CCNA Career – What To Do After You Get Your CCNA Certificate

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CCNA Career – Why You Should Care

I’ve written many posts about Cisco IOS tips and tricks, as well as Cisco IOS commands. In this post, I’ll touch on CCNA career options for the CCNA network engineer. One thing that every network engineer should be thinking about is what to do after you get the Classic CCNA (I believe Cisco now calls this CCNA Routing and Switching in some places). Specialization is the name of the game here, as there is more and more market demand on specialized skill sets for CCNA network engineers (and beyond). The full list of certifications and training available for the various Cisco certifications can be found at the IT Certification and Career Paths on the Cisco website. It is important for you, as the new CCNA network engineer (or soon to be network engineer), to consider what to do after you obtain your CCNA certification, so as to enhance your career prospects.

Cisco Routing and Switching Certifications

The most popular path by far is to specialize in Cisco routing and switching. Network engineers considering this path usually take the following certifications (in order): CCNA (Routing and Switching), CCNP, CCIE (Routing And Switching). There are a few good reasons for this.

First off, the routing and switching path is the oldest certification path available for Cisco network engineers. The original CCIE certification and exam has evolved to become what is now known today as the CCIE (R&S) certification. In a way, it’s the easiest CCIE to get, simply because there are more study aids available for this certification. There are very well established written and practical (lab) certification preparation material. Outside of the study aids and certification preparation material available online, there are also various boot camps which many Cisco training partners organize in order to help candidates prepare for the exam.

If you are not intending to go up to the CCIE certification, just having the CCNP certification opens many doors. What you learn when doing the CCNP certification is really sufficient for you work effectively as a network engineer in many companies as the core routing and switching skills are highly applicable.

Another point is that many technologies are dependent on the network, if you think about it. Many web technologies and media running over the network are highly dependent on having a stable network (with stable routing and switching) in your network. This guarantees that there will always be market demand for core routing and switching skills.

Start considering today what you want to do after your CCNA, your career depends on it.