Certification – July 2019

• Preservation


• Recovery


• Strategic intelligence/counter-
  intelligence gathering, including
  the following subtopic: active
  logging


• Track man-hours

That’s a great roadmap for anyone
seeking to learn about cybersecurity.
Walking through each one of the ob-
jectives and learning the material will
leave you with a broad knowledge of
the field. As an added bonus, there are
many wonderful training resources
available for most popular certifica-
tions.
Anyone pursuing the Security+
credential can choose from a variety
of books, video courses, practice tests,
and other resources, all designed
around those same learning objectives.
The certification path is well-trod, and
these resources make it easy to follow
the curriculum.
Of course, other people may
prefer not to pursue a certification
and instead opt for other methods
of building their skills. For example,
taking training courses also offers the
structure of certifications, without the
pressure and expense of a certification
exam.
The certification process, on the
other hand, provides a very helpful
structural framework for building
knowledge and offers a relatively
inexpensive and effective set of edu-
cational resources. Technologists who
prefer to learn on their own will likely
find that certification programs offer a
rigorous framework for that self-paced
learning.
There’s a flip side to pursuing
self-structured learning, however. If
you’re pursuing certifications without
any external job-related pressure to do
so, then you will also need to maintain
your own motivation to continue the
journey and earn the certification at
the end.
One effective technique that I en-
courage students to use is to develop
a personal training schedule and then
actually register for the exam at the

beginning of your studies. That date

marked on your calendar can be a

wonderful motivator to continue your

studies as test day draws near.

Getting certified without experience

Some certification programs have

direct experience requirements,

mandating that candidates prove

they have met experience criteria

before granting them certification.

For example, the Project Manage-

ment Professional (PMP) certification

requires at least 3,500 hours of project

management experience, while the

Certified Cloud Security Professional

(CCSP) certification requires five years

of work experience.

There are a large number of certifi-

cations, however, such as the A+ and

Network+ credentials from CompTIA,

that have no experience requirement.

Just bear in mind that even though

hands-on experience may not be a

direct requirement of a certification

program, it’s always a good idea and

will help make your learning journey

more concrete.

When you pursue certifications

without related experience, you run

the risk of accumulating what IT pro-

fessionals derisively call “paper certs.”

These are certifications held by people

who passed the exam, but don’t have

the ability to apply their skills in the

real world.

In an ideal world, you’d have

direct job experience in the realm

where you’re pursuing certification.

This gives you not only the required

technical skills, but also the contextual

knowledge to apply those skills in a

reasonable manner.

We all know that it’s not always

possible, of course, to have that ideal

situation and that many people are

pursuing certifications to help them

land that first IT job. In those cases,

it’s important to gain some hands-on

experience, even if it’s not real-world

experience. If you’re earning an

application developer certification,

then make sure you spend some time

creating apps! Aspiring network tech-

nicians should likewise get hands-on

time with some routers and switches,

even if it’s only in a lab setting.

CERTIFICATION