Solved Certifications

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So i have been in the IT field for about a year now and i work at two different places. My first job would fall under systems administration and my second job is at a cybersecurity firm and i am there to not only administer our systems there but also support our clients around town with their systems and networking. Which certification would most benefit me to pursue right now, I have been looking at Network+ and Server+ but i was wondering which of all the certification training ITPro offers that i should pursue right now?

@Gerald-Taylor,

The key to which certifications lie in several factors which are job relatable. One, what does my current job situation demand of me that I prove I'm a certified professional in that field? Two, is there a certification that qualifies for a job I'm pursuing or that I want to pursue? Three, What certifications hold value in my chosen field?

ITProTV offers many shows that cover preparing for the most popular certifications. Which you choose depends on the goal for obtaining the certification. For example, at one point in my IT career I chose to pursue CCNA because the previous Cisco Tech left for another job and I wanted to my company not to hire someone to fill that place. This lead to a secondary benefit, which was that not many had chosen to pursue it so I was the only one in my company. At the same time, Cisco CCNA holds its' value as a certification among networking professionals.

I wish I could just point you to one but it's difficult to do so without knowing what your career goals are. This is part of the reason we've hired our "Career Concierge` who helps professionals or job hunters to build a learning plan and certification plan to help lead you on the right track!

Hey Ronnie. Ya i can understand how that could be difficult. My ultimate career goals is to get into the cybersecurity field as an administrator or as a security engineer or analyst. I mean to be honest i haven't totally decided on the exact job i am looking for but my main goal is to make into the cybersecurity field. But i am a long way from that due to the fact that i have 4 to 6 years of college to complete before i obtain all my computer science degrees meaning my bachelors and masters. And my job is really network and systems adminsitration so i know it may be hard but what certs would benefit me the most in euipping me with the skills i need to have in this job.

@Gerald-Taylor,

So two ways to go here!

One, to become a well rounded generalist, you may want to complete the 8140 Directives ( superceding the 8570 directive). https://certification.comptia.org/it-career-news/post/view/2015/09/11/what-are-u-s-dod-8140-8570-and-8570-01-m-and-what-do-they-mean-for-your-career-
Usually, this means A+, Network+ and Security+ for comptia certifcations.

Pursuing, that along with a Desktop Support Certifcation in an Client OS (e.g. Windows 10) and Microsoft Server Administration. Then a focus:
cloud, messaging, database, etc...

Becoming familiar with Virtualization technology like Hyper-V, Citrix Xen or VMWare.

Then pursuing something like the CCNA with a specialization or the Routing and Switching. Maybe some firewalling technology.

Along with Security certifications that your job market finds in high demand.

Two, If you're looking to specialize early on, I would say that Cybersecurity is a good area to pick. You'll want to consider some LInux Skills and Kali, working with networking tools and analysis. We're adding more and more in the ITProTV library for that right now and in the near future. With the Cybersecurity, you'll have to go beyond basic conceptual understanding to reporting and analysis with something CCNA CyberOps or the CompTIA CSA+, Logical Operations Cybersecurity First Responder.

Along with this, I would include a foundational understanding of coding skills and learning bash scripting too.

So two different paths, one more generic but broader (this is what I chose) and the other more highly specialized for those who have a natural intuition about these things.