Welcome to the black hole of IT. I have a question for Harrisment and 111chase111. If someone gets MCSE certified and has no experience, would you accept them as an intern or junior level admin at minimal pay/minimal to no benefits so they can grow their way into the company? It's like starting from the bottom, but at least they get to use their knowledge and apply it in the right department they want to grow in. Getting that experience would be far more valuable than starting at the very bottom with help desk, pc tech, etc.
We wouldn't at my company. If we ever have a need for a junior level admin, we pretty much always promote from within. When we hire externally, we look for people with the experience to hit the ground running. So I think with no experience you'd have better luck starting out on the bottom with a company and trying to impress and move your way up to the position you want. If you're at a company that doesn't allow you the opportunity to eventually move up if you do well, then I would look for something else once the job market picks back up. I went through that same experience for a while where I felt stuck doing desktop support. Eventually though I got an opportunity somewhere and took advantage of it.
For the jobs we've been posting for recently we wouldn't hire someone with an MCSE and no experience. My take on the MCSE was it was a good way to get more well-rounded which comes through on job interviews. So many of the people we interview no some buttons to push or commands to type but don't really understand why they are doing what they do.
I currently work for a small gaming company which is split in between the gaming part and the software/networking part. Due to the current state of the economy our company is not hiring and my boss asked me if I wanted to help out with installs (networking) and possibly later down the line, programming. I am very interested in learning this and have asked some people about what to take and they usually say get cisco training or certification for networking. I'm wondering what would be most useful to get a good idea of what's in store.
I am a network admin for a non profit and I love what I do. But If I wanted to just go after the money I would have learned Sql and Crystal. Programers are always in demand. You can pull 70k easy if you know how to pull data from sql tables and write queries. Also knowing how sharepoint is great. All of the data in sharepoint are stored in Sql databases so it all comes back to Sql in the world of Microsoft. To answer orignal posters question. Learn the concepts of what the mcse teaches. Dont just focus on passing the test. Anybody can pass a test what helps in the real world is understanding the concepts behind the technology and being able solve problems under tight deadlines
I studied for the MCSE, but never took the test. I had a virtual machine and an evaluation copy of server 2003 to mess around with things though so I could kinda follow what was going on. I think I'm going to try the 2008 certification, but I don't have anything to test it on. How hard would it be to get a 2008 certification going strictly off reading a book?
If you're a student, go to http://dreamspark.com. Otherwise Microsoft gives 180 trials (ISO and VHD) : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/try-it.aspx They do the same for most of their software if you want to try other enterprise apps (SQL, Exchange, ISA, Win7, SharePoint, SCCM, SCOM, etc...).
