In this article I'm going to cover the next steps after you've, Passed your Cisco CCNA certification in terms of what is the best certification to do next. So if you've just passed your CCNA or if you're planning on doing it in the near future and you're not sure what to do after that, Then keep reading . The first thing to say is congratulations on passing the CCNA, Whoever you just passed or you did. The exam a while ago or you're currently studying towards it, But you are going to get it by getting the CCNA.
That's giving you a really solid foundation for the rest of your IT career, But things don't stop here right. We need to keep moving forward, So you're gonna want to get more certification to give you even more benefits, Moving forward with your career and the reason that we need to keep moving and keep doing more certification. It's for the same reasons that you did the CCNA in the first place.
I know this is stating the obvious, But you want to have a good salary. You want to have job security, And by that I don't mean not worried about getting fired from your current position, But things happen you know. Maybe you do leave for some kind of reason and it's always good to be able to sleep secure at night, Knowing that, If anything does happen, You can just walk straight into another job, Because your resume looks that good. Other reasons are you want to be a valued member of a team and also you want to be doing work that interest you and that you enjoy.
So we'll keep that in mind as we look at what certifications we're going to do in future, But the main considerations that you want to think about you leave us three of these first thing you do is research, The job market and the way to do that Is by looking at the job boards, For example, On monster or wherever IT jobs are advertised in your particular area, Find that I log on and just look at what kind of jobs are being advertised for what jobs are in demand and what qualifications are required to Get those jobs - those are the qualifications that you want to have, And you want to keep a track of. What's in demand right now and also look at trends, See what appears to be becoming more popular and is going to be in more and in future, And that's going to give you a really good idea on how you should be positioning yourself. Other things that are important what is relevant to your current job, Because you want to be doing a good job there right. Another thing is that this is going to make you more value to your employer and, If you're, Going to study for a certification that is very relevant to your current job, T'll probably pay for it as well.
So it's a win-win doing something that is relevant to your current job. It gives benefit to your employer and again it goes on your resume, It's good for your future career and, Lastly, What interest you, So you see there's going to be different options that are available. Pick one that you're actually interested in and that you're gonna get excited about because that's gonna make for studying a lot more fun. It's gonna make it go a lot quicker.
You'Re gonna get a lot more enjoyment out of it. So those are really the three main considerations I would say to bear in mind when considering your next certification. So let's actually look at the next certification options, Because you've just done the Cisco CCNA makes a logical sense to carry on down the cisco path. If you are going to do that, I would say that right now, There's three qualifications that are most relevant to do after the CCNA routing and switching first one is VCC, NP, Routing and switching again. The reason for this is now this next thing is actually counterintuitive, Because you can get the CCNA by sitting just one exam to get the CCNP.
You need to sit for additional exams. So I remember when I was first thinking about this and I thought wow. You know if it was on a lot of topics covered in the CCNA, And that was one exam if first four exams for cGMP, It must be a crazy amount of information. But that's not actually the case at all. Once you've got your CCNA I'd, Say you're around 90% of the way to getting your CCNP. If you go on the Cisco website and you look at the topics shaniyah and on the CCNP, You will see that the topics are exactly the same t're, Both covering routing and switching with the CCNP.
It just goes in a little bit more detail, So it really makes a lot of logical sense to do the CCNP routing and switching next, Because you're already around 90% of the way there you've got the information fresh in your head, Because you've just done the CCNA. It's really not a lot of extra effort to get with ccnp and a big benefit that you get from doing. This is a lot less people get.
The CCNP then get the CCNA a lot of people that are working in different areas and IT not just the networking, Maybe in a side area like maybe even on server admin or maybe storage admin. You think it would be good for them and get the CCNA as well and t're right. It is good for them to diversify across with different areas, But those kind of engineer's, Typically books thought once we'll get the CCNA, Because it's not their main focus in my job. We don't go further on than that. So if you do get the CCNP routing and switching it positions you as more of a networking expert, Then everybody's got the CCNA.
It makes you more attractive in the job market with all of the employers. T don't know that it's just a little bit more to get the ccnp. You appear to be much more skilled and networking by doing that, Not so hard to do it, Although it is for more exams, But it's definitely a good choice to do the CNP routing and switching next. If you're not gonna, Do CMP routing and switching necks, That's either other to most relevant choices, Now our CCNA security or CCNA data center.
The reason for that is that t are the two other CCNA is that are in the most demand in the job market. Right now, If you want to see what all different tracks are available, You can go to the Cisco certification website. You can see down here under associate.
There's a lot of different CCNA is available. My advice is: do either security or DSN. In fact, Some of these are in very little demand in the job market and we're not going to really give your career a huge boost now another thing, While I'm talking about that again, As mentioned earlier, It also depends on your current job. If you're, Currently working a lot on IP article and IP telephony, Then CCNE a collaboration would be a great choice for you. So also and remember, A beard was three considerations in mind that I spoke about earlier on.
so those are the the most relevant Cisco certifications to do next, But there's not justice covers not just networking and you can give your resume a really big boost by becoming, What's known as a fool Stark engineer, A full-stack engineer is somebody: that's got skills across The entire DSN are not just the networking, So t have skills and networking also and server operating systems like Windows and Linux and server virtualization, VMware and also and storage. And if you are gonna, Do this typically you're not gonna, Get to a super advanced level on all of those different domains? If you're going to be a network engineer, You're gonna specialize in that, But it's good to have some knowledge across the different domains as well. The reason is around ten fifteen years ago, If you were on the networking team, You you didn't need to know anything about servers or about storage, Because the job roles were all in their own separate compartments and it was very little overlap.
But that's not the case. Now now that virtualization is so prevalent everywhere, There's a lot of gray areas was a lot of overlap between the different job roles and it's going to make you a lot more valuable to employers if you've got skills across all of them. Now, While I'm talking about this, If you're thinking t are so I have to learn this, I have to learn. I have to learn that too. It's so overwhelming you're not going to do it all in a day when you're working through your career and as you're doing this certification, It's baby steps.
Ok, Each certification is a giant leap but you're going to be taking baby steps towards each certification. So if you're, Just starting everybody started out the same as you, Israel, Even people that are super well-qualified, T didn't do it all in a day what t did was. We did one certification, Then another one and then another one. So it's like dominoes and you'll build momentum. So a big piece of advice I would give you I didn't mention earlier - is keep going.
If you stop and then start and stop and start it's always difficult to start again. So once you get one certification do another one, Do another one don't fall over like dominoes and when you do it like that, It really doesn't take long at all. If you do want to become a fool stock engineer, You can achieve it in a few years. Again, It's not a few days it's a few years, But this is great because the difficulty of this means that not many people do it. If you do become a full stock engineer, Who's got multiple different certifications.
That's what gives you that great job secure to it, Where you know it doesn't matter what happens? You'Re always gonna be in a great job, With a great salary doing work that you love , So to become a full stock engineer. You'Re going to be doing other vendors certifications with kind of certifications that are available. There are VMware something to tell you about VMware. The main certification for this is the vcp, The VMware, Certified professional and, Unfortunately, To get the certification. You need to have sat in an official VMware class, Either in the classroom or online, But you can't get training yourself online as a cheaper option.
You can take that Phinney. You can learn about it, But to get the actual official vcp certification, You need to set the official v8 vmware training, Which obviously is competitively expensive. So this is one I would recommend if it all possible, Get your employer to pay for it, Because it's going to be quite expensive to get back other ones.
You can do our Microsoft, Like the MCSA and the MCS. Eve are also valuable as well and when it's super popular right now is AWS Amazon. Web Services.
Where are those are what I would say would be the best ones to do now in no particular order. Other vendors certifications are available and again this comes back to what is relevant in your current job at all. So if you're in your current job at all, Maybe you're working with juniper, Routers and switches as well, Which would then mean it would make sense to do a Juniper certification. Another thing to think about is the current and future trends.
So when I would see now is current, It's actually been around for a while is cloud so AWS and Azur. You can do certification on them and t're fairly new servers. Still a lot of demand for them in the marketplace. You'll find that when a technology vewy takes off but is always going to be high demand, Because at that point in time, There's more jobs than our people qualify to do them.
So if you're a person, That's qualified, It makes you very attractive in the job market and you can get a great job. Looking forward, I'd see a future sent, It's already started, But there hasn't been huge uptick on it yet, But it will happen more in future. Is on the networking side as the end Software Defined Networking, And this requires some programming skills, Usually mostly in Python now with this - was not really certification for it yet buy expect that that is gonna change very soon, And certification will soon become available.
So this is something that would be really good in future. So that is everything hopefully I haven't, Given you overwhelm there to bring it back down to a manageable level. Again, Let's go back to the slide here and summarizes to see what I advise you to do next after the CCNA routing switching number one do not stop keep going. Keep that momentum.
It's gonna be really beneficial for your career, The best qualifications to do next. If you're gonna stick with Cisco would be ccnp routing and switching or ccnp security or CCNA data center, Which one you're gonna do again. It comes back to those considerations again: research for job market, What's relevant to your current job and what interests you I'd, Probably lean. Slightly towards CCNP routing and switching because you already 90% of it already that's going to position you as that next level, Up as a network engineer, If you want to try something different from Cisco and broaden your qualifications a bit more than it would be good to Luke certifications from VMware, Microsoft and AWS. If you do want to become a fuel stack engineer, You can take my introduction to sign and nice storage course by clicking the link above my head.
It's designed specifically for network engineers. It's only 90 minutes long, But it'll still give you a really good foundational understanding of storage. Ok, That's everything from me.
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