barely above minimum wage.
  • I still think you should try to get certified though, if for no reason other than to learn more. Even with experience, sometimes people never learn tiny, but important things about software and networks which would save them time in the long run.
  • You learn more through experience and solving actual problems than you ever will at school, seriously, I’m not kidding, you don’t learn jack at a college/university, even a good one, in a CS class on how to solve real problems with computers/networks. They just teach how they work.
  • Get out of tech support/desk help as quickly as you can, yes tons of people on this site will tell you it’s a great place to start, but crazily enough most have either been doing the same thing for a decade, haven’t moved up yet, or got lucky/took another route yet claim it was support that took them there. You’re doing monkey work, and I imagine you know that.
  • Maybe try a technical school, as in one that tends to specialize in cheaply providing schooling to help you gain certification, ITT Tech isn’t one of these.
  • Don’t go to ITT Tech, yes some people on this site will tell you it’s some super awesome place that got them ahead, but in all honesty, I’m not the only one who looks at ITT Tech on a résumé and sees nothing but experience in wasting time and money, and other people on this site have said they do the same. Of course, I’ve been criticised to hell for saying ITT Tech is garbage, but it is, and so are all other schools like it. There’s no reason many state colleges/universities and community colleges cost < $150 per credit hour but somehow ITT Tech costs $460+ per credit hour. That’s a huge rip off and a joke, especially for something that will get you at starting level, starting salary. Might as well not even go.
  • Before some pro-ITT Tech person gets their feelings hurt and decides to respond saying I’m “hostile” or calling them stupid, well going to ITT Tech doesn’t make you stupid, it just means you got scammed, and anyone can be scammed. I’m not being hostile towards ITT Tech, I’m being honest, it’s a joke in the real IT world and it’s nothing other than debt for entry level position you could’ve gotten anyway.
  • So, considering the above, if you’re going to go to school for computers either go to an actual university and spend that money wisely, go to a state college, or go to a technical school.
  • Getting a basic idea of Linux, Unix, etc is fairly straight forward. Use something that isn’t Ubuntu or Debian as your desktop OS for a month, and you’ll learn a lot, essentially the rule is, if it comes with apt-get or sudo, then it’s basically kindergarden linux and you aren’t going to learn as much as you need to know. The same applies with Unix, while getting ahold of SCO isn’t going to be easy or desirable, you can use something like FreeBSD to get a lot of the same experience, again the same way, using it on your desktop where you’re forced to deal with it.

Some advice on IT jobs in general

  • You said many pay very little, like 50K, well that’s just reality. It’s not the late 90s anymore, the market has been flooded. You can still sometimes find specialised jobs, or sometimes just really good ones that pay way more, but you aren’t likely to. 40K is about the average now at what you’re looking at for a job in IT without a couple of decades of hardcore experience, and hell, even then you wouldn’t be getting much more.
  • You’ll find most people in control of hiring for IT jobs either are people who literally know nothing about IT or people who are some “IT veteran” who really knows nothing, but they’re arrogant as hell
  • Many, if not most, IT people you run into will have vastly lacking experience in the areas they work in, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, so long as they’re willing to learn, the problem is many aren’t.
  • IT people tend to be arrogant and pretentious as hell, I include myself in this.
  • Many IT people think they’re infallible and will fight you on everything, this typically goes back to a deep seeded inferiority complex (just see when people get all upset over me questioning ITT Tech and then taking it as a direct attack on them, that’s a serious inferiority complex) and/or just arrogance extending from being told they were “geniuses” because they changed their grandmother’s NIC and she was impressed. That’s also about the level of usefulness 25% of the IT population is.
  • Sexism is the social norm in IT, even when IT people (men) tell you they aren’t sexist, they probably are, but not in an overt and obvious way. If they automatically ever assume a woman knows less about technology or question that a woman could be interested in it or know as much as them, that’s sexism.

And there’s probably more that can be said.

I await hostile responses and people reporting my post because it hurt their feelings :cry:

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I was just saying you can, not that you should. Getting them is better, as I pointed out, if for nothing than to learn as much as you can about a subject. The primary reason is I want to show the reality of how certs are viewed, they’re simply trusted for the most part in IT.

Yes, switch jobs often, and that’s another point I was trying to make about gaining experience, ask for a raise and if you don’t get it, move on.

An MCSA certainly wouldn’t hurt but an MCSE is looked at as certainly better to have and shows you know considerably more, usually. Keep in mind the MCSA today isn’t the same thing as it used to be, Microsoft soft of switched up the initialism on people, but it’s almost the same.

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You are okay, lol. Most people don’t even start until older than that.

No amount is “too long”. Many people do that their entire lives because they love it. There is never an amount of time that is too much for a chosen field. You never need to “change careers” after a certain amount of time. Each part of the field needs people who like that part of it.

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A couple of years is too long I’d say, I’d view desktop support as something you’re doing while you try to find another job.

Who you know is a huge thing, go to Spicecorps meetings in your area (if they exist), user groups (Unix, AS400, Linux are some popular user groups), things like AITP, 2600, connect with locals on LinkedIn etc. to meet as many people as you can in IT. Getting started isn’t easy, but if you know somebody who can put in a good word for you at a company, a high school IT department, etc then that’s going to always work better than applying online or walking in and talking to someone.

Another thing would be looking your smartest and going to chamber of commerce events and talking with people who own businesses, many often need IT people, and if they’ve got your card (super cheap at FedEx Kinkos or whatever the hell they call themselves now) they might end up calling you at some point.

It does also depend on where you live, some options are more wide open than others, but places over looked are high schools, libraries, etc but it always helps to know somebody who already works there. If you don’t know people who work anywhere, connect with them on LinkedIn and try to open a dialogue, since it says where they work.

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MSP jobs are the best!

Honestly, real system admin jobs aren’t in those online job postings very often. You have to apply directly, have a recruiter or a head hunter.

A few things to know about Sys Admins:

  1. Only large companies have them. That’s a thousand users and higher, generally much higher. Lots of small companies use the term incorrectly, but those aren’t system admins. True system admins only do system admin work, not that and a lot of other stuff mixed together, those are generalists.

  2. System Admins always need an OS specialty: Windows, Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu, Solaris, AIX, OpenVMS, System i, HP-UX, System z, etc.

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I don’t agree. Desktop Support is a specialty like any other. It can be a stepping stone or it can be a lifetime career. Or somewhere in between.

In the enterprise space, desktop support is a target job, not a stepping stone, primarily.

If you treat it as a stepping stone I think that it will hold you back more than anything. You won’t excel where you are nor prepare for where you want to be. It’s okay to want to do other things, but you’ll only do really well if you want to be where you are (maybe not more than anywhere else, but you have to like what you do.)

I think that it is really insulting to people who treat desktop support as a professional goal to call their career’s stepping stones. I know many lifelong desk support people who make six figures and don’t want to do anything else. They like that job. They certify on that job. They are incredibly valuable because they are good at that job.

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Not “enough” but it shows that you have interest and are putting in effort. That’s important. Working currently and doing a good job with what you are doing, getting certs, working on the “system admin” stuff at home and learning the ins and outs… together that will get you a job. Certs will be an important piece of the puzzle.

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I’m talking about it from the point of view of someone wanting to get a job in IT, desktop support isn’t really a direct or great path to follow along. If you love it, then that’s great, but that’s not the topic of discussion, s/he doesn’t want to do that job anymore, so people loving it really isn’t relevant. It’s only insulting if I didn’t make the point clear enough (I probably didn’t) or if one was insecure about being in desktop support in the first place.

If s/he wanted to be a doctor and said they were currently working in pharmacy, it wouldn’t be insulting to tell him/her that it isn’t the best, direct path to become a doctor. People can love being pharmacists too. So, how is this any different?

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Network+ and Sec+ are good. A+ is not, skip that. That’s only useful if you are in high school and have never done any work in IT. Even our high school interns I would not tell to get an A+ because, by interning with us, they are already past the point of that being useful to them.

And MCSA plus a Network+ and a Security+ would be a good foundation. I recommend not doing a Sec+ until after you have some system admin creds under your belt as it doesn’t stand on its own in any useful way. So the order I would do these is…

Net+ → MCSA → Sec+ → MCSE

And if you want something easy to add a little more “rounding” without really having to learn much new, through in the Server+. Do it after the Net+ and before the MCSA. Very easy.

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Okay, I understand that. There are a lot of SMB IT people who feel, quite strongly, that being a helpdesk person or desktop support person for long is a failure and that career desktop support should not exist and actively want those people to not be hired (even for desktop jobs!!) I’ve fought this a bit, people who feel that helpdesk should only be a gateway to other things and that anyone stalling there is a failure and not hireable.

So in this case, you are just saying that it is the wrong job. The job he has, not the career he wants.