If you are planning to make your career in the field of Information Technologies, then it’s time that you introduce yourself with Cisco certifications to start and make a wonderful career.
CAREER! A word which is the most important thing for any graduate person nowadays. But, the competition is increasing day by day with great acceleration in pace.
However, there is a sure-shot way to get a better opportunity than anyone else. And that weapon is the “certification and training”. Yes, you read it right. Certifications and its training can work as a weapon, or better to say as a tool, to “design and shape your career”.
Cisco, a well-established and reputed company in the IT world, plays a vital role in the same concern. Cisco introduced some certifications a few years ago, which validates lots of skills required in the field of networking and technology. And CCNA is one of them, read more about it in the further sections.
What does CCNA certification mean to you?
Cisco is a popular company that provides networking hardware & software, and other Network technology products world-wide to support the IT industry and its continuous growth.
With the great success of their products in markets, the need for professionals to manage and maintain the Cisco products increased in companies using their products. Therefore, Cisco offers some certifications from entry-level to expert-level and even Architect to make it easy for employers as well as employers convenient services.
CCNA certification, Cisco Certified Network Associate, is one of those Cisco certifications. Below list would deliver a better picture of Cisco certification and CCNA certification’s stand in it.
- Entry-level – CCT
- Associate-Level – DevNet Associate, CCNA, CyberOps Associate
- Professional – DevNet Professional, CCNP Enterprise, CyberOps Professional, CCNP Collaboration, CCNP Data Center, CCNP Security, CCNP Service Provider
- Expert – CCDE, CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure, CCIE Enterprise Wireless, CCIE Collaboration, CCIE Data Center, CCIE Security, CCIE Service Provider
- Architect – CCAr
Cisco Certified Network Associate, as mentioned above, is an associate-level exam but can be qualified directly without the need for an entry-level exam CCT.
That is to say, CCNA has no prerequisite.
CCNA certification validates one’s ability to install, troubleshoot and manage its operations.
By the time it started, it had come across many updates and changes. Currently, Cisco’s CCNA certification is one whole examination with common and fundamental concepts. But, it was not the same when it started.
Earlier the CCNA certification had different domains or categories, from which you could have chosen as per your interest area. Mentioning their names as follows:
- CCNA Cloud
- CCNA Collaboration
- CCNA Data Center
- CCNA Industrial
- CCNA Routing and Switching
- CCNA Security
- CCNA Service provider
- CCNA Wireless
However, now all these subdomains have been collapsed to make it only one certification to deliver the general idea and concept of all CCNA level domains at once.
CCNA Certification Validates Career Oriented Skills
This certification deserves to be acquired because of the multiple benefits, especially the technical knowledge it validates.
CCNA certification is globally accepted hence the job opportunities are available worldwide.
The certification will validate the following skills:-
- Understanding of different network topologies interact to form a secure IT network
- Configuration, verification, and troubleshooting a switch with VLAN & Interswitch communication.
- Implementation and maintenance of Network Address Translation (NAT) and Access Control Lists (ACLs) in branch networks.
- Decisions over Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) administration.
- Installation of WAN for connectivity.
- Working with IP addressing and IP services according to the need or network.
- Identification of Network Security threats and securing the network from them.
The objectives of CCNA certification are way too long. You can learn more about them from the official site of Cisco.
Different job roles after CCNA Certification & training
After acquiring so many skills, there is not one or two paths for you there are several career options, better to say, different designations to “design your career”.
The job roles after CCNA certification are:-
- Network security specialist
- Network Associate
- Network Engineer
- System Administrator
- Network Support Engineers
- Senior Network Engineer
- System engineer
- Network Technician
These are some of the job roles one can acquire even if he/she is fresher after getting the CCNA training and certification.
What? Why? And How? CCNA Certification Training
Well, CCNA certification isn’t that easy to crack. It requires in-depth knowledge of network and security fundamentals, its access, IP services and connectivity. Along with, Automation and programmability.
Hence, it gets important to learn all these factors in-depth before appearing in the CCNA certification exam.
CCNA Certification in madrid gives you a hands-on experience similar to real-time projects which help you get easily settled in your work office. The experienced instructors and trainers design the training course in a way that helps the core understanding of concepts required in the exam.
However, one can even go for self-study, but it would require extra hard work for you to design the pattern of study. But, the blueprints are available on Cisco’s site if anyone wants to study by himself.
Although, a certificate of training may also be beneficial for freshers as it will validate that you have acquired the knowledge on the same.
There are multiple training institutes providing the training for CCNA certification. One can enroll after buying the course and use the perks the institute offers. Always remember, virtual labs and hands-on practice plays a major role in the training.
Salary Approach with “CCNA certified” title
The IT industry respects the talent and knowledge of candidates as they deserve, and that can be reflected in the salary package easily.
After acquiring this certification or CCNA certification training, you can apply and get the following job profiles with great salary packages based on your knowledge and concepts.
- Network Associate – 6,00,000 (approx.)
- Network Engineer – 5,00,000 (approx.)
- System Administrator – 4,50,000 (approx.)
- Network Support Engineers – 5,20,000 (approx.)
- Senior Network Engineer – 6,50,000 (approx.)
- System Engineer – 5,00,000 (approx.)
- Network Technician – 4,80,000 (approx.)
These are estimate figures, the numbers can vary even higher than this. Adding more to CCNA certification with other skills can make you land on higher pay roles.
Is There Any Next Step After CCNA Certification?
With such skills and titles, it won’t be tough for anyone to get a good, stable and enough-paid job. However, the time and technology never stop growing, so it is always better to keep on moving and adding skills in your resume.
CCNA is not the final stage, there is a lot more scope to develop even further in this field and keep on progressing.
After CCNA certification, training and hands-on experience, you can opt for certifications belonging to Professional level, expert level and at last you can achieve the Architect title.
At the professional and expert level, you have domain specified certifications. For instance, enterprise, collaboration, data center, security, service providers. All these domains are available at professional and expert level as CCNP and CCIE respectively.
They are the advanced versions of CCNA hence it will make you stand at higher posts and designation along with a great hike in salary.
At last, choosing CCNA to design the career can be actually really beneficial for a fresher and even for an experienced person to move ahead in life faster.
