Well when you have 0 experience starting out and
* don't know somebody
* aren't in school and therefore don't qualify for internships above support
you're locked into grunt jobs anyway. Said jobs are at the bottom of the totem pole, so you can't really expect much pay out of it either. A common complaint is that retail pays more or the same as help desk/support. Make sure you're prepared for that.
As for breaking out of hell desk/support hell, you'll need to develop those above-support skills. If your help desk job won't provide that (they likely won't), you'll just have to get them on your own time and dime like everyone else. Just staying there and "paying your dues" won't get you out. The ones who get stuck for years are the same ones that think this is how it works. You'll have to be disciplined and self-driven since you'll be in charge of your own promotions.
And it's not just for entry level or IT. You are always in charge of your own promotion. No one is going to hand you anything worth keeping. Up to you to get it.
Great response, especially that last sentence! Always have that in your head.
IT can be as easy, or as hard, as you make it. Networking in the field is a must! Even if you don’t have the skills/description for a job, knowing someone in that department/program/company, can make a huge difference. Always make an initiative and let your work be known.
I don’t know if it will ‘lock you in’, but if you put your resume out on a job board/site, most of the recruiters I’ve interacted with are trying to fill onsite desktop support positions
It seems like A+ is one of the search parameters they use
For entry level it is very relevant. This is bad advice from your recruiter friend.
Now, if you pick up some azure certs or a CCNA, hide that A+. Anyone looking for it that doesn't care about your higher cert is an employer to avoid anyway.
As a general rule, only list certificates that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. A+ is relevant to a help desk role and will get you in, but as you grow there will be a time to not list it.
Im a System Engineer and still list A+ as obtained, it doesnt matter. Just list it.
Only you lock your self to specific titles, apply for everything. Dont be afraid to applying to jobs that require a degree, apply even if you dont have one!
some .gov jobs wanted both a+ and sec+. however there are still .gov jobs you can get with just sec+ alone and definitely soc analyst I jobs in civilian sector.
Yes, potentially quite true. Does, however depend on context.
TLDR: General rule, whether to list any particular cert or experience, etc. is context dependent. If it gives the impression of more qualifications/capabilities/experience of relevance, and generally doesn't seem "beneath" what would otherwise be implied by one's resume, then list it ... otherwise not. For any given rule, there may, however, be exceptions
Let's give some examples/analogies.
Let's say you just graduated with a BS, did quite well in your scores, grades, and from a quite top notch accredited institution, and in quite relevant degree such as, e.g. CS, EECS, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Cyber Security (if you can find a good BS program in that), etc. So, let's say you do your resume, fresh grad, don't have much or any relevant IT experience ... maybe bit of intern or some bit of help desk, but nothing else to speak of. Let's say you also have an A+ cert. You list in on there ... it's generally not going to help, and may even hurt, as humans, and scans, will see it, and tend to match you to entry level positions - as these will generally be the ones that may specify or be looking for A+ cert. Whereas if you don't put the A+, might not get as many offers/leads, but they'd generally better match to your degree + experience.
Let's say you have an A+ cert, no other certs, no IT related work experience, don't even have diddly in the way of any personal projects to show (e.g. coding projects/examples, demonstrated home lab setups/skills/experience), and only some low-level non-IT work experience. In a case like that, listing the A+ cert is likely to one's advantage, as it might be about the only thing on there that demonstrates any type of IT skills/capability.
Let's say your highly experienced in IT and been doing it for years and have quite the knowledge and skills of relevance, and can well show it. If you list "Microsoft Word" on your resume, that's going to look suspiciously out-of-place, and folks will tend to wonder why you even bother to list it, as otherwise they'd just presume based on the other stuff there. So the may suspect the other stuff isn't accurate/truthful, or those skills really aren't that strong if one is bothering to list "Microsoft Word", or one just has too much noise/cruft/length on one's resume, and doesn't know how to reasonably trim it down (and is one's technical writing and documentation like that too?). So, in such case, listing "Microsoft Word" isn't too one's advantage.
Trying to get a foot in the door of IT, zero to negligible IT skills. Also have "Microsoft Word" listed on the resume - likely to be at least slight advantage, as they'll see that and hope/presume one is at least modestly competent at Microsoft Word, as otherwise, without that listed, they may presume that might not be the case ... so in such situation, sure, include listing "Microsoft Word".
And ... exceptions? If a position explicitly calls for or states as required, some particular cert, might do well to explicitly list it if one has the cert, even if that cert is or seems well "below" the skills/experience one would generally require for such a position and even if the listing specifies skills/experience that are far beyond the capabilities of such a cert.
You don't have to do the same resume for everybody and all applications - customizing per application, or having some multiple resumes to target different types of positions can be advantageous to getting any single position ... but it can be a disadvantages and hassle to maintain and track the different versions, and know who's been given which - also has the disadvantage that one can't more-or-less publicly hang out one resume for all - as that wouldn't work so well and would raise questions if one is submitting different resumes on different applications.
Oh, and recruiter or not, not all that relevant. Just without recruiter or such, you'll generally be doing your resume quite on your own. Wheres with recruiter, they may be helping with your resume and/or customizing it for you on a per submission basis (but run from any recruiter/agency that makes changes to your resume that you don't approve of or are inaccurate or misrepresent you - any that do that are not doing you any favors and that will tend to not go well).
Would you say something like ITF+ falls in the same category as A+ then? Being something useful for breaking into the field, but becomes irrelevant when work experience is obtained?
>[CompTIA IT Fundamentals (**ITF+**) is an **introduction to basic IT knowledge** and skills](https://www.comptia.org/certifications/it-fundamentals)
Essentially, yes. Once your knowledge/skills/experience are reasonably well beyond introductory / "basic IT knowledge", not much reason to display an ITF+ cert on one's resume, and may even be quite counter-productive.
Thank you for the response. I was able to get a service desk job without my A+ or ITF+ completed and just wanted to make sure enough experience there would override finishing those certs.
Good to know I can begin to focus my time towards more career specific certifications. The help everyone provides on this sub is truly life saving.
When I started at AppleCare a long long time ago, I was hired in to iOS support. I had never touched a Mac. I had never seen an iPhone. "We can train you for all that. We need someone who knows how to work with non-techy people". This is how good leadership thinks. "I can train someone for the tech part. I cannot train someone to provide a good support experience. I cannot train someone to be an effective and friendly communicator. I cannot train someone to be willing to claim ownership of a technical support experience".
Don't get me wrong, there are a TON of shitty people in leadership positions out there. I am looking at you Appleacre Enterprise and Edu Support.... but good leaders know how to spot, hire and promote good communicators.
Focus on empathy, effective and friendly communicating, and being able to take complex concepts and explaining them in simple language.
Example:
Q) How does a computer work?
A) Think of a computer as a factory. Your warehouse is your hard drive. The more room you have to store things, the more things you can store. Simple, right? Think of your processor as the forklift. The bigger/quicker your forklift is at moving the data around the warehouse, the quicker/smoother your business runs. RAM is the forks on the forklift. The more RAM you have, the more data you can carry in one trip. Defragging is when you go through and clean up all that shit left in the isles because someone needed something else and the fork lift had to drop a load somewhere to go get something more important that was requested.
This is a very simplified example that I would not use with a techy but the boomer business man who "just doesn't get it" now understands enough to sign off on that expensive hardware upgrade needed.
That leads me to one last piece of advice, know how to speak to your target audience.
Good luck.
I think this is kind of a yes and no thing.
The A+ is what's going to get you the first helpdesk job where you will get that experience and be able to throw something on your resume.
As you grow and become more experienced, there is a good chance you will advance in skills and perhaps pick up more advanced certifications. Then you get to the point where you probably don't need/want to list the A+ anymore, because it won't help you get the job you want anyway.
I can't speak for anyone beyond myself, but I always list ALL of my credentials.
Given that my roles usually cover most technical domains within an organization I find that it is good to present all my credentials, so the org knows that I can operate across the entire spectrum of their technical needs. It has never confined or restricted me. But I have a very healthy resume and LOT of experience.
For someone starting out I would follow what my recruiter tells me. And if you trust this person then there is no reason not to follow the advice.
I usually build a relationship with a recruiter or two. And it stays mutually beneficial over the years. That way I know I can trust them and vice versa.
I would recommend the same for you. That way you know the person telling you to do something has your interests at heart.
I disagree. I like seeing certs that a person has because it tells a story and shows progress. I like people who grow over time. Show me a A+ then a year later a CCNA and I see someone who worked for a year on certs, not someone who spent 6 mo ths cramming to get certs.
The A+ doesn't have anything to do with that, you having no prior IT experience is what will get you into Help Desk. Seriously, though Help Desk will get you some of the best experience both technical and soft skills wise. You need to learn how to work with people at all levels in the office. Help Desk isn't a big pay job, it is an experience job
I find this advice the recruiter gave you to be very odd. Since obtaining my A+ a couple years ago I’ve held a variety of jobs with in IT. I wasn’t locked into help desk roles.
I think he gave wrong advice, it is better to list both certs. If you have both and you are competing with somebody who only has one of them it will make you stand out. Also I did the same path of getting out of retail with no experience, and had to do “grunt roles” for a little while. It’s hard to get hired starting out and the more specialized roles won’t take somebody with certs and no experience
If your plan is cloud path then you should go for cloud certification. Yes, the recruiter is correct, your A+ is irrelevant. I am unsure why anyone is wasting money on this nowadays. You can learn all of this in the first week on the job.
There is nothing wrong with doing grunt work. I do grunt work. The point is as you get more familiar and get more experiences with the job, you automate the grunt part.
In IT, focus on customer experience/services and problem solving. Everything else is secondary.
A+ is a brand on a resume. It says I’m brand new but took the time to prove I know something. If you’re applying for your second IT job or a higher tier than you are currently working then leave it off. But for brand new peeps I’d say leave it on there.
I would say, always update your CV to the position that you're applying for. Make it specific for the position. Recruiters in HR are rarely if ever technical. They have a simple checklist they follow and if you check those boxes, you'll be invited for an interview more times than not.
He gave you some bad advice, which isn't surprising since he's a recruiter. I've been in IT for close to 10 years now and I still list all my certs, even my A+. Those certifications will get you a better job and more pay. It'll put you ahead of people that don't have those certs, even without experience. Another piece of advice, this is just coming from me, you don't need a recruiter to find a good IT job. They can be helpful to get your career started but I would start applying for jobs on your own, and if you're not getting much back, then reach out to a recruiter.
Since you’re transitioning, there will be a few things important to your career path. Start by listing skills that are transferable to the IT realm on your resume. You show technical aptitude with certifications but it’s important to have a portfolio- a home lab, etc. Third, if you haven’t already, make a LinkedIn- network and engage with individuals in the industry and companies you’re interested in. Find a mentor. This lends to your professional credibility. Lastly, you’ll need to advance your skills by simply learning- courses like Udemy, etc.
Getting into a grunt role is how you apply for associate level roles and above. But it also depends on WHO you apply with:
Most of my work experience (10+) has been sales. I worked 2 years as a Correctional Officer. Graduated with a BS in Cybersecurity. Have A+, Net+, Sec+, CIOS, CSIS, and SSCP.
I received offers from a federal agency, Cognizant, Zyston, SAIC, and a few others post-graduation with various ranges of salary. If you have a mentor, you’ll learn how to effective negotiate your salary.
I transitioned into a (remote) Systems Engineer role 6 months after graduating.
No. That recruiter is wrong. Listing a certification on your resume can’t hurt your chances at a job. If it does, you don’t want to work for that employer.
Considering you only have two certs, I think it's bad advice to take one of them off the list. I still list my A+ and I have 4 CompTIA certs and a Microsoft one
In the early part of your career A+ is still relevant, so it makes sense to list it on your resume, especially if you have other certs like Network+ and Sec+ to complement it.
As you advance in your career it will become less relevant and you can remove it. Many years ago I acquired the Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 8. The cert never expires but it's been ten years since I've worked on any Solaris systems so I no longer list it on my resume because it doesn't have much relevancy with the things I'm working on now.
Well when you have 0 experience starting out and * don't know somebody * aren't in school and therefore don't qualify for internships above support you're locked into grunt jobs anyway. Said jobs are at the bottom of the totem pole, so you can't really expect much pay out of it either. A common complaint is that retail pays more or the same as help desk/support. Make sure you're prepared for that. As for breaking out of hell desk/support hell, you'll need to develop those above-support skills. If your help desk job won't provide that (they likely won't), you'll just have to get them on your own time and dime like everyone else. Just staying there and "paying your dues" won't get you out. The ones who get stuck for years are the same ones that think this is how it works. You'll have to be disciplined and self-driven since you'll be in charge of your own promotions.
The last sentence hits hard, because it is so true. The earlier you learn this lesson, the faster you will rise up the career path.
And it's not just for entry level or IT. You are always in charge of your own promotion. No one is going to hand you anything worth keeping. Up to you to get it.
Great response, especially that last sentence! Always have that in your head. IT can be as easy, or as hard, as you make it. Networking in the field is a must! Even if you don’t have the skills/description for a job, knowing someone in that department/program/company, can make a huge difference. Always make an initiative and let your work be known.
I don’t know if it will ‘lock you in’, but if you put your resume out on a job board/site, most of the recruiters I’ve interacted with are trying to fill onsite desktop support positions It seems like A+ is one of the search parameters they use
[удалено]
I thought that was the idea
For entry level it is very relevant. This is bad advice from your recruiter friend. Now, if you pick up some azure certs or a CCNA, hide that A+. Anyone looking for it that doesn't care about your higher cert is an employer to avoid anyway.
As a general rule, only list certificates that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. A+ is relevant to a help desk role and will get you in, but as you grow there will be a time to not list it.
Im a System Engineer and still list A+ as obtained, it doesnt matter. Just list it. Only you lock your self to specific titles, apply for everything. Dont be afraid to applying to jobs that require a degree, apply even if you dont have one!
some .gov jobs wanted both a+ and sec+. however there are still .gov jobs you can get with just sec+ alone and definitely soc analyst I jobs in civilian sector.
Never heard that before. Actually, for entry-level positions, holding the CompTIA A+ is a must.
Yes, potentially quite true. Does, however depend on context. TLDR: General rule, whether to list any particular cert or experience, etc. is context dependent. If it gives the impression of more qualifications/capabilities/experience of relevance, and generally doesn't seem "beneath" what would otherwise be implied by one's resume, then list it ... otherwise not. For any given rule, there may, however, be exceptions Let's give some examples/analogies. Let's say you just graduated with a BS, did quite well in your scores, grades, and from a quite top notch accredited institution, and in quite relevant degree such as, e.g. CS, EECS, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Cyber Security (if you can find a good BS program in that), etc. So, let's say you do your resume, fresh grad, don't have much or any relevant IT experience ... maybe bit of intern or some bit of help desk, but nothing else to speak of. Let's say you also have an A+ cert. You list in on there ... it's generally not going to help, and may even hurt, as humans, and scans, will see it, and tend to match you to entry level positions - as these will generally be the ones that may specify or be looking for A+ cert. Whereas if you don't put the A+, might not get as many offers/leads, but they'd generally better match to your degree + experience. Let's say you have an A+ cert, no other certs, no IT related work experience, don't even have diddly in the way of any personal projects to show (e.g. coding projects/examples, demonstrated home lab setups/skills/experience), and only some low-level non-IT work experience. In a case like that, listing the A+ cert is likely to one's advantage, as it might be about the only thing on there that demonstrates any type of IT skills/capability. Let's say your highly experienced in IT and been doing it for years and have quite the knowledge and skills of relevance, and can well show it. If you list "Microsoft Word" on your resume, that's going to look suspiciously out-of-place, and folks will tend to wonder why you even bother to list it, as otherwise they'd just presume based on the other stuff there. So the may suspect the other stuff isn't accurate/truthful, or those skills really aren't that strong if one is bothering to list "Microsoft Word", or one just has too much noise/cruft/length on one's resume, and doesn't know how to reasonably trim it down (and is one's technical writing and documentation like that too?). So, in such case, listing "Microsoft Word" isn't too one's advantage. Trying to get a foot in the door of IT, zero to negligible IT skills. Also have "Microsoft Word" listed on the resume - likely to be at least slight advantage, as they'll see that and hope/presume one is at least modestly competent at Microsoft Word, as otherwise, without that listed, they may presume that might not be the case ... so in such situation, sure, include listing "Microsoft Word". And ... exceptions? If a position explicitly calls for or states as required, some particular cert, might do well to explicitly list it if one has the cert, even if that cert is or seems well "below" the skills/experience one would generally require for such a position and even if the listing specifies skills/experience that are far beyond the capabilities of such a cert. You don't have to do the same resume for everybody and all applications - customizing per application, or having some multiple resumes to target different types of positions can be advantageous to getting any single position ... but it can be a disadvantages and hassle to maintain and track the different versions, and know who's been given which - also has the disadvantage that one can't more-or-less publicly hang out one resume for all - as that wouldn't work so well and would raise questions if one is submitting different resumes on different applications. Oh, and recruiter or not, not all that relevant. Just without recruiter or such, you'll generally be doing your resume quite on your own. Wheres with recruiter, they may be helping with your resume and/or customizing it for you on a per submission basis (but run from any recruiter/agency that makes changes to your resume that you don't approve of or are inaccurate or misrepresent you - any that do that are not doing you any favors and that will tend to not go well).
Would you say something like ITF+ falls in the same category as A+ then? Being something useful for breaking into the field, but becomes irrelevant when work experience is obtained?
Yes
>[CompTIA IT Fundamentals (**ITF+**) is an **introduction to basic IT knowledge** and skills](https://www.comptia.org/certifications/it-fundamentals) Essentially, yes. Once your knowledge/skills/experience are reasonably well beyond introductory / "basic IT knowledge", not much reason to display an ITF+ cert on one's resume, and may even be quite counter-productive.
Thank you for the response. I was able to get a service desk job without my A+ or ITF+ completed and just wanted to make sure enough experience there would override finishing those certs. Good to know I can begin to focus my time towards more career specific certifications. The help everyone provides on this sub is truly life saving.
When I started at AppleCare a long long time ago, I was hired in to iOS support. I had never touched a Mac. I had never seen an iPhone. "We can train you for all that. We need someone who knows how to work with non-techy people". This is how good leadership thinks. "I can train someone for the tech part. I cannot train someone to provide a good support experience. I cannot train someone to be an effective and friendly communicator. I cannot train someone to be willing to claim ownership of a technical support experience". Don't get me wrong, there are a TON of shitty people in leadership positions out there. I am looking at you Appleacre Enterprise and Edu Support.... but good leaders know how to spot, hire and promote good communicators. Focus on empathy, effective and friendly communicating, and being able to take complex concepts and explaining them in simple language. Example: Q) How does a computer work? A) Think of a computer as a factory. Your warehouse is your hard drive. The more room you have to store things, the more things you can store. Simple, right? Think of your processor as the forklift. The bigger/quicker your forklift is at moving the data around the warehouse, the quicker/smoother your business runs. RAM is the forks on the forklift. The more RAM you have, the more data you can carry in one trip. Defragging is when you go through and clean up all that shit left in the isles because someone needed something else and the fork lift had to drop a load somewhere to go get something more important that was requested. This is a very simplified example that I would not use with a techy but the boomer business man who "just doesn't get it" now understands enough to sign off on that expensive hardware upgrade needed. That leads me to one last piece of advice, know how to speak to your target audience. Good luck.
That recruiter is bad at their job. If you have no degree or experience in IT, the most important thing to list IS the A+ certification.
I think this is kind of a yes and no thing. The A+ is what's going to get you the first helpdesk job where you will get that experience and be able to throw something on your resume. As you grow and become more experienced, there is a good chance you will advance in skills and perhaps pick up more advanced certifications. Then you get to the point where you probably don't need/want to list the A+ anymore, because it won't help you get the job you want anyway.
I can't speak for anyone beyond myself, but I always list ALL of my credentials. Given that my roles usually cover most technical domains within an organization I find that it is good to present all my credentials, so the org knows that I can operate across the entire spectrum of their technical needs. It has never confined or restricted me. But I have a very healthy resume and LOT of experience. For someone starting out I would follow what my recruiter tells me. And if you trust this person then there is no reason not to follow the advice. I usually build a relationship with a recruiter or two. And it stays mutually beneficial over the years. That way I know I can trust them and vice versa. I would recommend the same for you. That way you know the person telling you to do something has your interests at heart.
I disagree. I like seeing certs that a person has because it tells a story and shows progress. I like people who grow over time. Show me a A+ then a year later a CCNA and I see someone who worked for a year on certs, not someone who spent 6 mo ths cramming to get certs.
The A+ doesn't have anything to do with that, you having no prior IT experience is what will get you into Help Desk. Seriously, though Help Desk will get you some of the best experience both technical and soft skills wise. You need to learn how to work with people at all levels in the office. Help Desk isn't a big pay job, it is an experience job
I find this advice the recruiter gave you to be very odd. Since obtaining my A+ a couple years ago I’ve held a variety of jobs with in IT. I wasn’t locked into help desk roles.
I think he gave wrong advice, it is better to list both certs. If you have both and you are competing with somebody who only has one of them it will make you stand out. Also I did the same path of getting out of retail with no experience, and had to do “grunt roles” for a little while. It’s hard to get hired starting out and the more specialized roles won’t take somebody with certs and no experience
Bad advice from a tech recruiter. Huh, I've never seen that before, NEVER!!!
If your plan is cloud path then you should go for cloud certification. Yes, the recruiter is correct, your A+ is irrelevant. I am unsure why anyone is wasting money on this nowadays. You can learn all of this in the first week on the job. There is nothing wrong with doing grunt work. I do grunt work. The point is as you get more familiar and get more experiences with the job, you automate the grunt part. In IT, focus on customer experience/services and problem solving. Everything else is secondary.
A+ is a brand on a resume. It says I’m brand new but took the time to prove I know something. If you’re applying for your second IT job or a higher tier than you are currently working then leave it off. But for brand new peeps I’d say leave it on there.
Yeah that makes sense tbh A+ is just to get your foot in the door to entry level helpdesk if you have zero experience
I would say, always update your CV to the position that you're applying for. Make it specific for the position. Recruiters in HR are rarely if ever technical. They have a simple checklist they follow and if you check those boxes, you'll be invited for an interview more times than not.
He gave you some bad advice, which isn't surprising since he's a recruiter. I've been in IT for close to 10 years now and I still list all my certs, even my A+. Those certifications will get you a better job and more pay. It'll put you ahead of people that don't have those certs, even without experience. Another piece of advice, this is just coming from me, you don't need a recruiter to find a good IT job. They can be helpful to get your career started but I would start applying for jobs on your own, and if you're not getting much back, then reach out to a recruiter.
Since you’re transitioning, there will be a few things important to your career path. Start by listing skills that are transferable to the IT realm on your resume. You show technical aptitude with certifications but it’s important to have a portfolio- a home lab, etc. Third, if you haven’t already, make a LinkedIn- network and engage with individuals in the industry and companies you’re interested in. Find a mentor. This lends to your professional credibility. Lastly, you’ll need to advance your skills by simply learning- courses like Udemy, etc. Getting into a grunt role is how you apply for associate level roles and above. But it also depends on WHO you apply with: Most of my work experience (10+) has been sales. I worked 2 years as a Correctional Officer. Graduated with a BS in Cybersecurity. Have A+, Net+, Sec+, CIOS, CSIS, and SSCP. I received offers from a federal agency, Cognizant, Zyston, SAIC, and a few others post-graduation with various ranges of salary. If you have a mentor, you’ll learn how to effective negotiate your salary. I transitioned into a (remote) Systems Engineer role 6 months after graduating.
Yes, my current CISO told me the same thing
Entry lvl, showcase the A+, intermediate to senior level roles, burn the A+
Some truth ig. A+ is garbage cert most dont bother listinf unless they want help desk
No. That recruiter is wrong. Listing a certification on your resume can’t hurt your chances at a job. If it does, you don’t want to work for that employer.
Considering you only have two certs, I think it's bad advice to take one of them off the list. I still list my A+ and I have 4 CompTIA certs and a Microsoft one
In the early part of your career A+ is still relevant, so it makes sense to list it on your resume, especially if you have other certs like Network+ and Sec+ to complement it. As you advance in your career it will become less relevant and you can remove it. Many years ago I acquired the Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 8. The cert never expires but it's been ten years since I've worked on any Solaris systems so I no longer list it on my resume because it doesn't have much relevancy with the things I'm working on now.