Cisco Certified?

Everybody needs a backup plan, right? Especially in this day and age where good jobs are scarce and a single person can go through an average of 5 jobs before they find "the one". It's better to have a lot of skills so you won't be out of work for too long, or at all. Which is why one might decide to look to the IT field to help pad out their resume.

But what do you need to become a great IT rep and find good work? Well, having knowledge of computers certainly is a start, but it also helps to have Cisco certification. Too be honest, I don't know too much about Cisco, but I have seen people I know list their certification on their resumes and I know it helps with getting work. I am a bit curious as to what Cisco is, what their training entails and just how could this help me in the future.

Well, it looks like Cisco offers several different training programs to those interested in the wide world of Information Technology. I seem to be fairly adept at computers, but it's more software work than hardware. I'm lucky in that I have a very computer-literate father who's taught me quite a bit about PCs. There's no way I could be considered for any IT job though, considering how I don't actually have much experience or knowledge of the field. I tend to focus more on the design, and visual, side of things I suppose.

Cisco does have a wide selection of certification programmes though, that can be completed via the web. They offer three levels of degrees, Associate, Professional, and Expert. With 6 different "paths" you can choose to center on.

It looks like CCNA certification is the most basic. If you complete the training for that, you're certified to install, configure, operate, and troubleshoot medium-size routed and switched networks. While this is excellent to get an IT career, it's also great knowledge to have in general so you can properly understand your own home network.

The more I think about it, the more I think I need some IT training. If not for my current job, then to include on a future resume and to turn my own home into a palace of working networks.