Top 5 Networking Certs for 2021

Key Takeaways

now before we get started i expect a lot of pushback on this video let's see how many dislikes i get on this video i'm expecting a lot of people to complain in the comments feel free to share your opinion in the comments this is my opinion this is what i would suggest if i was starting today for instance if i had no networking experience this is what i would do myself today based on what i see i got my ccna certification over 20 years ago that's a long time ago i've been doing this for a long time i've seen a lot of changes in the industry i've seen a lot of trends i haven't just worked on cisco equipment so for all the people that accuse me of being a cisco fanboy let me just say i have worked on other vendor equipment i've spent actually a few years not doing cisco i did other vendors stuff but this is my opinion based on my experience and what i see happening in the industry take it as you like but this is my advice based on how i see things how i see the trends [Music] now in a previous video which i've linked here and below i discussed whether certifications are actually worth it in this video i'm going to talk about the five certifications that i think you should consider getting in 2021 now this information will depend on where you are in your career if you're just starting out don't think you're going to get ccie in 2021 if you're just starting out and you've only recently learned about what a mac address is what an ip address is aim to get your ccna and perhaps working towards your ccmp don't think you're going to jump from zero knowledge to ccie in six months that is too much a jump if you're doing that then you're trying to circumvent the process you are not actually getting the knowledge and that is one of the important things about certifications that help you get a certain level of knowledge don't try and cheat the system put in the work put in the effort and make sure that you get the knowledge so that when you get to the job you can actually do it now before i show you my list let me show you some practical real world stuff i'm gonna search for ccna on indeed.com this is a u.s job site and what i'd like you to see is 8481 jobs are listed i'll do the same thing for jncia so this is the juniper associate certification notice 260 jobs and then i'll search for the hpe acsa so this is a ruba and i mean if i need to i'll just specify aruba there so aruba notice nine jobs if i specify with just asca i get 199 jobs but this seems to include other types of jobs not relevant to networking so notice the practical demonstration there ccna eight thousand almost eight and a half thousand jobs juniper 260 jobs and if i specify aruba i get 800 jobs but that includes all types of jobs that's not just the ccna level knowledge if i search for ccmp as an example i get 4 000 jobs so to me that says something that says that more employers see ccna as a entry-level certification than some of the other certifications here's monster ccna 3267 jobs jncia 122 jobs ccie on indeed 1 673 jobs so the point i'm trying to make here is notice how there are more jobs for cisco certifications than other certifications and that doesn't mean that the other certifications are not good it's just if i have limited time and we all have limited time if i have a choice between getting a cisco ccna or one of the other vendor certifications i personally would prefer going for ccna because there's the proof here's an example from the uk so 947 jobs for ccna on linkedin jncia 29 jobs acsa 23 jobs now that may vary depending on which country you are in the world and which niche you're trying to go into if you are trying to become a juniper engineer then obviously you're going to look at getting juniper certifications but just looking at the job market and the size of vendors if i had a choice i would get ccna rather than other certifications and that's why my first certification to get in 2021 is cisco ccna there's another big reason for this who's the biggest networking vendor out there who's bigger juniper or cisco hpe or ruba or cisco who's bigger cisco own a massive share of the market so just look at the data look at the data look at the facts you can see based on just my quick test here that you're more likely to get a job getting a ccna rather than another certification now i know a lot of you are going to get upset by what i've said feel free to put it in the comments and let me know your thoughts this is again based on my experience and my opinion and sort of what i see i've been in this game once again many many years i passed my cisco ccna over 20 years ago been doing this for a long time there was a point in my career where i actually spent a lot of time doing hpe stuff so i started with cisco i did a whole bunch of stuff with hpe and the hpe stuff is great aruba stuff is great i really enjoy working with this stuff but if i look at it from a limited amount of time in which certifications are most in demand i would personally go cisco and that's what i advise you as well that doesn't mean that other certifications are not good that doesn't mean that they're not as good as cisco just look at the demand you've got to decide the reasons for why you're taking a specific certification me personally i would advise ccna i've seen a lot of other vendors kind of copy cisco's way of doing things so cisco have associate professional expert and i see a lot of other vendors do something similar they also have associate professional expert certifications cisco drive the industry so my personal opinion is do you see ccna and again the industry is changing i wouldn't just get ccna so people always ask me which certification should i get if you want to do networking i would recommend ccna as your first certification second certification would be cisco devnet why because the market no longer wants you to have just networking knowledge you need to have developer knowledge so you need to learn python you need to learn or network automation i mean some of that is already in the ccna certification but if you really want to help yourself and this is what i would do if i was starting out i would get ccna and then i'd go and get my cisco devnet certification so that i can get into the developer site and then you have a choice maybe you want to study development so the next certification i'd recommend is something like the devnet professional so you'll learn development in a networking context so get your devnet professional certification look at the automation certifications that are available from cisco devnet but perhaps you don't really want to do development you want to be more a traditional network engineer so then i would look at getting my ccmp and personally if i was doing it today i would get encore and then i'd look at sd-wan sd-wan is becoming really important so i'd get my encore and then i'd go for sd1 now you may want to do others and this is what's great about the cisco ccmp today they have different concentrations so you might do sd-wan but that doesn't stop you you could go and do something else like advanced writing and switching so decide what you want to do see which track you really enjoy but make sure you get your ccmp certification and then the top certification i think has been the gold standard for many many years is ccie if you really want to take your networking knowledge to the next level get a cisco ccie now a lot of people will ask is a ccie valid or useful today based on my experience my ccie opened a lot of doors for me and it continues to open doors for me is a ccie valid is it useful i definitely think so now i've been a ccie for a long time i actually am a cci emeritus at the moment so i don't constantly renew my ccie because i don't need it for what i'm doing today i think a lot of older people as they develop in their careers go more into management go more into other areas so they don't have to do the day-to-day stuff so they might just go for emeritus and i think it's great that cisco did that because a lot of people as they mature in their career don't do hands-on the whole time they do more design they do more high-level stuff so it's great that cisco have done that now i know that people are going to complain that i've made this a cisco ish certification list this is my opinion and you may not agree with me but if i was starting out these are the certifications that i would look at getting in 2021 now again if you're just starting forget about ccie try and get your ccna devnet and perhaps some part of ccmp in 2021 but if you're already a ccnp you're already devnet professional you may decide okay i'm not going to get a ccie i'm going to concentrate on development i think things have changed now in the past we only had ccna np ie that was our path now we have multiple paths i can go either ccie writing and switching but i can also become an expert in development decide where you want to go if you hate coding you're probably not going to want to become an expert in the devnet track if you much prefer writing protocols you're probably going to want to go down the track of ccie is it still valid today i think it is a lot of there's a lot of debates on the internet about you know ccie is pointless i think a lot of it is down to you remember that you don't know what you don't know and a certification track and a certification like ccie will help you realize how little you know i think a lot of us including myself when i got my ccie i knew a lot but at that point i realized you know what i actually know very little because the more you learn the more you realize there is more to learn and please don't be despondent by that statement it's important that you decide for yourself where you're going to go you cannot know everything cisco have a whole bunch of ccie certifications just because i got my ccie in routing and switching which is now enterprise infrastructure doesn't mean that i know everything about wireless doesn't mean i know everything about security or data center remember that there is a lot of knowledge out there you need to focus your time on what gets you the best return personally if i was starting out again i would get ccna and i would get my devnet associate decide what you enjoy maybe you prefer traditional writing and switching over development so then you're going to focus more on ccmp enterprise and maybe do devnet professional maybe not but if you enjoy coding if you're enjoying the development automation side of things then you're going to want to go down the devnet track and perhaps keep some knowledge of writing and switching but focus more on dev you've got to decide what you want to do the great thing today is there is not just one path there are multiple paths that you can take and spend time doing what you enjoy okay so they're my thoughts i expect a lot of pushback in the comments let me know if you agree with what i've said i'm expecting a lot of juniper guys to complain i'm expecting a lot of other vendor people to complain that is my opinion and i've thought about this quite a bit those are the certifications that i think you should get in 2021 if you're in networking or you want to spend time in the networking world that's not to say that you shouldn't get other certifications should you get a network plus i think a network plus is good but personally i would prefer ccna should you get a juniper certification definitely if you have the opportunity to do that but if i had limited time i think the roi on these kind of certifications are better for me my opinion what do you think put in the comments below i'm david bomble want to wish you all the very best [Music] bye