Certification - June 2008 - (Page 35)

Getting Started on Help-Desk Certs PATRICK D. TURNER Certiﬁcations are a great way to get your foot in the door or move up in the IT world. There are several certiﬁcations that are good to have or pursue when you are trying to get a help-desk job. The CompTIA A+ is a great vendor-neutral certiﬁcation to get started with. The A+ mainly focuses on PC-based hardware and operating systems. If you want to focus on a Microsoft-based shop, there is the Microsoft Certiﬁed Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) that focuses on the Windows XP operating system, as well as some basic hardware knowledge. One of Microsoft’s newest certiﬁcations, the Microsoft Certiﬁed Technology Specialist (MCTS) Vista Conﬁguration, is a great way to certify your skills in a help-desk position that supports Vista or is planning to in the near future. If your job consists of supporting Linux, the CompTIA Linux+ might be a good choice. The Linux+ certiﬁcation gives you a generic knowledge about Linux that is applicable to any distribution your company supports. Novell has a brand new desktop certiﬁcation – the Certiﬁed Linux Desktop Administrator (CLDA) – that concentrates on the desktop version of SUSE Enterprise Desktop 10. This would be a great certiﬁcation if you work for a Novell shop moving to Linux on the desktop. This certiﬁcation takes experience you have on the Windows desktop and gives you a Linux equivalent. It is speciﬁc to SUSE Enterprise Desktop 10 and is not considered a generic Linux certiﬁcation. There are a lot of similarities between all Linux distributions, and almost any Linux certiﬁcation would be considered a great start. Apple has its Apple Certiﬁed Help Desk Specialist (ACHDS) for those who support Macintosh computers in the workplace. The ACHDS training gives you all the basics of the OS X operating system, conﬁguring services and troubleshooting problems. There is a new version of this certiﬁcation that is intended for OS X Leopard that was released a few months ago, versus the older Tiger version of the operating system. Besides the major industry-recognized certiﬁcations, there are companies that support and certify help-desk individuals. One of the larger organizations is HDI. HDI is a large, membershipbased organization that certiﬁes help-desk and technical support professionals. They have different levels of training and certiﬁcation ranging from customer service-based soft skills to managing and directing a help desk. As with anything you pursue, make sure you have the prerequisite skills and the right amount of experience before you attempt any of these certiﬁcations. When you begin the path to certiﬁcation, make sure your learning comes from multiple sources. A combination of books, classroom learning and good testing software can help tremendously. Nothing beats real-world experience when taking a certiﬁcation test. So if you are looking to get hired on a help desk or just want to improve what you know, pick one of these certiﬁcations and go for it! 8 June 2008 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE 35

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Certification - June 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Tech Careers Academic Connection Dear Techie Virtual Village Online Degrees: Are They Right for You? Inside Certification New Opportunities and Challenges: Are Application Developers Ready? Interface Where Have All the Help Desks Gone? Ad Index Endtag

Certification - June 2008

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