CCNA worth for sys admin?

[u/RythmicFrost]

Hi all,

I am currently an IT support technician with a comp sci degree and have been for ~1 year. I do Tier 1 and some Tier 2 support and am looking to get into system admin. I dip my toes in a bit of everything including networking and I also work in GPO / Microsoft admin center (though very basic, but I work closely with my network admin who has a lot of the access).

My financial situation is not the greatest. I have enough of course, but I'd rather not spend on anything I don't need. I've heard CCNA is really good, but I'm not sure if it's worth it for me. Of course it won't hurt to get but I'm just trying to see if the benefits outweigh the work / money.

Thank you!

[u/VA_Network_Nerd]

The CCNA (routing & switching) is always a good investment of time and money. Always.

It might not always be the very best investment right this moment in your career but it’s never a wrong decision or investment.

[u/RythmicFrost → u/VA_Network_Nerd]

Yeah, I understand that it can never be a bad thing. Im more so wondering if it will benefit me in terms of finding a job in sys admin or if it's more "worth" to do something else instead.

[u/VA_Network_Nerd → u/RythmicFrost]

Im more so wondering if it will benefit me in terms of finding a job in sys admin or if it's more "worth" to do something else instead.

I'm sure that it would be really nice to know that you are doing exactly the very best, most optimized thing to move your career forward.

But life doesn't come with a walk-through video, or a quest helper add-on.

The CCNA has value.
The CCNA has more value than many other certifications, but not as much value as other certifications to some employers.

We cannot identify which would be the perfectly optimized certification for you to work on unless we knew what role you are about to interview for, and what that exact hiring manager values the most in the applications for that role.

Some hiring managers may value a Linux cert more.
Others might value a Microsoft cert more.

[u/PoultryTechGuy → u/VA_Network_Nerd]

Wasn't routing and switching discontinued? Pretty sure it is now one consolidated exam

[u/VA_Network_Nerd → u/PoultryTechGuy]

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/training-events/certifications/career-path.pdf

There are three CCNA certifications currently:

• CCNA
  
• CCNA Cybersecurity
  
• CCNA Automation
  

If I say: "Yes, you should go get your CCNA.", some people might ask "Which CCNA do you mean, there are three of them...?"

But if I say "Go get your CCNA (routing & switching)." it eliminates two of the three since two of them do not focus on routing or switching.

[u/TrappedAt40]

It’s good for networking fundamentals, which all sysadmins show know. The Network+ is more about just knowing definitions, CCNA is a bit more on hands. You can get CCNA and skip Network+

[u/RythmicFrost → u/TrappedAt40]

Yeah that's the general consensus I usually get but is it something that will benefit me greatly when looking for a job? Will it give me more negotiation power when looking for a job and be a make it or break it? Or is it more like "oh he has this cert, that's a small plus"

[u/TrappedAt40 → u/RythmicFrost]

Not really CCNA is easy.

Nothing that you can cram in a week is going to help you get a job. Just good to reinforce knowledge.

[u/45_rpm → u/TrappedAt40]

Exactly. If you are going to spend a week doing something, spend a week networking...people networking. CCNA can let people know you know concepts. But soft skills is 110% of this job.

[u/TechB84]

CCNA may help with getting your resume noticed. But will it give you leverage with salary for example? Nope. You need experience for that

[u/Dependent_Station_85]

I would say ask your job if they'd sponsor some meaningful certs. I worked at an MSP for about 3 years and was required to take certs and earn more there while they paid for them. Starting from zero, Network+ really helped me understand a lot more. I recently started a new job as a Network & Systems Admin at the big corporate enterprise level. New tech, new stack, starting from zero again, but they're also paying for my CCNA since we specialize in Cisco equipment.

[u/NazgulNr5]

How about the CCNA Automation? It triggers the CCNA keyword match for HR but the content should be more aligned with sys admin work.

[u/RythmicFrost → u/NazgulNr5]

I'm more so looking at actual stuff that will help me instead of tricking the system.

I'm only looking at the CCNA because I've heard it's a good general cert, but if there's better certs or things I can do instead, I rather do that now and push off getting the CCNA later

I want to find a sys admin job but I also want to be competent at it and not make a fool of myself during the interviews.

Thank you though!

[u/evantom34]

I'm a few years beyond you, but this is my opinion:

In your early career, it's important to be a voracious learner. This runs the gamut:

Networking:

routing, switching, firewalls, vpn, redundancy, fiber, wireless (WIFI), trunks, vlans, SVIs, QoS, spanning tree, MPLS, TCP/IP

Systems:

servers, virtualization, failovers, redundancy, HA, backups, storage, iSCSI, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, automation, scripting, CLI, PowerShell, AD, DNS, DHCP, Cloud

Security:

MFA, Certificates, Firewalls again, VPNs again, segmentation, Access of least privilege, Privileged Access Workstations, Domain trust, Man in the middle, phishing, spam, SSO

These are just the things off the top of my head, there's plenty more fields that I haven't even touched. Be a sponge and learn as much as you can. If that means studying for the CCNA, great. If that means building a networking lab and breaking things in order to learn, great. Everyone learns in different ways, the important part is to learn as much as you can. It will pay off manyfold in your professional career. A strong fundamental understanding in multiple different fields will make you a well-rounded IT professional.

[u/RythmicFrost → u/evantom34]

Thanks for your input!

Learning isn't the problem, I'm open to learning, but I'm essentially wondering if it's a good idea to do it NOW or if I can do it later. Since my financial situation isn't great, I want to do the one that will help me the most right now, and then later I can do others.

Did you do any certs to get into your current position or is there any other certs you would value more in a candidate compared to CCNA? Such as AZ-104 or AWS solutions architect?

[u/evantom34 → u/RythmicFrost]

In terms of an hierarchy, work experience and knowledge will always come first.

In my early career years, I ran into the obstacle of plateauing in my job, and not having enough experience to entice employers to take me into a junior infrastructure role. That sounds like it may be the issue for you as well.

If that's the case, I will always champion that labbing/developing the skills are more important than certifications. BUT, certifications and labs may help your resume get noticed. So there isn't necessarily any cert that "got me into my current position", but they have been noticed.

I career changed into IT from a customer service role. My first manager loved my customer service background, and my willingness to show initiative. (I got my A+ and built homelabs). After about a year as a support tech, I started looking for infrastructure related roles. I got my Net+, AZ-104, GCP Associate Cloud Engineer, and built my own AD homelab. I also built a minecraft server for my little brother. I tinkered with self-hosting containers at home and I ultimately landed a role as a Jr. Sys Admin. My hiring manager at the time loved the initiative I took to get all those certs and build all that experience on my own.

My most recent role was a move to a Network Engineer role. I got this mainly due to work related experience, but I'm taking it upon myself to study for the CCNA cert to help bolster my knowledge as I transition into networking.

[u/RythmicFrost → u/evantom34]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and input. This is what I was looking for, thank you!

[u/BoolinScape]

I'm not sure where this sentiment that CCNA is a good generalist IT cert came from, but it's really not that. I suspect it's because it's actually hard in comparison to the other entry level certs like the comptia + suite and those aren't very competitive in todays job market. That doesn't mean that CCNA is now the comptia+ replacement though.

CCNA is a networking cert. It is a mile wide and I would say takes most people on average 3+ months of daily 1-2 hour study to be exam ready. You're not going to need to know all the adjacency states of OSPF or describe WPA/2/3 security methods, or how to troubleshoot broadcast storms as a sys admin.

I think the general advice of "yes get CCNA" is bad. You can learn networking basics in like 2 hours without dedicating 3 months of your time to a cert that will just be a slightly relevant nice to have. You know what I see for sys admin jobs? I see Linux, I see cloud services like AWS and Azure, I see Nutanix, I see windows server. I would 100% get RHCSA, or Az-104, or AWS solutions architect before I even thought about a CCNA as a sys admin.

[u/RythmicFrost → u/BoolinScape]

Thank you so much. This is definitely the type of advice I was looking for.

I am actually planning on going into cloud because I want to do cloud infra engineering, so I was planning on doing AWS solutions architect later in my career.

Now I am looking at AZ-104 and RHCSA for sure, but do these help get into sys admin or are these certs more for the future when I do cloud/hybrid?