Ask HN: Do people hire for A+ certification | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do people hire for A+ certification

14 pointsbrudgers23 comments

A+ certification seems to be a long running program and there's a fair bit of vocational education built around it.

Wondering if people actually get employment with it.

I got my A+ in ~2000 as part of a job I worked for (doing technical support). At the time, A+ never expired and was considered good for life. It never helped me get a job and no one ever asked me about having it. I did end up going the software route instead of hardware, so that probably played a big part.

As someone already said, it's baseline "I am knowledgeable about IT." If you're just starting out, I would consider getting it. Otherwise, not worth it IMO.

I got my A+ through a vocational program in high school. When my friends were getting jobs at McDonalds, I worked help desk at the community college and crawled under desks fixing PCs.

The only thing the A+ cert did was get my foot in the door as a kid with no experience. That alone made the cert worthwhile for me. Later in my career, I took it off my resume because I didn't want to do desktop support work anymore and recruiters were stereotyping me based on that cert.

It’s certainly an advantage for someone looking to get their foot in the door at an entry level help desk or IT tech job. I’d recommend it to students looking for their first tech job, or someone interested in tech who isn’t going to college. You won’t demand high wages with it — probably slightly more than minimum wage - but it’ll help you differentiate yourself from other candidates with zero tech related things on their resume.

I got my A, Net, and Security + right after high school and i REALLY helped me to earn a living. Lots of technicians work, cabling, labor setting up servers etc It was a spring board that helped me get into a financial position to go to university where I studied IT. If I hadn’t gone the college route I wanted to do CCNA, and CISP. Certs are absolutely worth it and a pathway forward into a career

This path makes a lot of sense to me - I'm curious though - why do you think more people don't pursue these certs early on in life?

I think it’s hard for people to be self motivating, to commit to studying a book for a test essentially in isolation. At University, you have professors and other people looking over your shoulder and seeing your performance. Harder to slack off I guess.

I also did it right after high school, it's good knowledge to have if nothing else.

Some old school guys will give you an entry level job on the spot if you have an A+ and come across as literate.

I got my first tech support role while studying for my A+. Nice to see someone asking about it on HN, brings back fun memories of cable management and actually building servers.

It's the baseline "I am knowledgeable about IT" certificate.. a great starting off point.

While A+ is considered a very very basic certification, it will help get you in the door the first time around. If you've got absolutely no experience to your name in the IT field, it will be helpful. It shows you studied and have learned some things about IT, you aren't totally useless. There is a big difference between "No IT experience" and "Doesn't know USB from HDMI". A+ will help push you over that level of scary lack of knowledge.

Once you're in the field and have some experience, then it's not terribly helpful. Same is true of any basic end certificate. Though some companies do require such things for insurance or compliance reasons.

Its not gonna get you a software job.

But if you wanna get into the data center, go for it.

I knew too many people thinking they'd become devops with an A+ and its just not worth it that way.

But just getting in the door, no matter the small the role is a win.

I have no exposure to the A+ program, so apologies if this is obvious.

A friend's kid right out of high school is going through the Google IT certification program (https://grow.google/programs/it-support/).

Do the programs overlap at all? Is the Google program as useful as the A+? Being newer, is the Google program more relevant to the industry now?

You're probably right, this program looks great and reflects how the industry has changed since A+ towards cloud-based systems. Shame though - people tend to come to IT because they like playing with their computer and A+ was a natural stepping strong from that to administrating a computer. It was like the Hobby->JuniorProfessional stepping stone.

A good friend of mine who didn't go to college got his A+ cert instead and has had pretty good luck getting IT jobs with just his certifications. He put in a couple years at his first gig and is now interviewing for better paying positions. He seems to be having great luck and is constantly getting hit up by different companies.

Aside: I've never attempted to leverage it, but I did get it. If you're considering getting it, you can get a host of certifications while doing your bachelors at WGU. I'm a horrific "studier" and their content got me through multiple certifications without problems. I don't work there, only studied.

It's geared toward "technician"-type work (read: not "engineering" or any kind of development). If you're looking to work helpdesk, as a sysadmin, or maybe in a datacenter it might be worthwhile if starting out. Personally the only certs that ever seemed worthwhile to me were the redhat ones.

I think it's like the intro help desk cert.

Then you can graduate up to network+ and other certs as you grow into roles.

Are there an certifications that are valuable from an employment perspective for software engineers?

I'm looking to get Network+, not sure about employment perspective but it has filled in a few gaps in my knowledge that I didn't have working as a software engineer. For example how global internet routing works.

No.

im not certified but i self studied a+, network+, and azure cloud materials and they really helped a lot in giving me leverage in getting projects and getting hired

Nobody gets employment because of it, but if you dont know what it has to teach you, do it.

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