Cisco Certification: Becoming A Truly Valuable Ccna

By Author: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Total Articles: 17
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I&#39ve been active in the Cisco Certification track for four years, working my way from the CCNA to the coveted Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert title, and during that time I&#39ve conducted job interviews and casual conversations with hundreds of CCNAs and CCNA candidates. The CCNA is an exciting beginning to your Cisco career, but just having the certification simply isn&#39t enough. A recruiter or interviewer isn&#39t going to be impressed just with the cert you&#39ve got to have some real-world knowledge to back it up. I&#39ve been down that road myself, and sat on both sides of the CCNA job interview table. With that in mind, I&#39d like to offer to you some tips on becoming a truly valuable and employable CCNA. Get some hands-on experience. I know the trap well. You can&#39t get experience until you get a CCNA, and you can&#39t get a CCNA without real experience. Well, actually, you can, but do you want to? Working on simulators is fine to a certain extent, but don&#39t make the classic mistake of depending on them. I&#39ve seen plenty of CCNAs who were put in front ...
... of a set of routers and really didn&#39t know what to do or how to put together a simple configuration, and had NO idea how to begin troubleshooting. There are CCNA classes that offer you the chance to work with industry experts on real Cisco equipment. Beyond that, you can put together your own CCNA rack for less than $1000 by buying used routers. Some people think that&#39s a lot of money, but this is the foundation of your career. Treat it that way. The work you do now is the most important work you&#39ll ever do. Do it on real Cisco equipment. The skills I learned as a CCNA helped me all the way up to the CCIE. Besides, after you get your CCNA (and after that, hopefully you&#39ll choose to pursue the CCNP), you can always get some of your money back by selling the equipment. The hands-on experience you gain this way is invaluable. Know binary math. Do NOT go the easy route of memorizing a subnet mask chart for the CCNA exam. I know some people brag about being able to pass the CCNA exam without really understanding binary math. I&#39ve seen those people on the other side of the interview table, and they&#39re not laughing when I ask them to do a subnetting question. They&#39re not laughing when they can&#39t explain or create a VLSM scheme. That chart does nothing to help you understand what&#39s going on. If you can add and know the difference between a one and a zero, you can do binary math. Don&#39t let the name intimidate you. Become a REAL CCNA -- learn binary math! Run "show" and "debug" commands. No commands help you truly understand how things work in a Cisco network than show and debug commands. As you progress through the Cisco certification ranks, you&#39ll be glad you started using these at the CCNA level. Do you need to know these commands for the exam? Probably not. Do you need them to be successul in the real world? Absolutely. The Cisco certification track has been great to me, and it can boost your career as well, whether you stop at the CCNA, CCNP, or go all the way to the CCIE. It&#39s the skills you develop today that will truly make you a networking engineer. Don&#39t take shortcuts or get the attitude of "just passing the exam". It&#39s what you achieve after the exam that counts, and it&#39s the work you put in before passing the exam that makes those achievements possible. Good luck! Copyright © 2005 Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933 About Chris: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage. The Bryant Advantage offers dozens of FREE CCNA and CCNP tutorials and articles. The Bryant Advantage sells the world&#39s most comprehensive CCNA Study Guide, and Chris&#39 exclusive Binary Math and Subnetting Mastery book. Chris&#39 $299 CCNA Online Fast Track is the world&#39s fastest-growing CCNA course. Visit www.thebryantadvantage.com today!