Certification Magazine - February 2008 - (Page 20) Regardless of their exact career direction and various backgrounds, IT professionals should acquire certain jack-of-all-trades-type certifications if they are the IT point man of an SMB. Through experts, surveys and IT professionals working on the ground level, it’s clear being an IT jack-of-all-trades goes beyond just certifications — there are a host of processes and practices that can consistently help a one-man IT operation. However, it all has to start somewhere, and certifications are a sure way to instant credibility. John Estes, vice president of Robert Half Technology, a global IT staffing firm, agreed. “If you’re a one-man or one-woman operation, you’re mainly going to be dealing with support and infrastructure,” Estes said. “You’re not going to be creating a lot of applications and that sort of thing, so certainly you’re going to be supporting users that need help [with] everything from ‘I forgot my password’ to ‘I locked up this Word document,’ so basic PC troubleshooting is certainly good. What’s going to come into play is the A+ certification. That’s someone who can go in and fix PC issues, fix printer issues, etc.” CompTIA’s A+ certification is a vendor-neutral certification measuring computer technicians’ competency, and it is updated quite often. More than 800,000 professionals have earned the certification to date. It’s often the first certification attained by those with budding IT careers. Even though A+ has a reputation for being a gateway or beginner certification it represents an essential step in learning the line of thinking and holistic approach to run an IT system — in terms of both hardware and software. Whether a company is an SMB or a Fortune 500, it’s run on a network. In the case of the former, it’s a core competency for a lone IT professional to be able to troubleshoot a network. For this reason, Estes sees network certifications as another useful certification for a person in this position. “Certainly with any type of network at all, and the majority of SMBs are Microsoft based, [you would want] something along the lines of a Windows network administrator, and the certification that would come along with that would be the Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator, or MCSA,” Estes said. “Then, of course, you’ve got other kinds of shops; maybe they want to go the Scientists have determined that Linux route or the UNIX route. If you’re talking we only use 10% of our brains. about the network side, the Linux Red Hat certifiMake the most of it. cation is very hot.” There’s only one way to prepare for your next certification exam and that’s with Self Test. It’s the only tool you’ll need to improve your IT IQ. Self Test Software helps you figure out what you know and gives you the answers to what you don’t. Hey, you’re already smart. We help you be smarter. w w w. s e l f t e s t s o f t w a re . c o m · 1 - 8 0 0 - 2 4 4 - 7 3 3 0 © 2006 Kaplan IT, Inc. All rights reserved. SELF TEST SOFTWARE® Kaplan IT, Inc. All rights reserved. Beyond basic server and system maintenance, the next step for someone with a large IT role in an SMB is going to be based on the company they’re working for. An insurance office is going to have different needs than an be smarter http://www.selftestsoftware.com http://www.selftestsoftware.com
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