While unemployment rates have come down slightly of late, there are still an awful lot of IT workers out there looking for a position. To while away the otherwise idle hours and improve employment prospects at the same time, it’s a good idea to continue certification training.
“Our experience has been that a tough economy prompts people to upgrade their skills by seeking out new certifications,” said Terry Erdle, executive vice president, skills certification, for CompTIA. “In a knowledge economy, IT is going to be a very big part of the solution to the unemployment problem.”
CompTIA is a non-profit trade association for IT professionals, as well as manufacturers, distributors, resellers, and educational institutions. It provides a wide range of vendor-neutral IT certifications. The most well-known is the CompTIA A+ certification for computer support technicians. It proves competence in areas, such as installation, preventative maintenance, networking, security and troubleshooting.
This is part of the certification track for IT companies, such as Microsoft, HP, Cisco and Novell. Others including CompuCom and Ricoh have made A+ certification mandatory for service technicians. More than 700,000 people worldwide have become CompTIA A+ certified since the program’s inception in 1993.
Two exams are necessary to be certified:
CompTIA A+ Essentials measures the necessary competencies of an entry-level IT professional with a recommended 500 hours of hands-on experience in the lab or field. It tests for technical understanding of computer technology, networking and security, as well as for communication skills and general professionalism.
CompTIA A+ Practical Application is an extension A+ Essentials with a hands-on orientation focused on scenarios in which troubleshooting and tools must be applied to resolve problems.
“A+ continues to be a workhorse, it just keeps growing,” said Erdle. “It validates that an individual has a solid, foundation-level understanding of computing and networking basics.”
The same is true, he said, for a couple of other CompTIA certs – Network+ and Security+, which continue to be in demand.
CompTIA Network+ deals with managing, maintaining, troubleshooting, installing and configuring basic network infrastructure. Since its introduction in 1999, more than 235,000 people have completed it. Microsoft includes this specific cert in its Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) program, and others, such as Novell, Cisco and HP also have it as part of their certification tracks. It is recommended that those taking the course have at least nine months of networking experience.
CompTIA Security+ provides certification in what is probably the fastest growing field in IT. It proves competency in system security, network infrastructure, access control and organizational security. Security+ certified staff are present in such organizations as Booz Allen Hamilton, HP, IBM, Motorola, Symantec, Telstra, Hitachi, Ricoh, Lockheed Martin, Unisys, Hilton Hotels Corp., General Mills, the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force and the Marines. CompTIA expects two years of technical networking experience, with an emphasis on security, for anyone taking this course.
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