What Jobs Can You Get With a CCNA?
The CCNA is a great way for you to have a career path without going to college, which is quite expensive.
As such, it might be a good idea for you to take the CCNA exam to get yourself certified so that you could land a pretty good job even without a college degree. But what jobs can you get with a CCNA?
There are plenty of different IT-related jobs you can get with a CCNA certification. The most common job titles include Network Administrator, Systems Administrator, Network Analyst, Network Design Engineer, Infrastructure Engineer, Cloud Engineer, Network Administrator, Cloud Collaboration Engineer, and Telecom Engineer.
Regardless of what the job title may be, you can be sure that you are going to land a network-related IT job when you are CCNA-certified. However, it can also depend on the type of CCNA certification you have and on your experience in the related field.
Hence, you might want to learn more about the jobs you can get with a CCNA certification depending on your experience.
Entry-level jobs (less than a year)
If you are lacking in experience and you have less than a year (or even no experience at all), here are some entry-level jobs you can get if you are a certified CCNA exam passer:
- Junior Network Administrator
- Junior Network Engineer
- Field Engineer
- Service Desk Engineer
You are basically hired to do basic jobs when you are lacking in experience. For example, Junior Network Administrators have to answer to the more senior Network Administrators in the company.
Meanwhile, jobs such as Field Engineer and Service Desk Engineer are good for earning experience in the field so that you will be more qualified to apply for other jobs in the future.
It is usually just basic configuration and troubleshooting when it comes to entry-level jobs for those who have little to no experience right after getting their CCNA certifications.
The good news, however, is that entry-level CCNA jobs can still get you a salary of somewhere between $33,000 to $73,000 a year depending on the company and on the city.
Mid-level jobs (after 2+ years)
After gaining more experience in other related fields, you may be qualified to apply for the mid-level CCNA jobs that you usually see in different companies. Here are some of them:
- System Network Administrator
- Network Engineer
- Network Engineer Associate
- Network Operations Technician
- Cyber Security Specialist
The more experience you have in jobs that are CCNA-related, the bigger the responsibilities you will get if you are looking to apply for a CCNA-related job in a certain company.
But, take note, there are some cases wherein even those who already have more than two years of experience can still get stuck in a position close to that of being entry-level. We will be talking about that later.
Experienced job levels (after 5+ years)
For the more experienced CCNA-certified individuals who have already complied more than five years of experience in fields related to their CCNA specialty, here are the jobs that they usually get hired for:
- Senior Network Engineer
- Senior Network Administrator
Of course, because of their seniority, CCNA-certified individuals with five or more years of experience are given senior jobs that are still related to their field of specialty.
It’s just that they are given more responsibilities and are the ones who are asked to oversee their juniors. Of course, the salary is also much higher and will usually range between $50,000 to $94,000 depending on the company and the city.
Can you get a job with just a CCNA certification?
Frankly speaking, the CCNA will surely be enough to get you a job with or without anything other than the certification on your resume. That is if you actually showed your work ie can prove your understanding via labs.
The reason is that there are some companies that are simply looking for those who are willing to take on entry-level jobs that require people with CCNA certifications.
But just because you are able to land a job with your CCNA certification it doesn’t mean that you are able to stay there for long or that you have a chance to advance your career.
Your CCNA certification should serve as a way for you to have a way to enter the workforce but you shouldn’t always bank on it.
As such, the best thing to do once you have landed a job with your CCNA certification is to supplement your resume with the experience you get from that job. Moreover, you should also add some skills and certifications other than your CCNA by using your downtime.
Doing so will allow you to have a better career path in the future as it will open up more choices for you and may even land you a senior position within the company you are working for or elsewhere.
How to get a CCNA job without experience?
If you are looking to get hired for a CCNA job even though you have no experience in the field, it will be enough that you have that CCNA certification with you because there are a lot of companies that will hire people for entry-level jobs despite their lack of experience.
However, things will be a bit more difficult for you compared to those with experience and other certifications.
As such, if you have no job experience in the CCNA field, it is best for you to supplement your skills and improve your resume by getting other certifications. You probably have a lot of downtimes while you are looking for a CCNA job.
In that case, use whatever downtime you have to improve your chances of getting hired such as taking certifications and classes about a prospective company’s operating system or maybe even learning more about different types of network security.
Experience does indeed give other people the advantage over you but you can bridge the gap with a bit of hard work on your part as you build up your knowledge and skills in the other IT-related fields as well.
