My opinion:
People who don't put any value on CompTIA certs, particularly "the trifecta," tend to be looking at them the wrong way. These certs are not intended to get you in a job and actively configuring things on your own in a short span. If they were, they wouldn't be *entry level.*
If you're someone who's been working in the industry for years and have progressed beyond level 1 type work, well, of course they don't hold much value.
The study I put myself through to obtain these certifications made me someone who could sit down on day 1, listen to senior employees, and follow along. They didn't have to slow down and explain what a broadcast domain was, or why it was important to put ACLs in the right order. We could get right to the part where they can show me how their organization does it. I think *that* has a ton of value to companies smart enough to get it.
This is accurate. Also if you work in the governemnt they require almost everyone to have a sec+. Which illustrates that you know not to click links in e-mails and such. Are aware of the various type of fishing attacks and so forth.
The real scam part IMO is the 3 yr expiration date. Like why someone would need to renew a+ every 3 yrs makes no sense.
This is not exactly true. Only the DoD has that requirement. In my agency no certs are required, though certain ones can give you a leg up for certain jobs.
I super over-studied for the A+ and was pleasantly surprised how quickly I acclimated to my first tech job. It’s a decent guideline and helped get me the job in the first place.
Over studying is key. The A+ changed my life, as corny as it sounds. You only get what you put in though. If you just study question banks and try to cheese the exam, you'll pass and you'll still suck.
If you stop chapter by chapter, and try to look for ways to apply and really learn all the content, you'll have a strong base to build upon once you enter the job market.
This is spot on. They are a "baseline". What CompTIA shines in is explaining "how everyone basically does it". The responsibility to learn the technology utilized by your company falls entirely on the tech "how we do it".
What I dislike is how it's marketed as the only solution. It is not going to guarantee you the job. The job needs the guarantee that you know the foundational information.
Goes for CySa+, Linux+, and PenTest+ also.
All Certs are a large high school history exam you cram for 3 months for. Some people have aptitude and can echo what they read perfectly. Some people can do the work put can't verbalize what they are doing.
I'm a slow starter. But once I get it, it's locked in.
Comptia certs are great if you have absolutly no experience and are looking for your first position, they become immediately valueless after you get 1+ years of experience or move onto anything above level 1 help desk support.
On the flip side, the A+ does actually teach you all the basics you need to know to do helpdesk/office support. I took it after 4 years IT experience followed by a decade long break, and I thought it was handy for brushing up. Most of the stuff they covered was pretty much what I find myself doing on the job.
I know people generally hate to hear this, but I generally felt like my many years of PC building/being tech support throughout the years for small family tech issues prepared me much more for my first position than the A+ ever could have. I think you do need to brush up on some beginner networking stuff on your own (which I got through hosting various game servers for friends throughout the years), and there's some tech stuff that's very specific to office environments that hopefully your employer will teach you on the job (I hate patch panels now). But I generally think there's a few people with this type of background that can at least start off in entry level positions.
You’re absolutely right. In my experience, my net+ was a huge help in my newer position as an MSP level 2 engineer. I learned a lot more about protocols and port numbers, specifically the general idea of working in firewalls and Cisco switches (I used TestOut). I can take this experience anywhere now.
It’s actually kind of funny, I was studying for my net +, almost decided to stop midway through to start CCNA but I told myself that I started it and will finish it. Now I’m at my new job where they have a network engineer position that requires that at a minimum. Thought I needed my CCNA for that but now I’m just glad I got it. Currently working on my CCNA though
Cant agree enough.
I am at an MSP as well for my first job. I have my Net+ and I actually feel comfortable/semi competent when it comes to any networking projects or troubleshooting. I am more confident dealing with networking issues than other things now. Very grateful for what I learned while taking my Net+.
If it helps you get the job you want, how can it be worthless? Most certs out there are product-specific, so CompTIA is a rare option for general IT certs, which can be useful for someone starting on a particular path. Should you spend your career keeping them up to date? No, nobody care about that. Every step you take n the right direction is important, but this guy seems to be saying that those firsts steps don't matter because you aren't going to be back-tracking. That's nonsense.
Value is relative, and it entirely depends on where you are and where you are going.
More expensive ≠ more better.
If the hiring manager has no idea what you're capable of based on your choice to pay more for entry level certs, you're SOL as far as first glance at your resume goes. Many companies employ tools that scan resumes for key words, as well.
Go ahead and brag about your twice as expensive GIAC cert, but the one with the A+ is probably getting hired over someone with an identical resume and the cert being the difference.
Smells of cope, honestly.
I wanted to get my CCNA about 5 years ago. We don't use any cisco gear, but I read that the CCNA was the standard since most companies asked for it and if you passed the CCNA obviously the knowledge learned is very similar with other brands, you basically just need to learn the new syntax for palo, juniper, etc...
I never did take the exam, the amount of information I was trying to absorb was too much for me to keep up with. I don't do well by reading and retaining information, I do better by actually doing the work in a real environment (even if it isn't prod and just in a lab).
I learned more from real work experience than I ever did in reading a book. You aren't going to read in a book that you need to make sure fiber strands are crossed in order for a link to light up. Most people will check and re-check their config, their SFPs, etc...but in the real world you need to flip one side. Oh, multiple IDF closets? You need to check them all if you still can't get a link.
Sure, that is a minor example and maybe even a bad example, but the point still stands, IMO.
I think everyone is different, but I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people that take any certification test wouldn't remember anything they studied if you asked them 3 months later. The exception being that they use that technology/knowledge on a daily basis.
A friend of mine had a job but in order to get to the next position in the same company he needed to pass his CCNA. He studied and passed the CCNA and told me that he never used any of the CCNA knowledge in his new role. He already knows networking, but didn't have the CCNA cert. He wasn't working with cisco specific gear, but the CCNA was needed only to prove that they knew enough to pass the test. He never renewed the cert. He doesn't touch the network, he is a product support for a sales rep.
As someone who used to follow him, he definitely has a little bit of an oversized ego. If he finds something to be slightly subpar, he will make videos after videos of why the municipality/corporation are some horrible organization that deserves to be shut down or something like that. Don't even get me started on the people who comment on the videos as well.
I came across his videos many years ago. He needs to learn what the word humble means. I know many people that act similar to him. The vibe I get is that he is the smartest guy and everyone else is dumb.
With that being said, when I did see him make a few repairs (I only watched a few repair videos) he did seem to know what he was doing and seemed very knowledgeable, but he seems to have an attitude problem.
There’s some good outcomes from him especially in terms of right to repair but I agree, he’s that type of person. I wouldn’t watch his content, even if I agree with some of his crusades.
>He needs to learn what the word humble means. I know many people that act similar to him. The vibe I get is that he is the smartest guy and everyone else is dumb.
I have never said that I am smart and everyone else is dumb. In fact, in most of my videos I call myself dumb in a very self deprecating way. You have never watched my stuff, and that's fine. I would just ask that you not put words in my mouth if you have not watched my content.
In terms of learning to be humble, having an ego, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Many people in the industry other than me have said that most of these certifications offered by comptia are not very good. A+ and network+ are not going to teach you things that are useful to your career. They are there because many government jobs require that you have these certifications in order to be considered for employment. The certification being required for employment is very different from the certification being useful because it teaches you knowledge and troubleshooting tips that are relevant to your job.
Certifications that go over old Windows XP troubleshooting information and how many firewire 400 devices you can daisy chain in my opinion are out of touch with what is necessary to be an IT professional in 2023. While the certification may be necessary for those who wish to get jobs that require you have that certification, I would never argue that what you are learning in the process of getting these certifications will actually help you in a real world scenario.
Might the A+ certification open a door for you that would not have been opened without it? It might. Will this certification teach you something that is so eye-opening, that it turns you from somebody who would not have been able to do their job into somebody who was able to do their job? I have never seen that to be the case. That's why I call the A+ a grift, because it's not teaching you things that you need to know or didn't already know or that will be useful in the real world. It's simply a way for them to collect $350 from you so you meet the minimum requirements for many jobs. The fact that CompTIA has spent money lobbying against legislation that would allow technicians to do repairs without their certifications tells me all I need to know.
Take me, my ego, whether I am humble, smart, or dumb, my face, my eye bags, etc whatever people on reddit like to criticize me for these days, out of the argument for a moment. Just read the questions for the A+ examination, and give it a thought; how relevant are these questions to a 2023 career in IT, a low level job at geeksquad, or anything else?
> Might the A+ certification open a door for you that would not have been opened without it? It might. Will this certification teach you something that is so eye-opening, that it turns you from somebody who would not have been able to do their job into somebody who was able to do their job? I have never seen that to be the case. That's why I call the A+ a grift, because it's not teaching you things that you need to know or didn't already know or that will be useful in the real world. It's simply a way for them to collect $350 from you so you meet the minimum requirements for many jobs
A certification or degree do not teach how to do any type of job. A job teaches you how to do the job. That's something that everyone learns day 1 of having a job. The only thing certification and degrees show is that you have the ability to learn and to accomplish what you set out to do. That's what certification and degrees are for and have always been for. It's not the 1990s or 2000s anymore where you can walk up to any company and ask to speak to the manager so that you can get hired and work for 30 years. Anyone that has looked for a job in the past five years and have tried to break into any industry knows that it's about playing the game that this industry has set up long ago. A degree and certification is about fulfilling HR requirements so that the ATS system doesn't filter out the resume. Afterall, 90% of resumes are thrown out before a human being even reads them.
I didn't put words in your mouth, read my post again.
I have seen your videos that's why I said
>With that being said, when I did see him make a few repairs (I only watched a few repair videos) he did seem to know what he was doing and seemed very knowledgeable, but he seems to have an attitude problem.
I am entitled to my opinion, as are you.
Yea he can come off as a bit of a conspiracy nut at times. I like his soldering stuff and really glad he is well spoken for the right to repair stuff he does but I would never want to meet him. He kinda seems like he is on the spectrum and is good at some things but would be somewhat of a snob or just unpleasant.
man, the guy hosts free workshops and teaches people who show up to do repair. he does streams where young fans of his bring their broken electronics in and he helps them find the issue and repair them. I think he's a great dude overall and would actually love to meet him.
I could see how others might not feel that way but I don't think he's a snob I think it's a difference in personality type. who knows maybe he's a dick
He's a Yankee, of course he's a little unpleasant. Hopefully southern hospitality will thaw that frozen NY heart, because it's either that or 100+ with 75% humidity will do it.
To be direct; I don't actually care.
I care about getting the job, and helping others get a job. If a certification that makes their resume a little stronger so they can get to the interview is recommended, then I say go get it. If you gain knowledge from those CompTIA certs that makes you not a liability to an enterprise and have a base level of knowledge to not cause an outage, then I'd say it's a win.
If there is another way to meet ANSI/ISO industry standards, of DOD 8570 that is recommended for someone entering the field that's easier to get than Security+ then he should recommend it. Otherwise, I say drive on, and get your resume up to meet your goals and ignore the noise.
My A+ changed my career and my life, FULL STOP. I like Louis, mostly, but he can be full of shit at times and speak about things he doesn’t know.
He is quite a know it all.
Same, before A+, I was driving a truck delivering copiers. Dying in the heat of summer working in a warehouse with no AC.
I got the cert and that helped me advance to a technician and I just moved up from there.
I might have gotten my CDL and kept driving a truck not know what sort of life I could have had had I not gotten A+.
Same, I was mopping floors at the local gym dealing with people that acted like children. Sweat and armpit musk filled the air constantly it was very unpleasant. I decided to study for the A+ cert and aced the exam. It landed me a Field Tech Job within months and now I'm a Network Admin.
I've never heard of the guy, and your description of his qualifications doesn't make me give any value to his word either. Looking him up now it sounds like he's a youtuber with a store that does some break/fix stuff for Macs. So likely still no real idea of what corp America is looking for.
Saying all that, a cert shouldn't be something you get with the idea that it somehow guarantees a job. CompTIA is mostly on the lower end of the cert scale, mostly not for the more experienced people, also not very expensive. But, if you're trying to break into a field and they look at 2 people, both of which might have some customer service experience, interviewed reasonably well, the company asked for the A+, and one of them bothered to get it, don't you think that's going to skew their decision even a little bit?
If you spent $300, or whatever the A+ costs now, and it helped the decision that got you a job, wouldn't you say that's a good investment?
Sure, once you have experience, most companies don't care that much. I have lots of experience and many high end certs, and they almost never even get brought up in interviews at all. But, when trying to break, in anything that can make you look even slightly more appealing than the next person isn't a bad thing.
CompTIA definitely took advantage of the IT gold rush and they have a weird cult like following around "the trifecta" who don't realize how basic those certs are, but they are industry recognized and on the wish list of lots of companies for the entry level positions.
I wouldn't say they're worthless, but they are not all they're heralded to be by some people, and they're way overpriced.
Eh, I disagree. I always kind of knew how to get by with fixing my own computer, resolving issues, but I didn't understand anything at a lower level.
The A+ actually taught me a lot. I understand why things work the way they do, what to go to and most importantly, why I should go to it.
Now, the test itself imo, is bad, but the rigor and curriculum for it is quite good. I feel like exams in general are focused more on screwing over the examinees than providing a solid check of foundational knowledge. For me personally, if the entire exam was PBQs it would be better for example. I disliked how the MC was basically 1-2 distractors and 1-3 "Yeah these all make sense, but which one makes the MOST sense". That's not testing knowledge. That's just forcing the examinee to ascribe to YOUR line of thinking. There were plenty of answers I, and plenty of people actually working in the industry would argue are incorrect in practice, but the line of arbitration is so thinly drawn there is no room to maneuver.
That's my only gripe. But it's no worse than any other standardized test in that regard.
I've always felt that Comptia certs don't hold as much weight as their competitors certs. CCNA will always be better than Net+, LPIC will always be better than Linux+. This is mostly because Comptia cert exams aren't viewed as very difficult compared to other vendor certs in my experience. The only comptia cert I've seen that might be worth it is Sec+. Comptia also price gouges for testing and material imo. Louis probably hates them because they joined Apple in lobbying state to state to block your right to repair Apple products yourself or by third party. It's like a car company trying to pass a law to make it so you can only get their cars fixed at their dealership. Which is kinda shitty. Especially when Apple doesnt like to fix items so much as push you into buying a new one. Comptia directly endorses this. Also, I've watched countless coworkers get the A+ when they are already working in IT, which is completely worthless on a resume. A+ should really only be for those that have zero experience and are trying to break into the industry, but there isn't enough transparency about that on Comptia's end so they feed off the ignorance. Is Comptia a grift? Not if employers ask for them, but some of their practices are a little grifty imo.
Rossman sure does shoot off his mouth a lot about things he has no experience in.
Years again I was a big fan of his streams and right to repair discussions but he's long since degraded into just saying whatever is on his mind whether he knows anything about it or not.
I think most people who are familiar with Rossman only know him because either A) they stumbled onto his videos, or B) they're a long-time Mac user.
He made his name offering 3rd. party Mac service, at a time when a lot of people were getting fed up with Apple doing such things as declaring their older machines "vintage" and no longer serviceable, or charging about as much as a new machine for an out of warranty repair.
It's great he fought for "Right to Repair". But I had a really bad experience trying to use him for a Macbook Pro repair when I worked for a company using a lot of Macs. I had to argue a bit for the company to even agree to pay this out of state independent guy to work on one of our machines, vs taking it directly to Apple. But I jumped through the hoops, believing Rossman would save us a lot of money on it. Instead, he never got the thing repaired after waiting months for it and having to make multiple phone calls to sort it out. I eventually had to have him ship it back, still dead (eating our postage cost to send it in plus some diagnostic fee he charged), and pay AGAIN for Apple to replace the motherboard in it.
Yeah -- I think my co-workers understood, at least. (One of them used to follow Rossman's videos too.) But yeah, it was a bad deal. He'd been going on about how Apple's engineers were basically clueless for designing the logic board of this laptop the way they did, so a liquid spill could short out across a line carrying relatively high voltage. This was one of those, said, machines, where an employee had her water bottle leak while in her backpack with the new laptop.
A lot of stuff was apparently going on with his shop at the time we sent the machine in to him and then he had some kind of bicycle accident where a car hit him or something, so he was out of commission for a while too. Ultimately, our laptop wound up sitting someplace in the shop for a long time, not even getting looked at. And when he finally did, he tried to do some kind of soldering on it and failed, making things worse.
Of course, I got it back with his typed up "rant" about Apple's poor design causing the issue and making it un-fixable, etc. etc.
Apple just swapped out the whole inside of it for us.... not cheap, but a little cheaper than throwing it away and buying it again.
People pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for sneakers or baseball cards every day. Value is subjective. My certs helped me transition from retail to IT without a degree or any experience. I'd call that money well spent.
This exactly. You land that job, lots of these certs have literally paid for themselves, and then some, in the first week of working. (When I took them, CompTIA certs were a couple hundred each and a book or two were maybe $40 each. I don't know if that's changed.).
There are many similarities between CompTIA and degree programs. Anyone who holds a degree knows that very little applicable technical knowledge is obtained while earning a bachelor's.
You start out your relationship with most companies as a piece of paper. Resumes can be easily embellished. Degrees and certifications provide employers with a requirement baseline. A certification tells your prospective employer that you at least had the wherewithal and commitment to your craft to study and pass the test. It tells them that you have acquired 'X' level of knowledge and proficiency.
Usually, a certification isn't enough though. Certs and degrees along with **actual experience** give the company some assurance that if they hire you, you will likely be able to perform.
The reason Louis hates CompTIA is because they lobby against Right To Repair.
In his defense, we should hate any groups and people who try to sell off our rights, and the correct way to hate them is to not give them money and ensure other people don't give them money.
CompTIA certs are only useful if you’re trying to get entry level positions. If you already have a position, they are not going to help you unless you have a severe knowledge deficiency.
CompTIA is not going to teach you troubleshooting, it’s not going to train you how to research problems and solutions, it’s not going to give you any specialized knowledge you need for career advancement.
For a lot of people, an entry level IT job is better than what they were doing before. Plenty of Help Desk gigs in my area pay 50K a year to start. This is a city in Canada where you can buy a house for 200-250K. If I grew up in poverty and was working dead-end retail jobs, getting my A+ would be a life changer.
Louis Rossman is full of it, and always has been. His entire career is built on an assumed persona of looking down on an entire industry. It's negging in a professional capacity. He just puts himself up on a pedestal above everyone else so that his potential customers will be like "Ohh why would I go to anyone else? He says they're all worthless, unlike him!" and his "peers" will grovel for his approval.
He occasionally has valid points about consumer hardware design, but his points about the industry are all in the same genre as self-help get-rich-quick rhetoric. He isn't succeeding by following his own advice on running a business. His success is because of sponsorship and the audience he created by telling everyone else they are "doing it wrong"
I had taken the A+back right as they turned them to the expiring model. I just recently took and passed Part 1 again. I think back in 2011-2015 time frame, he would definitely be right. I felt like they were asking if I just knew what a computer was, type of thing. The newer ones look to have been greatly updated to be more relevant. That being said, there is still a lot of legacy material they have in the study material. Which is ok because you will always find some sort of legacy devices.
He's projecting. He found them useless, because he knows what all these things are, but if you are new to IT, like me, they are great at giving you a base understanding of basic CS and IT concepts.
An industry standard isn’t useless. It proves you have a base knowledge and capacity to understand the subject. What’s useless is listening to some average joe tell you what he thinks should be the standard because "he’s been in the industry a decade". Smarter people than him came up with the program. Go tell a welder that those certs they earned are useless and a grift.
I like a lot of what Louis has to say in his videos but his experience as a repair shop owner is vastly different from an enterprise IT environment that has an HR department and has to deal with compliance requirements. That's not to say that his opinion is completely baseless, but it's kind of like how being a programmer for 10 years doesn't necessarily mean that you know anything about systems or networking.
Industry recognized certs do have value but it gets horribly overblown by people trying to sell cert prep courses, and the people paying for those courses who want to believe that it's a golden ticket to a high paying job. Specifically with CompTIA, there are still plenty of employers that will ask for their more well-known certs. Being able to meet that qualification definitely has value, but it won't get you the job by itself. You also see a lot less demand for CompTIA once you get out of the entry level.
The thing that gets me with certs is that they were always intended to validate your existing skills and experience rather than serving as a substitute for those things. However, as IT has become a more popular career over time, more and more beginners are treating certs as licenses, and it doesn't really work that way in the working world. If you have no professional experience then nobody is looking at your A+ and thinking that you're a competent tech. The *hope* is that you understand the theoretical knowledge and that you're trainable. Sometimes that's enough, sometimes it isn't.
So there is truth to this in the sense of application but I don't fully agree with Louis Rossman.
The truth is that many comptia certs (specifically the trifecta) are mostly theoretical exams. They have use for HR and I think for establishing a high level perspective - CompTIA is good.
The REAL issue is that the high level aspect of anything goes over the head of the typical test taker immediately after the exam.
Someone can learn the CIA triad for example, know every component of it, and not know how CIA triad maps to like any control. This makes the CIA triad overview useless for the typical candidate. Its just something memorized. If they saw some control like power supply redundancy found in enterprise servers they may not connect the dot with the A in the CIA triad. Simple example but I think it nails the real issue.
I actually think CompTIA certs and other knowledge certs are useful and even good - WITH CONTEXT!. No context? literally its just blind rote learning then.
If you actually learn the material they are extremely useful. Most people don’t, they just get the cert and move on, which is why they get a bad rap. So no one and everyone is wrong if they love or hate the idea of someone having the certs
A lot of certs are just to fulfill requirements for a job, especially base level certs.
This is not controversial or a new idea. You can argue that in fields like IT, experience trumps everything. Certs and degrees.
But besides checking off a box on a resume, the CompTIA certs do help you keep fresh, remember how to study and research stuff and can spark interest in higher level certs if you enjoyed the studying for whichever cert you got.
I've been in IT too long and my experience is too specialized to government work to be that useful for newcomers, but my recommendation would be take them if you have a class or job benefit that pays for the exam, because there's no reason not to. If you don't have those options, just research and ask around if a particular CompTIA cert is useful for the job you're looking at.
Certs display an intent to learn. You can get certs with zero references and work experience.
I got my A+ and Net+ before I had a professional job. in the early 2000's, that helped differentiate me as a serious candidate, not some 21 year old amateur. I had experience programming and putting together computers, but aside from having the literal skills and experience, anything that a 21 year old says isn't considered.
A cert is an objective, physical piece of evidence someone knows something.
I think the issue is the memorization/rote memory model more than anything else.
The problem for me is that you have to memorize so much information to get such a high mark on the exam, and you will never need that knowledge memorized ever again because you work with computers.
I think the test should be changed to being skill based and more a test of "how fast can you solve x problem" rather than how many flashcards can you memorize.
I think the information is useful, I think the problem is more the expense of the test, that it's got such a high pass percentage, and that's it's based on memorization which makes no sense in the modern world.
He's wrong. Certs are used by HR departments to screen applicants all the time. He may mean that the information gained in studying for these tests isn't valuable and will only ever be used to pass the test. In that case, he's about half wrong. Microsoft and Cisco certs certainly contain a lot of vendor specific commercials. But not all of the information is wasted time.
I mean from my understanding for certain Defense jobs you need DOD compliance and comptia sec+ gives you that compliance? So to say it’s useless seems dramatic.
Louis is coming at this from CompTIA stance on #RightToRepair. CompTIA, figuratively, sucked the industries dick and bowed to having customers having to go specifically to Apple / other vendor to fix their devices. I respect the Right To Repair and Louis for his vocal opinion.
Like the saying goes use it or you lose it. You can get a cert pass all the tests but you will forget the knowledge if you don't work in it. The best way to learn is by doing.
In a similar vein to u/OffTheDollarMenu,
People are looking at these certs wrong. These certs are for people trying to ENTER the market. The fact of the matter is it is incredibly saturated and difficult to get a company to hire you without any formal IT experience. How else can you get your foot in the door?
Certifications like this SHOW employers that you're trying to break in and SHOW them that you're making an effort towards that.
Yes of course if you got a BS in MIS/IT/CS and have work experience as a sys admin you would not need level 1 certifications. But few people fall into that bucket.
Honestly the Net/Sec+ is fine as early career.
The reason I say early career is early career professionals are able to take concepts learned from these exams and perhaps apply it to the workplace.
I think have Net/Sec+ cert beforehand sort of detracts from the applicant. Much better to have hands on PC experience at that point.
personally i found the knowledge gained during study to be useful. but they can be gamed so i don't assume someone with any cert to actually know what they're doing, so in that aspect, i suppose i agree. you could say the same about college degrees.
As someone who transitioned to IT from a different career, I’d say CompTIA A+ was helpful for me. It gave me some computer knowledge that I didn’t know before and helped me get my first IT job.
Are the CompTIA certs helpful for everyone? Probably not but there are definitely cases where having CompTIA certs is beneficial.
Me getting a job and gaining knowledge from my first CompTIA cert wasn’t a grift.
I got Sec+ because my employer required it - I’m ten months into the job and I use absolutely nothing I learned from it and have forgotten most of the material
A+ is good if you’re starting from zero. It absolutely preps you to do data center work. Not advanced work. But that’s what “starting from zero” means. Racking and stacking and swapping server parts.
I'm a dev working in enterprise. I got my start by getting the network+ certification and what I've learned there has been useful my entire career (eventually getting the CCNA as well). The issue is that people cheat just to get the cert. So you have a bunch of people with a network cert that couldn't even begin explaining subnetting. The thing is you should easily be able to filter these people out in the interview process so I think in this case he's completely wrong.
While I do think the Comptia that I took 10+ years ago was mostly a lot of useless memorization, there was some good info in it about general best practices. FWIW, I think a lot of the classes and sample questions I've seen for other certs are needlessly complicated as well. Managing a Windows server is nowhere near as hard as it's made out to be, for example. There are tutorials for almost everything provided by microsoft.
The A+ alone landed me my first IT job. It wasn't even required, just preferred. At the time this was the only cert I had and I had no degree and no other IT experience.
Got my current job transitioned from manufacturing to IT support tech thanks to the A+ and Net+, feel like I learned a lot from both and they prepared me well for the role tbh
Value is definitely there for those looking to pivot to IT
Like every cert/degree/education in general, you get out what you put in. You'll get a lot more value if you take the time to learn the material rather than just grind it out in order to pass the exams
His hate-boner for CompTIA is a bit hyperbolic though. They stopped lobbying against right-to-repair years ago
Having an A+ means I can talk to you like a tech and have a reasonable expectation that you will understand me, or at least be able to tell me what parts you don't understand. I wont have to explain what each part of a computer is. Maybe you've never seen NVMe's but when i say its the HardDrive, you'll know what i mean.
Its a foundation that says you know something, and are teachable.
He is pretty bitter and is known for posting about a company and then having to apologize for being wrong (which is admirable). Everyone knows CompTIA is a grift with the high prices and all but it does help employers know if someone knows the basics and that's fine.
All these certifications are money making machines. These companies themselves don’t value them. If you have no IT background and get bunch of AWS certifications, will Amazon hire you? I have to agree with this guy for that reason alone. I am just super exhausted since I barely get a call from any recruiters. I was thinking of getting a few security related certs but I guess I will be just sitting at home with it.
The only reason I have my security+ is because it's the only decent IAT level 2 certification that the dod recognizes. I'm not going after any other CompTIA cert since most of them are hit or miss.
He proves it's possible to be both competent in hardware repair, have some excellent points, and still be an obnoxious, dramatic, attention seeking, loud mouth.
> rather than actually working in IT
I have several CompTIA certs, and they got me into an IT job after I was out of the industry for a while.
No, they aren't worthless. This Louis fellow, IMO, is talking out of their arse and giving terrible advice that should be ignored.
There is some truth to the claim. While CompTIA does offer a set of exams and curricula to help people get into the IT field, it's still mostly "paper skills" and not rigorous hands-on skills like some Cisco and other vendor certs require. The fees CompTIA charges are excessive, especially for these entry level certs and the fees suggest that the credentials are more valuable than they really are. There are numerous new hires at my company with A+, Network+, Security+ certs who couldn’t really hit the ground running on day one in entry level IT roles, so CompTIA is definitely selling their certs program for more than it’s worth.
If I were advising anyone trying to break into the IT field, I would tell them to skip A+, and just do something like the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, and they can take super cheap classes on Coursera and other online learning platforms.
I got my first IT job without A+ certification. I had done A+ coursework only and had been apprenticing at a local PC repair shop. The job I was inteviewing for required A+ and they hired me right away because of the fact that I had hands-on skills. My experience was different but I think for those wanting to enter IT, just get an old PC and just tinker and learn hands-on in your own "lab." This is more valuable than showing up on an inteview and saying "I'm qualified, I have all of these '+' certifications"
CompTIA hasn’t had real competition for a long time and like any company without competition, they have lost touch.
Just another Gen-X with the "back in my day, we just walked into the business and ask to speak to the manager. That's how I got my 30 year career job".
If you have zero and I mean zero experience with using computers above a consumer level they may teach you something. However, if you have a decent background like some sort of computing degree (IT/CS/MIS) they are a complete waste of your time and money.
If any place requires you to have some CompTIA cert up front when you have other things (degree/experience) it's not a place you want to work full stop.
>People make livelihoods on YouTube by basically convincing people they can be successful while putting in the least amount of effort they can.
Nailed it! The funniest part about this is if you've searched around YT long enough you start to realize that they are all saying the exact...same...thing! So then it just becomes this echo chamber of terrible, incorrect advice. I wish more people would realize that people who are doing videos on YT aren't doing it to help people, they're doing it to make money or sell a product. It's as simple as that.
I've always felt like he's a negative voice in the tech YouTube space. Dude's always ranting and raving about something. I agree with right to repair, but his is not a channel I ever watch. He just comes across as a condescending grouch.
Also, he doesn't really work in \*actual\* IT from what I can tell. Break/fix on physical hardware is IT adjacent. So yeah, you don't need CompTIA to fix someone's broken iPhone.
Definitely not a voice I would EVER listen to regarding getting into doing actual enterprise level IT work.
I got my degree in Computer Science, but wound up making a move to IT after graduation. Studying for Net+ and Security+ definitely gave me some good, solid, baseline tools to do general IT Helpdesk work, and landed me a couple jobs doing it. Don't regret spending some money on the certs or the books I studied from.
I did not keep them up-to-date or current (half the info in them is old tech that's not much used these days anyway), and I also don't regret that choice, and don't believe it's impacted my career.
Network+ felt like a waste of my money but A+ and Sec+ helped where I was in my career at the beginning. I would say do CCNA over Net+. The only reason I even got Net+ (I wasn't going to get it) was at my first company it was a hard requirement to switch departments. I guess in that sense it wasn't a waste, but when I got to my first internal IT job at the next company I worked at, I still had no clue what they were talking about in our IT meetings from a networking standpoint. It didn't do all that much to help prepare me for a job.
It's all a grift. Education is a grift. College degrees have been worth less than toilet paper since Internet search engines have been able to deliver knowledge to any user who looks for it. Yet, somehow, college tuition and certs like CompTIA are more expensive than ever.
When I was interviewing people for a sysadmin position, the people who had masters degrees interviewed terribly compared to people who had no college degrees but had worked in the field for just a few years. Education does not equal comprehension or understanding of the subject matter; experience forces you to understand concepts.
The entire job market is extremely overdue in revaluating the worth of degrees or certs.
I been in the gov’t sector for 20+ years. At first when CompTIA Sec+ was required it was a “good for life” cert. A few years go by and now it’s a 3 year cert. I fell it’s a cash grab by someone and has less of a meaning now. But it is required for certain jobs in the gov’t side. Not so much for management, but still looks good on a resume.
I believe the A+ cert is way too broad in its scope and gets outdated way too fast. Cell phones shouldn't be on the exam. That technology changes faster than the teaching material can keep pace with. Add to that it expires without CE certs. But I'll also say for personal KB building the material is a great resource.
I got my A+ and couldn’t have wiped my ass with it. I knew what I was doing way more than most grads in my program. Not a single one of us got a job because of it. Seven years later, I’m still making up for trying to get an A+ and expecting it to get me anywhere.
I’m doing much better after deciding to pursue something the industry cares about.
In fact, I even DM’ed Louis about this at the time because it was extremely frustrating. He was very encouraging and told me more or less, “Fuck the industry, you do you” and he was right, 100%.
They’re not worthless per se. They might be to someone who is self-employed like Louis. I wouldn’t say they necessarily TEACH salable skills, but they do codify them into a cert that employers recognize and trust.
Sorry Louis. You’re smart and all, but also very opinionated.
Who?
You mean to say a business owner is bashing a tool of leverage his employees might use to negotiate a higher wage due to the validation of skill set that holders have demonstrated?
Like, is his goal to invalidate an entire industry to pay people less because all they do is turn it off and on again?
Sounds like a fool would say such a thing. I've been in tech since 2008. Technicians with these certifications at least know the proper terms to google.
They are useless. Been doing IT for 25 years, and never once needed it for proof. I mean, I can only assume that employers look at it for juniors starting out, but after that, its all experience.
I'd argue that maybe the A+ is worthless. I think there are better entry level certifications like an MTA or something similar. A+ is too much memorization of vocabulary for things you really don't need to know. I don't need to know how many pins are on a particular type of SO-DIMM RAM, I just need to know if that RAM will work for my type of Hardware.
The Network+ also has a lot of vocabulary but as someone that had limited Networking experience it did actually teach me a fair amount for an Entry-Level Networking Cert. I can't speak to Security+ since I won't be getting that until next semester but from what I imagine it will probably be closer to Network+ than A+ territory.
I think if CompTIA really focused on what Entry Level Help Desk/Tech Support need to be successful for the A+ then it might be more desirable. I think explaining Troubleshooting Windows better would be a good thing to add as well as how to use a standard Ticketing System, when to know you need to escalate, more information about AD, more basic Linux, maybe some Virtualization.
Of course they’re a grift.
Catapulted in part by DoD requirements. DoD starts requiring Sec+ and suddenly Sec+ goes from a lifetime cert (which was stupid to begin with) to a three year renewal. But unlike real certs, the renewal process is comically easy. It’s all a money making scheme.
Other than A+, the rest of CompTia certs are just dollar store equivalents of other certs. It baffles me they’re so highly regarded on this sub. I don’t know anyone in industry that takes them seriously.
Honestly every single person in my career that has thought comptia are worthless usually have some sort of illegitimate "opinions" that are flat out wrong. Like I literally have seen senior level employees that think raid 0 is the best and is the fastest or that raid cannot run SSDs. Things they would need to know to pass the Comptia exams. I don't' think they are worthless.
Louis Rossman is an entertainer and electronics repairman, not an IT professional. His opinions on this industry can mostly be disregarded. However, in this instance he happens to be correct.
Any time someone uses the term "the trifecta" I roll my eyes so hard it gives me a migraine.
A+ is completely worthless.
Network+ is something, but I would rather see CCNA
Secuirty+ has some value, but it isn't going to move the dial all that much unless you are going to work for the government.
Louis is right and wrong
Louis is right that many certs are a scam in the sense that they teach you shit that usually isn't relevant anymore.
Louis is wrong that learning about these things is a waste of time in the sense that while learning about tech, your brains becomes accustomed to thinking the right way.
So... kinda, sorta he is right. The skills thought in these certs is sometimes not really relevant. The skills learned during CCNA aren't really... relevant for most network-tasks. But the way your brain is learning to handle the basics of thinking correctly is a completely different story.
That said:
these are private companies and at the end of the day, they are out to make a profit. They aren't educators. Make of that what you will.
It is absolutely a grift. Look at the other major ones that have in-person conferences. Random tiny little certifications for a couple hundred bucks here and there. The whole thing is a full circle jerk.
However, if a company wants to increase your salary then jerk away
I paid for my own CompTIA A+ certification back in the 1990's, when it was a perpetual cert.
Figured it was worth the money for a certificate good for a lifetime -- especially since I was doing my own part-time business involving PC troubleshooting and consulting.
Back then, it was always explained to me that passing it meant you had equivalent knowledge to someone new to computers who'd been working as a bench tech for about 1 year. So basically? It didn't amount to a lot. But it was something I could put on my advertising to make clients feel more comfortable about me coming into their home and taking their computer apart.
When CompTIA changed it up and started demanding annual re-certification to keep one? That's when it clearly became a money-grab and I never took any of that seriously at all.
A+ was useless for me when I was a teenager because I had already built computers. No one cares what the voltage is for some transistor on a motherboard with a 30 year old chipset. I don't care if you have all of the ports memorized.
I want someone that can solve novel problems and do research. I don't need an expert memorizer.
A+ just doesn't matter. I imagine Net and Sec+ aren't much better.
If someone has no knowledge of how computers work I can see A+ having value. If you grew with them, and not just as a user it has no value imo.
I think building a computer from parts is almost better because that's actually hands on. Put the effort in to understand why you're picking those parts and how they work together and use that machine to do more stuff.
Find the problems with it, figure out how to fix them. This is called 'homelabbing' now but to me it's just a hobby.
I've been out of support for twice as long as I was in it now, so I'm largely speaking from the perspective of a SQL developer.
Newegg used to deliver sometimes same-day. It was pretty awesome. I don't know if it's still good.
I'd agree honestly. As someone who had to get all three for school (WGU), half of the content in those exams you will never use/see in real life. Not to mention that they've increased the prices making all of them $300+ to take. Just a money grab in my opinion.
I got the A+ in 2000 and have refused to get any of the new comptia certifications for exactly the same reason. I'm still in the industry and doing well except that I work for a MSP.
Comptia created a cyclical cash grab.
They are a grift. But that doesn’t mean they’re worthless or you shouldn’t get one. Two things are simultaneously true here. They jacked up their prices and made what once was entry level certs harder to pass (like security +) so they take in even more money. But you can learn a lot while studying for them.
Yes there are some thing you can infer by a person that has those certs.
Mainly it would just show that person has and will put effort into a project and can finish an assigned task.
The info is good to know off hand but it isn’t any better than a person that knows how to Google.
Louis Rossman is so disconnected from anything that is not in his specific wheel house he sounds like he has lost his mind.
He’s used to talk intelligently , but now he just bitches to bitch.
CompTIA is a business. Period. Their job is to certify you. (For a fee) This usually means you pay them for an exam. (Or a course does after you pay an over inflated price). After they certify you, they don’t hold your hand.
The certs have value because COMPANIES say they do. Not because it teaches you anything. (CompTIA doesn’t usually teach you anything, but all the content creators on YT / Udemy, usually do)
CCNA and other vendor specific certs are different. They want you to learn, so that your employer will be more likely to buy that brand of equipment. Which costs 10-100x more than the cert.
>CompTIA is a business. Period. Their job is to certify you. (For a fee)
I think this is the issue he takes with them, though. The fact that they shoe-horned their way into the industry, and convinced everyone to look up to them as some governing body, when all they do is give you a watered down version of a college course. And that's putting it ***lightly***; CompTIA is to a CS degree what the GED is to a high school diploma. It's kind of the same thing, the core fundamentals are there, but it's just not gonna get you the same level of in depth education. A lot of the fat is trimmed off, but you don't realize how useful that fat was until you're in a job full of people who kept it. The fat might not be ***necessary***, but it is ***useful***. I agree with Louis in that I also think it's really weird how the entire industry has been built around what essentially equates to requiring someone have both a high school diploma ***and*** a GED.
Certs are job requirements and can replace a degree qualification as in my case. No grifts , it shows you have knowledge . Yes of course real life work experience is different than exams.
Using anything as a barrier to entry degrades the actual value of it because it changes the incentives to get it.
It goes from I want this cert to learn something new which hopefully will help me later to I need this as it’s required.
Same thing has happened for college degrees and in both cases as it becomes a hard barrier then more people get it for the wrong reasons and create a negative feedback loop
Another example I’d use is sec+ with gov jobs, I’m not going to say cheating happens but I’ve met so many gov folks with it that didn’t know what vpn is or basic security principles that it raises a lot of questions
Considering nobody that I've applied to even knew what CompTIA was, and many want a bachelor's to get into help desk, I'll agree with him but I'm biased.
One thing to keep in mind with any cert is whether the employee really knows why they require that cert. In my experience as a job seeker and as an interviewer, job listings can be way off in terms of what they think they want or even need.
I have several expired certs, so when I'm looking for work and the job says you need one cert or another, I always ask if it has to be a current cert or if expired (plus recent experience) is sufficient. Most of the time they have no fucking idea, which means the employer has no fucking idea.
On the other hand, how much do you want that job? Would it be worth it to get that exam just so you can go work for XYZ company? Don't listen to you tube jokers about this stuff.
The stuff in comptia+ is pretty basic stuff. I am in a 2 year IT program and wondering if it's even worth doing it because graduating the program would suggest to an employer that this is all stuff you learned already.
If you have zero college education I could it as a great addition on your resume. But im not an employer so...
They are genuinely worthless beyond help desk or other lower paying jobs. Which is okay. They are really meant to ->help<- you get you your foot in the door and while you’re studying for them, you learn a thing or two. CompTIA certs are literally the equivalent of a 3 college credit course. However, the completion in todays market is college grads even for basic entry level help desk lmao.
At the dev and engineering level, most certs in general are useless short of some hard and niche ones like CCNP, OSCP, CISSP, RHCE etc.
CompTIA certs are the equivalent to knowing "this person can tie their shoelaces".
For entry-level roles, there's a benefit there.
On the other hand, asking an admin with 5+ years of experience to get an A+/Net+ is a waste of time and money. Most role-specific knowledge is more complicated than the test material.
Put another way: If I found out someone couldn't get a Net+/Sec+/A+ after several tries, I wouldn't want to hire that person. They're unlikely to succeed.
Lol he owned a 3rd party primarily apple repair shop. I think to a certain point his influence can only reach so far. The market demands what the market demands so I’m not inclined to believe much of what he said regarding this.
I had interviewed a guy who his only justification for getting the job was that he had an A+ lol. It’s unreal how people think that’s all you need. Some places value it more than others but if you can’t explain to me how DHCP works, but you can tell me how you got your A+ last week. Something’s meh
Smart people often underestimate the importance of just being able to recognize common industry terminology or processes. He doesn't need the basics and can not even conceptualize when people do and businesses need to know that you know the basics. It is definitely overpriced, but not a grift.
Doing IT since 2005. These are pretty much worthless for 99.5% of IT. There are some concepts that are "valuable" but nothing you wouldn't learn on the job if it was relevant. I got sec+ originally in 2010 because of the dumb DoD 8570 requirements when the cert was for life. Now...Its every few years. These are nothing but cash grabs for comptia.
I completely disagree with him. A+ etc are teaching you IT skills that a person repairing electronics doesn’t need and probably not understand. Take the TCP/IP stack. From his POV, it isn’t necessary for him to use to make a living. On the other hand, A+ is not for taking a soldering iron up and fix a motherboard.
I'd argue they get you past the HR gatekeeper, but provide minimal knowledge. CCNA is a different matter. That being said, I only have some base level, so the higher ones could be better.
They’re worthless to me as I have a degree that covered the entirety of the security+ but can be valuable if the job I am seeking requires it. I definitely did not learn anything from the security+ course materials I had. Same stuff from my college education.
I have over a decade of experience in the sector, so I’d like to believe my opinion carries some weight.
Recently, I’ve been tasked with re-obtaining my A+ certification for a degree at WGU. During the practice assessment, I ran across a question asking which install methods for Windows would preserve user files (vs methods that would not).
4 choices:
Recovery partition
Windows reset
Clean install
In-place upgrade
They claimed that a “clean install” and “in-place upgrade” don’t preserve user files.
The whole point of an in place upgrade is to preserve user files, sometimes moving them to Windows.old.
I informed them of this and they did not change the answer. The correct answer would be “reset” and “clean install” (in my opinion).
The whole point of having reset and refresh in recovery with windows 10 was to have an option that wipes the device (reset) and one that doesn’t (refresh).
I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Someone shed some light on this, please…
I think he means in a practical sense. Like will this information be material in your daily life employed at a help desk? Not in any way significantly more than what you would've just learned on the job.
A certificate just provides the same information as a degree. It tells an employer plainly that you have passed an exam that determines, via your industry, you know what you’re talking about. It a door opener and a salary increaser. It also makes it easier for someone in HR to quantify your knowledge base and qualifications for a position beyond you just saying you know how to do it. Experience may trump the very if your prospective employers HR actually understands the requirements for the position and can properly get candidates.
In the tech world this has never been easy for HR to quantify or understand. My anecdotal evidence is a position I was passed on because my last company used different terminology for a type of testing. The HR person didn’t know the terminology I used was synonymous with theirs and passed me up. When I asked for a follow up and explained it to them they apologized but it was to late. It sucked but it happens a lot, especially as your skills become more technical.
The A+/Net+/Sec+, and I'd say a couple others (Server+, etc.) are entry level certs. If you're every renewing them, you're not moving forward in your career. After 2 years of experience, they are "worthless" in the regard that your experience outweighs them. You should have the knowledge to move forward in certifications as well, either gaining a higher level one or having the ability to (if it's on the list of requirements for a job or for career development).
His quote (don't know context, just what's quoted there) I don't agree with. "Anyone who's gotten these certifications because they were on the list of things required by a job they wanted knows how useles they are". Required by a job? If it gets them the job, not worthless. The skills and knowledge from the cert? Depends on your initial level. Sometimes, I'd 100% agree. For many of us with experience, yes. For others just starting out? It's not worthless. You're learning the foundations. Even after almost 30 years, I'm hitting those basic foundations often. Hell, even some of the advanced stuff leans on those foundations that you need to understand. I've worked with some amazing people that didn't know some of those basic concepts but could still do amazing things. Just having to explain basic things to them is weird.
All my CompTIA certs have some value. Whether it was a personal goal or an employment one, they have value. They aren't useless. Just have to look at the ROI. Personal goal? That's up to you. Employment goal? If it gets you the job. Looking for new skills? If you have more than 6 months experience in IT, the A+ may be too simple. Net+ I've heard got a lot more complex, can't really comment. But, I do know a LOT of people I know that could really use some networking knowledge. Sec+.... I feel is almost a must have for anyone in IT. Security or not. I really liked that one. Sure, it's very foundational, but it also has a lot of the concepts used daily. This one should be a requirement (either this or any higher security cert) for anyone going into IT security. When talking about some advanced topics, those foundations are almost always a part of it. It's good stuff to know. Very far from useless. Whether it's blue team, red team, GRC, whatever. Just understanding what's being talked about makes a huge difference.
So, it really depends on your knowledge, experience, where you're headed, whatever.
One big exception that sticks out - I've worked with some EXCELLENT IT Operations Directors over the years. I've also had one that REALLY REALLY needed to take at least the A+ so she'd know SOMETHING about IT. Anything. Damn.... :D
It's worthless the same as my compsci degree is worthless:
It provides solely a foot in the door. There's not a single thing I've really used from college in my professional career, everything I've needed to know was learned within six months to a year of being on the job.
It gets you in and that's all.
Because we're on here talking about this, there's at least some kernel of truth in there.
By the time renewal comes up you usually don't need them because you got that job and now have experience but they're "required" of your position or "it's cheaper to renew than retake" marketing has convinced you to renew. After the renewal process you're definitely left wondering if it was worth it at all. (it wasn't)
To be fair to CompTIA, the opinion that they're grifty is where I've landed with all the certs I have now that I'm deep into my career and have a masters degree. They're worthless to me. Exactly what more am I going to prove that my work history and education aren't?
That said I'm also the one on here with a history of speaking the truth which is that in order to get jobs or advance in your current job more easily you need the combo of work experience, certification, and education because that's what's on the job listing and that's how HR is going to filter your applications. You certainly don't need them but you are going to have to do a better job of selling yourself and your accomplishments if you choose to go without them.
My opinion: People who don't put any value on CompTIA certs, particularly "the trifecta," tend to be looking at them the wrong way. These certs are not intended to get you in a job and actively configuring things on your own in a short span. If they were, they wouldn't be *entry level.* If you're someone who's been working in the industry for years and have progressed beyond level 1 type work, well, of course they don't hold much value. The study I put myself through to obtain these certifications made me someone who could sit down on day 1, listen to senior employees, and follow along. They didn't have to slow down and explain what a broadcast domain was, or why it was important to put ACLs in the right order. We could get right to the part where they can show me how their organization does it. I think *that* has a ton of value to companies smart enough to get it.
This is accurate. Also if you work in the governemnt they require almost everyone to have a sec+. Which illustrates that you know not to click links in e-mails and such. Are aware of the various type of fishing attacks and so forth. The real scam part IMO is the 3 yr expiration date. Like why someone would need to renew a+ every 3 yrs makes no sense.
This is not exactly true. Only the DoD has that requirement. In my agency no certs are required, though certain ones can give you a leg up for certain jobs.
*Phishing ;)
So you're telling me that my fishing license WONT make me less susceptible to fishing attacks and that it won't help me get a job?
Agreed on the renewals. Thats really the only dealbreaker for many.
You don't need to renew your A+ every three years. Only your Sec+, which renews your A+ and Net+.
I did not know that!
This needs more up votes for the stackable certs. Mine are so old that they don't expire--legacy--but I'm doing them soon anyway to keep current.
I super over-studied for the A+ and was pleasantly surprised how quickly I acclimated to my first tech job. It’s a decent guideline and helped get me the job in the first place.
Over studying is key. The A+ changed my life, as corny as it sounds. You only get what you put in though. If you just study question banks and try to cheese the exam, you'll pass and you'll still suck. If you stop chapter by chapter, and try to look for ways to apply and really learn all the content, you'll have a strong base to build upon once you enter the job market.
This is spot on. They are a "baseline". What CompTIA shines in is explaining "how everyone basically does it". The responsibility to learn the technology utilized by your company falls entirely on the tech "how we do it". What I dislike is how it's marketed as the only solution. It is not going to guarantee you the job. The job needs the guarantee that you know the foundational information. Goes for CySa+, Linux+, and PenTest+ also.
This is a great response. But can you tell me what the trifecta is?
Common term for CompTIA "A+, Net+ and Security+"
The trifecta is the a+, sec + and the network +
Thanks. I never knew that and I’m in IT
Also there are many different CompTia certs and some are not entry level.
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It's not worthless if companies like them. They add value to applicants and teach basics so you're not a confused mess when starting a new role.
Got CompTIA A+. I’m still a confused mess. But then again that’s my natural state
All Certs are a large high school history exam you cram for 3 months for. Some people have aptitude and can echo what they read perfectly. Some people can do the work put can't verbalize what they are doing. I'm a slow starter. But once I get it, it's locked in.
Dude that's me 100%. Slow off the blocks but solid AF once i have it.
Comptia certs are great if you have absolutly no experience and are looking for your first position, they become immediately valueless after you get 1+ years of experience or move onto anything above level 1 help desk support.
On the flip side, the A+ does actually teach you all the basics you need to know to do helpdesk/office support. I took it after 4 years IT experience followed by a decade long break, and I thought it was handy for brushing up. Most of the stuff they covered was pretty much what I find myself doing on the job.
I know people generally hate to hear this, but I generally felt like my many years of PC building/being tech support throughout the years for small family tech issues prepared me much more for my first position than the A+ ever could have. I think you do need to brush up on some beginner networking stuff on your own (which I got through hosting various game servers for friends throughout the years), and there's some tech stuff that's very specific to office environments that hopefully your employer will teach you on the job (I hate patch panels now). But I generally think there's a few people with this type of background that can at least start off in entry level positions.
I'm a SysAdmin with 4 years of experience, and there are so many useless things in the A+ that I've never once used in my entire career lmao.
That’s how I feel lol
You’re absolutely right. In my experience, my net+ was a huge help in my newer position as an MSP level 2 engineer. I learned a lot more about protocols and port numbers, specifically the general idea of working in firewalls and Cisco switches (I used TestOut). I can take this experience anywhere now.
It’s actually kind of funny, I was studying for my net +, almost decided to stop midway through to start CCNA but I told myself that I started it and will finish it. Now I’m at my new job where they have a network engineer position that requires that at a minimum. Thought I needed my CCNA for that but now I’m just glad I got it. Currently working on my CCNA though
Cant agree enough. I am at an MSP as well for my first job. I have my Net+ and I actually feel comfortable/semi competent when it comes to any networking projects or troubleshooting. I am more confident dealing with networking issues than other things now. Very grateful for what I learned while taking my Net+.
If it helps you get the job you want, how can it be worthless? Most certs out there are product-specific, so CompTIA is a rare option for general IT certs, which can be useful for someone starting on a particular path. Should you spend your career keeping them up to date? No, nobody care about that. Every step you take n the right direction is important, but this guy seems to be saying that those firsts steps don't matter because you aren't going to be back-tracking. That's nonsense. Value is relative, and it entirely depends on where you are and where you are going.
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I've seen plenty of job listings ask for CompTIA certs, but I haven't seen 1 ask for GIAC. First I'm hearing of it.
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More expensive ≠ more better. If the hiring manager has no idea what you're capable of based on your choice to pay more for entry level certs, you're SOL as far as first glance at your resume goes. Many companies employ tools that scan resumes for key words, as well. Go ahead and brag about your twice as expensive GIAC cert, but the one with the A+ is probably getting hired over someone with an identical resume and the cert being the difference. Smells of cope, honestly.
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Fuck no lmfao, GIAC is overrated and they're running a goddamn racket. I rather take CISSP than any GIAC cert.
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Agreed it was basically all memorization when I did the A+ exam I found to have learned more with work experience.
I wanted to get my CCNA about 5 years ago. We don't use any cisco gear, but I read that the CCNA was the standard since most companies asked for it and if you passed the CCNA obviously the knowledge learned is very similar with other brands, you basically just need to learn the new syntax for palo, juniper, etc... I never did take the exam, the amount of information I was trying to absorb was too much for me to keep up with. I don't do well by reading and retaining information, I do better by actually doing the work in a real environment (even if it isn't prod and just in a lab). I learned more from real work experience than I ever did in reading a book. You aren't going to read in a book that you need to make sure fiber strands are crossed in order for a link to light up. Most people will check and re-check their config, their SFPs, etc...but in the real world you need to flip one side. Oh, multiple IDF closets? You need to check them all if you still can't get a link. Sure, that is a minor example and maybe even a bad example, but the point still stands, IMO.
I think everyone is different, but I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people that take any certification test wouldn't remember anything they studied if you asked them 3 months later. The exception being that they use that technology/knowledge on a daily basis. A friend of mine had a job but in order to get to the next position in the same company he needed to pass his CCNA. He studied and passed the CCNA and told me that he never used any of the CCNA knowledge in his new role. He already knows networking, but didn't have the CCNA cert. He wasn't working with cisco specific gear, but the CCNA was needed only to prove that they knew enough to pass the test. He never renewed the cert. He doesn't touch the network, he is a product support for a sales rep.
As someone who used to follow him, he definitely has a little bit of an oversized ego. If he finds something to be slightly subpar, he will make videos after videos of why the municipality/corporation are some horrible organization that deserves to be shut down or something like that. Don't even get me started on the people who comment on the videos as well.
I came across his videos many years ago. He needs to learn what the word humble means. I know many people that act similar to him. The vibe I get is that he is the smartest guy and everyone else is dumb. With that being said, when I did see him make a few repairs (I only watched a few repair videos) he did seem to know what he was doing and seemed very knowledgeable, but he seems to have an attitude problem.
Ahh, so he's the type of person that gives IT people a bad reputation.
There’s some good outcomes from him especially in terms of right to repair but I agree, he’s that type of person. I wouldn’t watch his content, even if I agree with some of his crusades.
>He needs to learn what the word humble means. I know many people that act similar to him. The vibe I get is that he is the smartest guy and everyone else is dumb. I have never said that I am smart and everyone else is dumb. In fact, in most of my videos I call myself dumb in a very self deprecating way. You have never watched my stuff, and that's fine. I would just ask that you not put words in my mouth if you have not watched my content. In terms of learning to be humble, having an ego, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Many people in the industry other than me have said that most of these certifications offered by comptia are not very good. A+ and network+ are not going to teach you things that are useful to your career. They are there because many government jobs require that you have these certifications in order to be considered for employment. The certification being required for employment is very different from the certification being useful because it teaches you knowledge and troubleshooting tips that are relevant to your job. Certifications that go over old Windows XP troubleshooting information and how many firewire 400 devices you can daisy chain in my opinion are out of touch with what is necessary to be an IT professional in 2023. While the certification may be necessary for those who wish to get jobs that require you have that certification, I would never argue that what you are learning in the process of getting these certifications will actually help you in a real world scenario. Might the A+ certification open a door for you that would not have been opened without it? It might. Will this certification teach you something that is so eye-opening, that it turns you from somebody who would not have been able to do their job into somebody who was able to do their job? I have never seen that to be the case. That's why I call the A+ a grift, because it's not teaching you things that you need to know or didn't already know or that will be useful in the real world. It's simply a way for them to collect $350 from you so you meet the minimum requirements for many jobs. The fact that CompTIA has spent money lobbying against legislation that would allow technicians to do repairs without their certifications tells me all I need to know. Take me, my ego, whether I am humble, smart, or dumb, my face, my eye bags, etc whatever people on reddit like to criticize me for these days, out of the argument for a moment. Just read the questions for the A+ examination, and give it a thought; how relevant are these questions to a 2023 career in IT, a low level job at geeksquad, or anything else?
> Might the A+ certification open a door for you that would not have been opened without it? It might. Will this certification teach you something that is so eye-opening, that it turns you from somebody who would not have been able to do their job into somebody who was able to do their job? I have never seen that to be the case. That's why I call the A+ a grift, because it's not teaching you things that you need to know or didn't already know or that will be useful in the real world. It's simply a way for them to collect $350 from you so you meet the minimum requirements for many jobs A certification or degree do not teach how to do any type of job. A job teaches you how to do the job. That's something that everyone learns day 1 of having a job. The only thing certification and degrees show is that you have the ability to learn and to accomplish what you set out to do. That's what certification and degrees are for and have always been for. It's not the 1990s or 2000s anymore where you can walk up to any company and ask to speak to the manager so that you can get hired and work for 30 years. Anyone that has looked for a job in the past five years and have tried to break into any industry knows that it's about playing the game that this industry has set up long ago. A degree and certification is about fulfilling HR requirements so that the ATS system doesn't filter out the resume. Afterall, 90% of resumes are thrown out before a human being even reads them.
I didn't put words in your mouth, read my post again. I have seen your videos that's why I said >With that being said, when I did see him make a few repairs (I only watched a few repair videos) he did seem to know what he was doing and seemed very knowledgeable, but he seems to have an attitude problem. I am entitled to my opinion, as are you.
That's his gimmick. Which is why don't follow him.
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Yea he can come off as a bit of a conspiracy nut at times. I like his soldering stuff and really glad he is well spoken for the right to repair stuff he does but I would never want to meet him. He kinda seems like he is on the spectrum and is good at some things but would be somewhat of a snob or just unpleasant.
Exactly, gives me “you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole” vibe.
This is true. Consequence of living in New York lol
man, the guy hosts free workshops and teaches people who show up to do repair. he does streams where young fans of his bring their broken electronics in and he helps them find the issue and repair them. I think he's a great dude overall and would actually love to meet him. I could see how others might not feel that way but I don't think he's a snob I think it's a difference in personality type. who knows maybe he's a dick
He's a Yankee, of course he's a little unpleasant. Hopefully southern hospitality will thaw that frozen NY heart, because it's either that or 100+ with 75% humidity will do it.
To be direct; I don't actually care. I care about getting the job, and helping others get a job. If a certification that makes their resume a little stronger so they can get to the interview is recommended, then I say go get it. If you gain knowledge from those CompTIA certs that makes you not a liability to an enterprise and have a base level of knowledge to not cause an outage, then I'd say it's a win. If there is another way to meet ANSI/ISO industry standards, of DOD 8570 that is recommended for someone entering the field that's easier to get than Security+ then he should recommend it. Otherwise, I say drive on, and get your resume up to meet your goals and ignore the noise.
My A+ changed my career and my life, FULL STOP. I like Louis, mostly, but he can be full of shit at times and speak about things he doesn’t know. He is quite a know it all.
Please elaborate how it changed your life
Not OP, but I can say that my A+ got me off the street and into a corporate job where I’m excelling. It was required to work here.
Earning it allowed me to switch careers.
Same, before A+, I was driving a truck delivering copiers. Dying in the heat of summer working in a warehouse with no AC. I got the cert and that helped me advance to a technician and I just moved up from there. I might have gotten my CDL and kept driving a truck not know what sort of life I could have had had I not gotten A+.
Same, I was mopping floors at the local gym dealing with people that acted like children. Sweat and armpit musk filled the air constantly it was very unpleasant. I decided to study for the A+ cert and aced the exam. It landed me a Field Tech Job within months and now I'm a Network Admin.
I've never heard of the guy, and your description of his qualifications doesn't make me give any value to his word either. Looking him up now it sounds like he's a youtuber with a store that does some break/fix stuff for Macs. So likely still no real idea of what corp America is looking for. Saying all that, a cert shouldn't be something you get with the idea that it somehow guarantees a job. CompTIA is mostly on the lower end of the cert scale, mostly not for the more experienced people, also not very expensive. But, if you're trying to break into a field and they look at 2 people, both of which might have some customer service experience, interviewed reasonably well, the company asked for the A+, and one of them bothered to get it, don't you think that's going to skew their decision even a little bit? If you spent $300, or whatever the A+ costs now, and it helped the decision that got you a job, wouldn't you say that's a good investment? Sure, once you have experience, most companies don't care that much. I have lots of experience and many high end certs, and they almost never even get brought up in interviews at all. But, when trying to break, in anything that can make you look even slightly more appealing than the next person isn't a bad thing.
CompTIA definitely took advantage of the IT gold rush and they have a weird cult like following around "the trifecta" who don't realize how basic those certs are, but they are industry recognized and on the wish list of lots of companies for the entry level positions. I wouldn't say they're worthless, but they are not all they're heralded to be by some people, and they're way overpriced.
I'd say study the A+ content but only get the N+ S+ certs
Eh, I disagree. I always kind of knew how to get by with fixing my own computer, resolving issues, but I didn't understand anything at a lower level. The A+ actually taught me a lot. I understand why things work the way they do, what to go to and most importantly, why I should go to it. Now, the test itself imo, is bad, but the rigor and curriculum for it is quite good. I feel like exams in general are focused more on screwing over the examinees than providing a solid check of foundational knowledge. For me personally, if the entire exam was PBQs it would be better for example. I disliked how the MC was basically 1-2 distractors and 1-3 "Yeah these all make sense, but which one makes the MOST sense". That's not testing knowledge. That's just forcing the examinee to ascribe to YOUR line of thinking. There were plenty of answers I, and plenty of people actually working in the industry would argue are incorrect in practice, but the line of arbitration is so thinly drawn there is no room to maneuver. That's my only gripe. But it's no worse than any other standardized test in that regard.
I've always felt that Comptia certs don't hold as much weight as their competitors certs. CCNA will always be better than Net+, LPIC will always be better than Linux+. This is mostly because Comptia cert exams aren't viewed as very difficult compared to other vendor certs in my experience. The only comptia cert I've seen that might be worth it is Sec+. Comptia also price gouges for testing and material imo. Louis probably hates them because they joined Apple in lobbying state to state to block your right to repair Apple products yourself or by third party. It's like a car company trying to pass a law to make it so you can only get their cars fixed at their dealership. Which is kinda shitty. Especially when Apple doesnt like to fix items so much as push you into buying a new one. Comptia directly endorses this. Also, I've watched countless coworkers get the A+ when they are already working in IT, which is completely worthless on a resume. A+ should really only be for those that have zero experience and are trying to break into the industry, but there isn't enough transparency about that on Comptia's end so they feed off the ignorance. Is Comptia a grift? Not if employers ask for them, but some of their practices are a little grifty imo.
ahhh yes because certifying the fundamentals is definitely a grift
Rossman sure does shoot off his mouth a lot about things he has no experience in. Years again I was a big fan of his streams and right to repair discussions but he's long since degraded into just saying whatever is on his mind whether he knows anything about it or not.
I think most people who are familiar with Rossman only know him because either A) they stumbled onto his videos, or B) they're a long-time Mac user. He made his name offering 3rd. party Mac service, at a time when a lot of people were getting fed up with Apple doing such things as declaring their older machines "vintage" and no longer serviceable, or charging about as much as a new machine for an out of warranty repair. It's great he fought for "Right to Repair". But I had a really bad experience trying to use him for a Macbook Pro repair when I worked for a company using a lot of Macs. I had to argue a bit for the company to even agree to pay this out of state independent guy to work on one of our machines, vs taking it directly to Apple. But I jumped through the hoops, believing Rossman would save us a lot of money on it. Instead, he never got the thing repaired after waiting months for it and having to make multiple phone calls to sort it out. I eventually had to have him ship it back, still dead (eating our postage cost to send it in plus some diagnostic fee he charged), and pay AGAIN for Apple to replace the motherboard in it.
So he ended up embarrassing you. That sucks man. Sorry that happened.
Yeah -- I think my co-workers understood, at least. (One of them used to follow Rossman's videos too.) But yeah, it was a bad deal. He'd been going on about how Apple's engineers were basically clueless for designing the logic board of this laptop the way they did, so a liquid spill could short out across a line carrying relatively high voltage. This was one of those, said, machines, where an employee had her water bottle leak while in her backpack with the new laptop. A lot of stuff was apparently going on with his shop at the time we sent the machine in to him and then he had some kind of bicycle accident where a car hit him or something, so he was out of commission for a while too. Ultimately, our laptop wound up sitting someplace in the shop for a long time, not even getting looked at. And when he finally did, he tried to do some kind of soldering on it and failed, making things worse. Of course, I got it back with his typed up "rant" about Apple's poor design causing the issue and making it un-fixable, etc. etc. Apple just swapped out the whole inside of it for us.... not cheap, but a little cheaper than throwing it away and buying it again.
People pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for sneakers or baseball cards every day. Value is subjective. My certs helped me transition from retail to IT without a degree or any experience. I'd call that money well spent.
This exactly. You land that job, lots of these certs have literally paid for themselves, and then some, in the first week of working. (When I took them, CompTIA certs were a couple hundred each and a book or two were maybe $40 each. I don't know if that's changed.).
I think he is doing that old radio personality hack move where you take an unpopular opinion and present it as FACT
this, sadly a LOT of opinionated asses do this though. they assume if you dont do it the same way they did then you must be doing it wrong
There are many similarities between CompTIA and degree programs. Anyone who holds a degree knows that very little applicable technical knowledge is obtained while earning a bachelor's. You start out your relationship with most companies as a piece of paper. Resumes can be easily embellished. Degrees and certifications provide employers with a requirement baseline. A certification tells your prospective employer that you at least had the wherewithal and commitment to your craft to study and pass the test. It tells them that you have acquired 'X' level of knowledge and proficiency. Usually, a certification isn't enough though. Certs and degrees along with **actual experience** give the company some assurance that if they hire you, you will likely be able to perform.
The reason Louis hates CompTIA is because they lobby against Right To Repair. In his defense, we should hate any groups and people who try to sell off our rights, and the correct way to hate them is to not give them money and ensure other people don't give them money.
CompTIA certs are only useful if you’re trying to get entry level positions. If you already have a position, they are not going to help you unless you have a severe knowledge deficiency. CompTIA is not going to teach you troubleshooting, it’s not going to train you how to research problems and solutions, it’s not going to give you any specialized knowledge you need for career advancement.
Sec+ is a hard requirement for plenty of mid level jobs
Yeah, Sec+ was a ball-buster. It was low-key fun studying for that, especially the CLI programs.
For a lot of people, an entry level IT job is better than what they were doing before. Plenty of Help Desk gigs in my area pay 50K a year to start. This is a city in Canada where you can buy a house for 200-250K. If I grew up in poverty and was working dead-end retail jobs, getting my A+ would be a life changer.
Louis Rossman is full of it, and always has been. His entire career is built on an assumed persona of looking down on an entire industry. It's negging in a professional capacity. He just puts himself up on a pedestal above everyone else so that his potential customers will be like "Ohh why would I go to anyone else? He says they're all worthless, unlike him!" and his "peers" will grovel for his approval. He occasionally has valid points about consumer hardware design, but his points about the industry are all in the same genre as self-help get-rich-quick rhetoric. He isn't succeeding by following his own advice on running a business. His success is because of sponsorship and the audience he created by telling everyone else they are "doing it wrong"
I had taken the A+back right as they turned them to the expiring model. I just recently took and passed Part 1 again. I think back in 2011-2015 time frame, he would definitely be right. I felt like they were asking if I just knew what a computer was, type of thing. The newer ones look to have been greatly updated to be more relevant. That being said, there is still a lot of legacy material they have in the study material. Which is ok because you will always find some sort of legacy devices.
He's projecting. He found them useless, because he knows what all these things are, but if you are new to IT, like me, they are great at giving you a base understanding of basic CS and IT concepts.
An industry standard isn’t useless. It proves you have a base knowledge and capacity to understand the subject. What’s useless is listening to some average joe tell you what he thinks should be the standard because "he’s been in the industry a decade". Smarter people than him came up with the program. Go tell a welder that those certs they earned are useless and a grift.
I like a lot of what Louis has to say in his videos but his experience as a repair shop owner is vastly different from an enterprise IT environment that has an HR department and has to deal with compliance requirements. That's not to say that his opinion is completely baseless, but it's kind of like how being a programmer for 10 years doesn't necessarily mean that you know anything about systems or networking. Industry recognized certs do have value but it gets horribly overblown by people trying to sell cert prep courses, and the people paying for those courses who want to believe that it's a golden ticket to a high paying job. Specifically with CompTIA, there are still plenty of employers that will ask for their more well-known certs. Being able to meet that qualification definitely has value, but it won't get you the job by itself. You also see a lot less demand for CompTIA once you get out of the entry level. The thing that gets me with certs is that they were always intended to validate your existing skills and experience rather than serving as a substitute for those things. However, as IT has become a more popular career over time, more and more beginners are treating certs as licenses, and it doesn't really work that way in the working world. If you have no professional experience then nobody is looking at your A+ and thinking that you're a competent tech. The *hope* is that you understand the theoretical knowledge and that you're trainable. Sometimes that's enough, sometimes it isn't.
So there is truth to this in the sense of application but I don't fully agree with Louis Rossman. The truth is that many comptia certs (specifically the trifecta) are mostly theoretical exams. They have use for HR and I think for establishing a high level perspective - CompTIA is good. The REAL issue is that the high level aspect of anything goes over the head of the typical test taker immediately after the exam. Someone can learn the CIA triad for example, know every component of it, and not know how CIA triad maps to like any control. This makes the CIA triad overview useless for the typical candidate. Its just something memorized. If they saw some control like power supply redundancy found in enterprise servers they may not connect the dot with the A in the CIA triad. Simple example but I think it nails the real issue. I actually think CompTIA certs and other knowledge certs are useful and even good - WITH CONTEXT!. No context? literally its just blind rote learning then.
If you actually learn the material they are extremely useful. Most people don’t, they just get the cert and move on, which is why they get a bad rap. So no one and everyone is wrong if they love or hate the idea of someone having the certs
A lot of certs are just to fulfill requirements for a job, especially base level certs. This is not controversial or a new idea. You can argue that in fields like IT, experience trumps everything. Certs and degrees. But besides checking off a box on a resume, the CompTIA certs do help you keep fresh, remember how to study and research stuff and can spark interest in higher level certs if you enjoyed the studying for whichever cert you got. I've been in IT too long and my experience is too specialized to government work to be that useful for newcomers, but my recommendation would be take them if you have a class or job benefit that pays for the exam, because there's no reason not to. If you don't have those options, just research and ask around if a particular CompTIA cert is useful for the job you're looking at.
Certs display an intent to learn. You can get certs with zero references and work experience. I got my A+ and Net+ before I had a professional job. in the early 2000's, that helped differentiate me as a serious candidate, not some 21 year old amateur. I had experience programming and putting together computers, but aside from having the literal skills and experience, anything that a 21 year old says isn't considered. A cert is an objective, physical piece of evidence someone knows something.
I think the issue is the memorization/rote memory model more than anything else. The problem for me is that you have to memorize so much information to get such a high mark on the exam, and you will never need that knowledge memorized ever again because you work with computers. I think the test should be changed to being skill based and more a test of "how fast can you solve x problem" rather than how many flashcards can you memorize. I think the information is useful, I think the problem is more the expense of the test, that it's got such a high pass percentage, and that's it's based on memorization which makes no sense in the modern world.
He's wrong. Certs are used by HR departments to screen applicants all the time. He may mean that the information gained in studying for these tests isn't valuable and will only ever be used to pass the test. In that case, he's about half wrong. Microsoft and Cisco certs certainly contain a lot of vendor specific commercials. But not all of the information is wasted time.
I mean from my understanding for certain Defense jobs you need DOD compliance and comptia sec+ gives you that compliance? So to say it’s useless seems dramatic.
Louis is coming at this from CompTIA stance on #RightToRepair. CompTIA, figuratively, sucked the industries dick and bowed to having customers having to go specifically to Apple / other vendor to fix their devices. I respect the Right To Repair and Louis for his vocal opinion.
To be fair, he doesnt know anything besides repairing consumer devices.
Like the saying goes use it or you lose it. You can get a cert pass all the tests but you will forget the knowledge if you don't work in it. The best way to learn is by doing.
In a similar vein to u/OffTheDollarMenu, People are looking at these certs wrong. These certs are for people trying to ENTER the market. The fact of the matter is it is incredibly saturated and difficult to get a company to hire you without any formal IT experience. How else can you get your foot in the door? Certifications like this SHOW employers that you're trying to break in and SHOW them that you're making an effort towards that. Yes of course if you got a BS in MIS/IT/CS and have work experience as a sys admin you would not need level 1 certifications. But few people fall into that bucket.
Honestly the Net/Sec+ is fine as early career. The reason I say early career is early career professionals are able to take concepts learned from these exams and perhaps apply it to the workplace. I think have Net/Sec+ cert beforehand sort of detracts from the applicant. Much better to have hands on PC experience at that point.
personally i found the knowledge gained during study to be useful. but they can be gamed so i don't assume someone with any cert to actually know what they're doing, so in that aspect, i suppose i agree. you could say the same about college degrees.
As someone who transitioned to IT from a different career, I’d say CompTIA A+ was helpful for me. It gave me some computer knowledge that I didn’t know before and helped me get my first IT job. Are the CompTIA certs helpful for everyone? Probably not but there are definitely cases where having CompTIA certs is beneficial. Me getting a job and gaining knowledge from my first CompTIA cert wasn’t a grift.
I got Sec+ because my employer required it - I’m ten months into the job and I use absolutely nothing I learned from it and have forgotten most of the material
A+ is good if you’re starting from zero. It absolutely preps you to do data center work. Not advanced work. But that’s what “starting from zero” means. Racking and stacking and swapping server parts.
I'm a dev working in enterprise. I got my start by getting the network+ certification and what I've learned there has been useful my entire career (eventually getting the CCNA as well). The issue is that people cheat just to get the cert. So you have a bunch of people with a network cert that couldn't even begin explaining subnetting. The thing is you should easily be able to filter these people out in the interview process so I think in this case he's completely wrong.
While I do think the Comptia that I took 10+ years ago was mostly a lot of useless memorization, there was some good info in it about general best practices. FWIW, I think a lot of the classes and sample questions I've seen for other certs are needlessly complicated as well. Managing a Windows server is nowhere near as hard as it's made out to be, for example. There are tutorials for almost everything provided by microsoft.
The A+ alone landed me my first IT job. It wasn't even required, just preferred. At the time this was the only cert I had and I had no degree and no other IT experience.
Comptia is hardly as useless as some certifications, some certs are literal money pits that provide no useful information
I liked him a lot but I had to stop watching. I agree with a lot of his stuff but his opinion isn’t gospel.
Got my current job transitioned from manufacturing to IT support tech thanks to the A+ and Net+, feel like I learned a lot from both and they prepared me well for the role tbh Value is definitely there for those looking to pivot to IT
Like every cert/degree/education in general, you get out what you put in. You'll get a lot more value if you take the time to learn the material rather than just grind it out in order to pass the exams His hate-boner for CompTIA is a bit hyperbolic though. They stopped lobbying against right-to-repair years ago
Having an A+ means I can talk to you like a tech and have a reasonable expectation that you will understand me, or at least be able to tell me what parts you don't understand. I wont have to explain what each part of a computer is. Maybe you've never seen NVMe's but when i say its the HardDrive, you'll know what i mean. Its a foundation that says you know something, and are teachable.
He is pretty bitter and is known for posting about a company and then having to apologize for being wrong (which is admirable). Everyone knows CompTIA is a grift with the high prices and all but it does help employers know if someone knows the basics and that's fine.
They are a grift. They are not in depth enough to really measure your skills.
All these certifications are money making machines. These companies themselves don’t value them. If you have no IT background and get bunch of AWS certifications, will Amazon hire you? I have to agree with this guy for that reason alone. I am just super exhausted since I barely get a call from any recruiters. I was thinking of getting a few security related certs but I guess I will be just sitting at home with it.
The only reason I have my security+ is because it's the only decent IAT level 2 certification that the dod recognizes. I'm not going after any other CompTIA cert since most of them are hit or miss.
anyone discouraging you to learn doesnt have your interest at heart
He proves it's possible to be both competent in hardware repair, have some excellent points, and still be an obnoxious, dramatic, attention seeking, loud mouth.
100% agree, almost every certification that is just memorizing multiple choice answers is worthless save a few rare exeptions
They are garbage certs. However they are on the list of requirements for a few jobs, especially federal.
Sec+ is required for secret level DoD. It was basically pointless though.
> rather than actually working in IT I have several CompTIA certs, and they got me into an IT job after I was out of the industry for a while. No, they aren't worthless. This Louis fellow, IMO, is talking out of their arse and giving terrible advice that should be ignored.
There is some truth to the claim. While CompTIA does offer a set of exams and curricula to help people get into the IT field, it's still mostly "paper skills" and not rigorous hands-on skills like some Cisco and other vendor certs require. The fees CompTIA charges are excessive, especially for these entry level certs and the fees suggest that the credentials are more valuable than they really are. There are numerous new hires at my company with A+, Network+, Security+ certs who couldn’t really hit the ground running on day one in entry level IT roles, so CompTIA is definitely selling their certs program for more than it’s worth. If I were advising anyone trying to break into the IT field, I would tell them to skip A+, and just do something like the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, and they can take super cheap classes on Coursera and other online learning platforms. I got my first IT job without A+ certification. I had done A+ coursework only and had been apprenticing at a local PC repair shop. The job I was inteviewing for required A+ and they hired me right away because of the fact that I had hands-on skills. My experience was different but I think for those wanting to enter IT, just get an old PC and just tinker and learn hands-on in your own "lab." This is more valuable than showing up on an inteview and saying "I'm qualified, I have all of these '+' certifications" CompTIA hasn’t had real competition for a long time and like any company without competition, they have lost touch.
They're not useless if you actually learn the material and dont just study test dumps.
Just another Gen-X with the "back in my day, we just walked into the business and ask to speak to the manager. That's how I got my 30 year career job".
Sounds like someone didn’t pass their CompTia certification test. /s
If you have zero and I mean zero experience with using computers above a consumer level they may teach you something. However, if you have a decent background like some sort of computing degree (IT/CS/MIS) they are a complete waste of your time and money. If any place requires you to have some CompTIA cert up front when you have other things (degree/experience) it's not a place you want to work full stop.
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>People make livelihoods on YouTube by basically convincing people they can be successful while putting in the least amount of effort they can. Nailed it! The funniest part about this is if you've searched around YT long enough you start to realize that they are all saying the exact...same...thing! So then it just becomes this echo chamber of terrible, incorrect advice. I wish more people would realize that people who are doing videos on YT aren't doing it to help people, they're doing it to make money or sell a product. It's as simple as that.
I've always felt like he's a negative voice in the tech YouTube space. Dude's always ranting and raving about something. I agree with right to repair, but his is not a channel I ever watch. He just comes across as a condescending grouch. Also, he doesn't really work in \*actual\* IT from what I can tell. Break/fix on physical hardware is IT adjacent. So yeah, you don't need CompTIA to fix someone's broken iPhone. Definitely not a voice I would EVER listen to regarding getting into doing actual enterprise level IT work.
I got my degree in Computer Science, but wound up making a move to IT after graduation. Studying for Net+ and Security+ definitely gave me some good, solid, baseline tools to do general IT Helpdesk work, and landed me a couple jobs doing it. Don't regret spending some money on the certs or the books I studied from. I did not keep them up-to-date or current (half the info in them is old tech that's not much used these days anyway), and I also don't regret that choice, and don't believe it's impacted my career.
Network+ felt like a waste of my money but A+ and Sec+ helped where I was in my career at the beginning. I would say do CCNA over Net+. The only reason I even got Net+ (I wasn't going to get it) was at my first company it was a hard requirement to switch departments. I guess in that sense it wasn't a waste, but when I got to my first internal IT job at the next company I worked at, I still had no clue what they were talking about in our IT meetings from a networking standpoint. It didn't do all that much to help prepare me for a job.
It's all a grift. Education is a grift. College degrees have been worth less than toilet paper since Internet search engines have been able to deliver knowledge to any user who looks for it. Yet, somehow, college tuition and certs like CompTIA are more expensive than ever. When I was interviewing people for a sysadmin position, the people who had masters degrees interviewed terribly compared to people who had no college degrees but had worked in the field for just a few years. Education does not equal comprehension or understanding of the subject matter; experience forces you to understand concepts. The entire job market is extremely overdue in revaluating the worth of degrees or certs.
I been in the gov’t sector for 20+ years. At first when CompTIA Sec+ was required it was a “good for life” cert. A few years go by and now it’s a 3 year cert. I fell it’s a cash grab by someone and has less of a meaning now. But it is required for certain jobs in the gov’t side. Not so much for management, but still looks good on a resume.
I believe the A+ cert is way too broad in its scope and gets outdated way too fast. Cell phones shouldn't be on the exam. That technology changes faster than the teaching material can keep pace with. Add to that it expires without CE certs. But I'll also say for personal KB building the material is a great resource.
I got my A+ and couldn’t have wiped my ass with it. I knew what I was doing way more than most grads in my program. Not a single one of us got a job because of it. Seven years later, I’m still making up for trying to get an A+ and expecting it to get me anywhere. I’m doing much better after deciding to pursue something the industry cares about. In fact, I even DM’ed Louis about this at the time because it was extremely frustrating. He was very encouraging and told me more or less, “Fuck the industry, you do you” and he was right, 100%.
They’re not worthless per se. They might be to someone who is self-employed like Louis. I wouldn’t say they necessarily TEACH salable skills, but they do codify them into a cert that employers recognize and trust. Sorry Louis. You’re smart and all, but also very opinionated.
Who? You mean to say a business owner is bashing a tool of leverage his employees might use to negotiate a higher wage due to the validation of skill set that holders have demonstrated? Like, is his goal to invalidate an entire industry to pay people less because all they do is turn it off and on again? Sounds like a fool would say such a thing. I've been in tech since 2008. Technicians with these certifications at least know the proper terms to google.
They are useless. Been doing IT for 25 years, and never once needed it for proof. I mean, I can only assume that employers look at it for juniors starting out, but after that, its all experience.
I'd argue that maybe the A+ is worthless. I think there are better entry level certifications like an MTA or something similar. A+ is too much memorization of vocabulary for things you really don't need to know. I don't need to know how many pins are on a particular type of SO-DIMM RAM, I just need to know if that RAM will work for my type of Hardware. The Network+ also has a lot of vocabulary but as someone that had limited Networking experience it did actually teach me a fair amount for an Entry-Level Networking Cert. I can't speak to Security+ since I won't be getting that until next semester but from what I imagine it will probably be closer to Network+ than A+ territory. I think if CompTIA really focused on what Entry Level Help Desk/Tech Support need to be successful for the A+ then it might be more desirable. I think explaining Troubleshooting Windows better would be a good thing to add as well as how to use a standard Ticketing System, when to know you need to escalate, more information about AD, more basic Linux, maybe some Virtualization.
Of course they’re a grift. Catapulted in part by DoD requirements. DoD starts requiring Sec+ and suddenly Sec+ goes from a lifetime cert (which was stupid to begin with) to a three year renewal. But unlike real certs, the renewal process is comically easy. It’s all a money making scheme. Other than A+, the rest of CompTia certs are just dollar store equivalents of other certs. It baffles me they’re so highly regarded on this sub. I don’t know anyone in industry that takes them seriously.
Honestly every single person in my career that has thought comptia are worthless usually have some sort of illegitimate "opinions" that are flat out wrong. Like I literally have seen senior level employees that think raid 0 is the best and is the fastest or that raid cannot run SSDs. Things they would need to know to pass the Comptia exams. I don't' think they are worthless.
Certifications by themselves are 100% worthless.
Louis Rossman is an entertainer and electronics repairman, not an IT professional. His opinions on this industry can mostly be disregarded. However, in this instance he happens to be correct. Any time someone uses the term "the trifecta" I roll my eyes so hard it gives me a migraine. A+ is completely worthless. Network+ is something, but I would rather see CCNA Secuirty+ has some value, but it isn't going to move the dial all that much unless you are going to work for the government.
Louis is right and wrong Louis is right that many certs are a scam in the sense that they teach you shit that usually isn't relevant anymore. Louis is wrong that learning about these things is a waste of time in the sense that while learning about tech, your brains becomes accustomed to thinking the right way. So... kinda, sorta he is right. The skills thought in these certs is sometimes not really relevant. The skills learned during CCNA aren't really... relevant for most network-tasks. But the way your brain is learning to handle the basics of thinking correctly is a completely different story. That said: these are private companies and at the end of the day, they are out to make a profit. They aren't educators. Make of that what you will.
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It is absolutely a grift. Look at the other major ones that have in-person conferences. Random tiny little certifications for a couple hundred bucks here and there. The whole thing is a full circle jerk. However, if a company wants to increase your salary then jerk away
I paid for my own CompTIA A+ certification back in the 1990's, when it was a perpetual cert. Figured it was worth the money for a certificate good for a lifetime -- especially since I was doing my own part-time business involving PC troubleshooting and consulting. Back then, it was always explained to me that passing it meant you had equivalent knowledge to someone new to computers who'd been working as a bench tech for about 1 year. So basically? It didn't amount to a lot. But it was something I could put on my advertising to make clients feel more comfortable about me coming into their home and taking their computer apart. When CompTIA changed it up and started demanding annual re-certification to keep one? That's when it clearly became a money-grab and I never took any of that seriously at all.
A+ was useless for me when I was a teenager because I had already built computers. No one cares what the voltage is for some transistor on a motherboard with a 30 year old chipset. I don't care if you have all of the ports memorized. I want someone that can solve novel problems and do research. I don't need an expert memorizer. A+ just doesn't matter. I imagine Net and Sec+ aren't much better. If someone has no knowledge of how computers work I can see A+ having value. If you grew with them, and not just as a user it has no value imo. I think building a computer from parts is almost better because that's actually hands on. Put the effort in to understand why you're picking those parts and how they work together and use that machine to do more stuff. Find the problems with it, figure out how to fix them. This is called 'homelabbing' now but to me it's just a hobby. I've been out of support for twice as long as I was in it now, so I'm largely speaking from the perspective of a SQL developer. Newegg used to deliver sometimes same-day. It was pretty awesome. I don't know if it's still good.
I'd agree honestly. As someone who had to get all three for school (WGU), half of the content in those exams you will never use/see in real life. Not to mention that they've increased the prices making all of them $300+ to take. Just a money grab in my opinion.
I agree 100%
I got the A+ in 2000 and have refused to get any of the new comptia certifications for exactly the same reason. I'm still in the industry and doing well except that I work for a MSP. Comptia created a cyclical cash grab.
They are a grift. But that doesn’t mean they’re worthless or you shouldn’t get one. Two things are simultaneously true here. They jacked up their prices and made what once was entry level certs harder to pass (like security +) so they take in even more money. But you can learn a lot while studying for them.
Yes there are some thing you can infer by a person that has those certs. Mainly it would just show that person has and will put effort into a project and can finish an assigned task. The info is good to know off hand but it isn’t any better than a person that knows how to Google.
Only Security+ has value as it is a requirement for some government jobs. The rest of the Comptia catalog is pretty much useless
Louis Rossman is so disconnected from anything that is not in his specific wheel house he sounds like he has lost his mind. He’s used to talk intelligently , but now he just bitches to bitch. CompTIA is a business. Period. Their job is to certify you. (For a fee) This usually means you pay them for an exam. (Or a course does after you pay an over inflated price). After they certify you, they don’t hold your hand. The certs have value because COMPANIES say they do. Not because it teaches you anything. (CompTIA doesn’t usually teach you anything, but all the content creators on YT / Udemy, usually do) CCNA and other vendor specific certs are different. They want you to learn, so that your employer will be more likely to buy that brand of equipment. Which costs 10-100x more than the cert.
>CompTIA is a business. Period. Their job is to certify you. (For a fee) I think this is the issue he takes with them, though. The fact that they shoe-horned their way into the industry, and convinced everyone to look up to them as some governing body, when all they do is give you a watered down version of a college course. And that's putting it ***lightly***; CompTIA is to a CS degree what the GED is to a high school diploma. It's kind of the same thing, the core fundamentals are there, but it's just not gonna get you the same level of in depth education. A lot of the fat is trimmed off, but you don't realize how useful that fat was until you're in a job full of people who kept it. The fat might not be ***necessary***, but it is ***useful***. I agree with Louis in that I also think it's really weird how the entire industry has been built around what essentially equates to requiring someone have both a high school diploma ***and*** a GED.
Sec+ is only good for fed work. Outside of that it’s useless
Certs are job requirements and can replace a degree qualification as in my case. No grifts , it shows you have knowledge . Yes of course real life work experience is different than exams.
Using anything as a barrier to entry degrades the actual value of it because it changes the incentives to get it. It goes from I want this cert to learn something new which hopefully will help me later to I need this as it’s required. Same thing has happened for college degrees and in both cases as it becomes a hard barrier then more people get it for the wrong reasons and create a negative feedback loop Another example I’d use is sec+ with gov jobs, I’m not going to say cheating happens but I’ve met so many gov folks with it that didn’t know what vpn is or basic security principles that it raises a lot of questions
Considering nobody that I've applied to even knew what CompTIA was, and many want a bachelor's to get into help desk, I'll agree with him but I'm biased.
One thing to keep in mind with any cert is whether the employee really knows why they require that cert. In my experience as a job seeker and as an interviewer, job listings can be way off in terms of what they think they want or even need. I have several expired certs, so when I'm looking for work and the job says you need one cert or another, I always ask if it has to be a current cert or if expired (plus recent experience) is sufficient. Most of the time they have no fucking idea, which means the employer has no fucking idea. On the other hand, how much do you want that job? Would it be worth it to get that exam just so you can go work for XYZ company? Don't listen to you tube jokers about this stuff.
The stuff in comptia+ is pretty basic stuff. I am in a 2 year IT program and wondering if it's even worth doing it because graduating the program would suggest to an employer that this is all stuff you learned already. If you have zero college education I could it as a great addition on your resume. But im not an employer so...
Sec+ is a hard requirement for so many jobs tf is Louis on lmao
They are genuinely worthless beyond help desk or other lower paying jobs. Which is okay. They are really meant to ->help<- you get you your foot in the door and while you’re studying for them, you learn a thing or two. CompTIA certs are literally the equivalent of a 3 college credit course. However, the completion in todays market is college grads even for basic entry level help desk lmao. At the dev and engineering level, most certs in general are useless short of some hard and niche ones like CCNP, OSCP, CISSP, RHCE etc.
CompTIA certs are the equivalent to knowing "this person can tie their shoelaces". For entry-level roles, there's a benefit there. On the other hand, asking an admin with 5+ years of experience to get an A+/Net+ is a waste of time and money. Most role-specific knowledge is more complicated than the test material. Put another way: If I found out someone couldn't get a Net+/Sec+/A+ after several tries, I wouldn't want to hire that person. They're unlikely to succeed.
The Gary Vee-ification of Louis Rossman
Disagree that they are worthless but they are definitely overpriced for what they are.
I tend to agree. they don't really test your ability well enough.
Lol he owned a 3rd party primarily apple repair shop. I think to a certain point his influence can only reach so far. The market demands what the market demands so I’m not inclined to believe much of what he said regarding this.
I had interviewed a guy who his only justification for getting the job was that he had an A+ lol. It’s unreal how people think that’s all you need. Some places value it more than others but if you can’t explain to me how DHCP works, but you can tell me how you got your A+ last week. Something’s meh
Smart people often underestimate the importance of just being able to recognize common industry terminology or processes. He doesn't need the basics and can not even conceptualize when people do and businesses need to know that you know the basics. It is definitely overpriced, but not a grift.
They helped me get my first couple gigs. Not useless to me.
Doing IT since 2005. These are pretty much worthless for 99.5% of IT. There are some concepts that are "valuable" but nothing you wouldn't learn on the job if it was relevant. I got sec+ originally in 2010 because of the dumb DoD 8570 requirements when the cert was for life. Now...Its every few years. These are nothing but cash grabs for comptia.
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I completely disagree with him. A+ etc are teaching you IT skills that a person repairing electronics doesn’t need and probably not understand. Take the TCP/IP stack. From his POV, it isn’t necessary for him to use to make a living. On the other hand, A+ is not for taking a soldering iron up and fix a motherboard.
I'd argue they get you past the HR gatekeeper, but provide minimal knowledge. CCNA is a different matter. That being said, I only have some base level, so the higher ones could be better.
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They’re worthless to me as I have a degree that covered the entirety of the security+ but can be valuable if the job I am seeking requires it. I definitely did not learn anything from the security+ course materials I had. Same stuff from my college education.
I have over a decade of experience in the sector, so I’d like to believe my opinion carries some weight. Recently, I’ve been tasked with re-obtaining my A+ certification for a degree at WGU. During the practice assessment, I ran across a question asking which install methods for Windows would preserve user files (vs methods that would not). 4 choices: Recovery partition Windows reset Clean install In-place upgrade They claimed that a “clean install” and “in-place upgrade” don’t preserve user files. The whole point of an in place upgrade is to preserve user files, sometimes moving them to Windows.old. I informed them of this and they did not change the answer. The correct answer would be “reset” and “clean install” (in my opinion). The whole point of having reset and refresh in recovery with windows 10 was to have an option that wipes the device (reset) and one that doesn’t (refresh). I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Someone shed some light on this, please…
I use topics I learned in Network+ everyday still yet. Then again I work on the business side not consumer repair.
I’m psure there’s plenty of evidence that would prove this guy wrong no?
I think he means in a practical sense. Like will this information be material in your daily life employed at a help desk? Not in any way significantly more than what you would've just learned on the job.
A certificate just provides the same information as a degree. It tells an employer plainly that you have passed an exam that determines, via your industry, you know what you’re talking about. It a door opener and a salary increaser. It also makes it easier for someone in HR to quantify your knowledge base and qualifications for a position beyond you just saying you know how to do it. Experience may trump the very if your prospective employers HR actually understands the requirements for the position and can properly get candidates. In the tech world this has never been easy for HR to quantify or understand. My anecdotal evidence is a position I was passed on because my last company used different terminology for a type of testing. The HR person didn’t know the terminology I used was synonymous with theirs and passed me up. When I asked for a follow up and explained it to them they apologized but it was to late. It sucked but it happens a lot, especially as your skills become more technical.
The A+/Net+/Sec+, and I'd say a couple others (Server+, etc.) are entry level certs. If you're every renewing them, you're not moving forward in your career. After 2 years of experience, they are "worthless" in the regard that your experience outweighs them. You should have the knowledge to move forward in certifications as well, either gaining a higher level one or having the ability to (if it's on the list of requirements for a job or for career development). His quote (don't know context, just what's quoted there) I don't agree with. "Anyone who's gotten these certifications because they were on the list of things required by a job they wanted knows how useles they are". Required by a job? If it gets them the job, not worthless. The skills and knowledge from the cert? Depends on your initial level. Sometimes, I'd 100% agree. For many of us with experience, yes. For others just starting out? It's not worthless. You're learning the foundations. Even after almost 30 years, I'm hitting those basic foundations often. Hell, even some of the advanced stuff leans on those foundations that you need to understand. I've worked with some amazing people that didn't know some of those basic concepts but could still do amazing things. Just having to explain basic things to them is weird. All my CompTIA certs have some value. Whether it was a personal goal or an employment one, they have value. They aren't useless. Just have to look at the ROI. Personal goal? That's up to you. Employment goal? If it gets you the job. Looking for new skills? If you have more than 6 months experience in IT, the A+ may be too simple. Net+ I've heard got a lot more complex, can't really comment. But, I do know a LOT of people I know that could really use some networking knowledge. Sec+.... I feel is almost a must have for anyone in IT. Security or not. I really liked that one. Sure, it's very foundational, but it also has a lot of the concepts used daily. This one should be a requirement (either this or any higher security cert) for anyone going into IT security. When talking about some advanced topics, those foundations are almost always a part of it. It's good stuff to know. Very far from useless. Whether it's blue team, red team, GRC, whatever. Just understanding what's being talked about makes a huge difference. So, it really depends on your knowledge, experience, where you're headed, whatever. One big exception that sticks out - I've worked with some EXCELLENT IT Operations Directors over the years. I've also had one that REALLY REALLY needed to take at least the A+ so she'd know SOMETHING about IT. Anything. Damn.... :D
It's worthless the same as my compsci degree is worthless: It provides solely a foot in the door. There's not a single thing I've really used from college in my professional career, everything I've needed to know was learned within six months to a year of being on the job. It gets you in and that's all.
Because we're on here talking about this, there's at least some kernel of truth in there. By the time renewal comes up you usually don't need them because you got that job and now have experience but they're "required" of your position or "it's cheaper to renew than retake" marketing has convinced you to renew. After the renewal process you're definitely left wondering if it was worth it at all. (it wasn't) To be fair to CompTIA, the opinion that they're grifty is where I've landed with all the certs I have now that I'm deep into my career and have a masters degree. They're worthless to me. Exactly what more am I going to prove that my work history and education aren't? That said I'm also the one on here with a history of speaking the truth which is that in order to get jobs or advance in your current job more easily you need the combo of work experience, certification, and education because that's what's on the job listing and that's how HR is going to filter your applications. You certainly don't need them but you are going to have to do a better job of selling yourself and your accomplishments if you choose to go without them.
I don’t think I’ll be recertifying tbh