Self-Study IT Certification Options

In my fifteen-plus years working in and around the IT certification patch, I am constantly asked by aspiring IT professionals how they can maximize the returns on the time, effort and money they put in seeking to uplift their careers and paychecks.

Many of them then go on to say that they want to stretch their dollars as far as possible, and then ask how can I help them spend the least yet still get big results. The shortest possible answer to saving money on IT cert prep is “Do it yourself” (the abbreviation for this is DIY, and gives this article part of its title).

A longer answer involves explaining what DIY really means when it comes to preparing for and passing IT certification exams and earning IT certifications. There’s an old engineering maxim that goes something like this “fast good cheap: pick any two and you can figure out how to make it work; nobody gets all three!” Since so many people want cheap to be at or near the top of the qualities their approach to IT certification should take, that means they must then decide whether they want their approach to be cheap and good, or cheap and fast.

Because certification exams cost money—$125 per try and up these days (the CCIE lab exams currently cost $1,500 per attempt, at the higher end of this spectrum)—I don’t think cheap and fast is a viable option for most certification candidates. That’s why I’m not going to dwell any further on that possible (but not very practical) approach.

This article addresses the “cheap and good” path to DIY IT certification preparation, and seeks to tell you how to get the best results for the least expense. Please note that “least expense” never means “free” unless you happen to work for an employer who will cover IT certification costs on your behalf.

Ingredients for IT Certification Self-Study

There are lots of different kinds of learning materials available to IT certification candidates.   I’d like to review them in general and in brief before zeroing in on the ones that are most likely to help you earn your credentials for the lowest overall outlay. I’ll also walk you through four common IT certification scenarios and total up the costs for each one in a series of short tables of information.

While there may be some things I miss in the following list of possible cert prep tools, I’m pretty sure I’m not overlooking anything important. That said, I hope you’ll post some comments with ideas or suggestions if you think of anything that’s not mentioned here that could be helpful to aspiring IT certification candidates, or if you have comments or ideas about best of breed options in these various categories

Ed Tittel is a 30-year-plus veteran of the computing industry, who’s worked as a programmer, a technical manager, a classroom instructor, a network consultant and a technical evangelist for companies that include Burroughs, Schlumberger, Novell, IBM/Tivoli and NetQoS. He has written and blogged for numerous publications, including Tom's Hardware, and is the author of over 140 computing books with a special emphasis on information security, Web markup languages and development tools, and Windows operating systems.