Exploring the Diverse CompTIA Career Pathways that Are Just Right for Budding Professionals Aspiring for a Successful IT Career in 2020
Information technology is constantly changing the way you live, do business, interact, or even play. It is impacting every aspect of your life and it is surely the most rapidly growing career field. Information technology is expected to carry on this phenomenal growth trend for many more years to come.
The demand for IT professionals is still dominating the job scene and that is primarily because of certain important factors and that may include the phenomenal rise in the popularity of e-commerce and the Internet in general, lower software and hardware prices that are helping businesses to embrace cutting-edge technology, a boost in the demand for Cybersecurity specialists triggered by the mounting frequency and sophisticated nature of cyber-crimes, the introduction of more advanced and relatively smarter apps and technologies that equip organizations to effectively analyze data and come up with unparalleled business intelligence and the advent of the amazing ‘mobile computing era’.
There are various career paths to follow if you are pursuing certifications and further study in Information Technology. CompTIA is supposed to be a reputed non-profit trade association that boasts of over 2,000 member organizations and over 3,000 business partners. CompTIA actually emphasizes on a better understanding of all their different career paths that would be helping you in accomplishing the next level and a new dimension in your IT career by introducing an impressive array of its career pathways. As per https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/10718-comptia-certification-guide.html, we are given to understand that along with these pathways, one certification would be building upon the previous one for helping aspirants to move ahead in their career.
The CompTIA Career Pathways for Infrastructure or Cybersecurity let you unlock the skills that will get you right to the forefront of the industry. These core skills certifications are the perfect way to kick-start your IT career and can serve as a solid foundation for everything you do to boost future growth.
However, simply because CompTIA has mapped out these specific pathways, it does not necessarily imply that you are required to follow this order while taking CompTIA certifications. You may start with whatever certification that seems necessary for the advancement of your career at that point. Many IT professionals initiate with CompTIA A+ to fortify their core skills and then go forward in the specialized pathway of their choice while there are still others who would jump in at an advanced level and then come back to complete the basic certifications such as CompTIA Security + or CompTIA Network after successful completion of more advanced certifications.
Early in 2018, CompTIA unveiled their Infrastructure Career Pathway. All the familiar certifications that you have grown to associate with them still exist in their portfolio, but the brand new pathway program is designed to meet the needs of the market and bring the courses closer to the skills that IT professionals would need in their day-to-day work, handling industry-grade IT infrastructure. Other courses are usually categorized according to skill level, from novice (foundation) to specialization, but the new breed of CompTIA certifications are grouped by skill-set, like Core, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure and Additional Professional Certifications. You may choose the perfect CompTIA certification path to achieve success in your career.
Core Certifications: These basic level certifications have been designed for building core foundational skills. In this context, you must know that CompTIA actually offers four effective Core certifications including IT Fundamentals, CompTIA Security+, CompTIA Network+, and of course, CompTIA A+.
Infrastructure Certifications: These are designed for complementing the Network+ credential. You would be finding three specific infrastructure certifications including CompTIA Cloud+, CompTIA Server+ and CompTIA Linux+.
Cybersecurity Certifications: CompTIA is known to offer three distinct Cybersecurity credentials including CASP, CompTIA CySA+ the CompTIA PenTest+.
Additional Professional Certifications: This particular category would be including many credentials that would not be readily fitting into and complementing any other specified CompTIA career paths such as CompTIA CTT, CompTIA Project+, and also, CompTIA Cloud Essentials.
CompTIA Core Certifications: Some Really Important Ones
CompTIA IT Fundamentals
CompTIA It Fundamentals certification seems to be a perfect certification for beginners or amateurs to equip them with a basic understanding of compatibility and functionality of PC and familiarity with core technology topics like software installation, hardware basics, security risks, and their effective prevention along with developing basic networking skills. This is an effective career development or career planning tool meant for candidates who are just initiating their careers in Information Technology or thinking of opting for a change of career.
CompTIA A+
The CompTIA A+ certification is regarded as the gateway for a prosperous career in IT. This certification has been effectively designed for people looking to pursue an IT career by fulfilling the responsibilities of a help desk, offering support, service center technician, or a trained networking technician operating across laptop and PC hardware, the configuration of computer, mobile operating systems, and software installation. CompTIA A+ would be examining a candidate’s knowledge and understanding of fundamental networking, security, and troubleshooting skills. Per CompTIA, over one million IT specialists have managed to acquire the A certification that is needed by Intel, Dell, and even the HP service technicians.
CompTIA Network+
Several IT professionals would be starting their careers with a preliminary certification like the A+ certification. But if you have the patience and the right experience, you could directly shift to the CompTIA Network+ certification. This has been designed for professionals having a minimum of 9 months exposure and experience in networking. A probable candidate must have basic knowledge about media, networking technologies, topologies, configuration, and security installation.
CompTIA Security+
CompTIA Security+ would be covering important areas including network security concepts, vulnerabilities, and even threats, identity management, access control, cryptography etc.
Infrastructure Certifications to Keep in Mind
CompTIA Linux+
The CompTIA Linux+ is actually powered by LPI certifications and aims at specifically Linux network administrators who are having a minimum of 12 months of administration expertise and experience in Linux. Such experience would be including package management, installation, UNIX commands, and GNU, shells, security, scripting, and more.
CompTIA Cloud+
We know that the cloud computing landscape is gaining traction, and the one certification that is keeping up with its pace is the CompTIA Cloud+ that is just the right one for IT professionals having two to maximum three years of exposure and experience in core areas like storage, data center administration or networking.
CompTIA Server+
CompTIA Server+ is meant for server administrators having 18 to almost 24 months of exposure, and expertise in software technologies and server hardware. The Server+ certification is often required and recommended by Intel, HP, and even Lenovo for training and polishing the skills of their server technicians.
CompTIA Cybersecurity Certifications that Are Very Popular
CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CySA+)
With the rise of cybercrimes, there is a major need for exceptionally skilled and fully-equipped information security analysts. A new inclusion in the impressive CompTIA certification portfolio should be the Cybersecurity Analyst Certification.
CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP)
CASP is truly a master-level certification and a sought-after credential that targets the practitioners. This is basically a performance-based certification presently offered by CompTIA.
Conclusion
Your staff could achieve the compulsory experience and skills on current or new technologies through relevant training and advanced certifications for acquiring more knowledge to successfully become a more efficient member of the IT team so that they could respond more effectively to certain incidents even outside their usual environment. Remember an organization that invests in its staff via certifications and training would boast of a really more tech-savvy workforce that would be responding promptly to all-new challenges faster.
