Just keep in mind that a Cert is a Cert. In two years it will expire and you will have to recert to keep current.
A certification is basically to validate your experience, whether it was acquired in the lab, school, or in a production network. All of this will come into play when you apply for a job or ask for a raise. You have to decide if you are going for the cert because of personal reasons (like myself), or if you are looking for an increase in pay. If it is for the later, and you expect to stay at the same job, make it known to your employers on your intentions and see what they are willing to do in terms of compensation/support. Then you can make your own decision whether or not to pursue this cert. If you plan to leave your organization in search of vast riches you may be in for a rude awakening. Check out Dice, Monster, Headhunter, and all of the rest of job classifieds. Determine if even after you get the CCIE cert if the location, pay, other job specifics to see if with the CCIE you will even have the necessary work experience to meet those job qualifications. For about 90 percent of the jobs that require a CCIE, they will expect you to also work on higher end switches/routers not to mention SOLARIS/NT/LINUX/Openview/Ciscowork and the firewalls all of which you will not have if you just played around with 6 low end routers/switches to prepare for the CCIE. If you are like most people, it will take around 6-18 months to get the CCIE if you are just starting. What will the market be like in 6 to 18 months? My CCIE tracking (from newsgroups) has come up with approximately 4-5 CCIEs are being produced every day worldwide. So by the time you get your CCIE; 180 - 540 more CCIEs of which about half of them are in the US would have been certified. The salary offers has also been dropping on almost a monthly basis. Since I originally got my CCIE because of personal reasons, the lowering of pay does not bother me. It may however affect others. Good luck on your efforts, what ever it maybe. Always remember that the CCIE is not an end, it is just a marker along your way to the continous process of acquiring knowledge. Stanford Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=28950&t=28911 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
