Most Bang for Your IT Certification Bucks

Techniques to help you stretch your money as far as it can go along the path to IT certification success.

Take a look at any IT certification you might care to pursue these days, be it from CompTIA, Microsoft, Cisco, or anybody else, and you’ll find yourself putting a budget together that runs at least several hundred dollars to prepare for and pass the related exam—assuming you pass on the first try. When it comes to shelling out the cash necessary to complete this process, it’s important to spend your money as carefully and effectively as possible.

Each of the headings that follow describes a principle you should seek to adopt, where the paragraphs that follow explain how you might use this admonition to your best advantage.

But first, let me use a very popular Microsoft Certification exam as a stalking horse, the MCTS: Windows 7, Configuration, which requires taking and passing MS Exam 70-680. I’ll walk through the budgeting process, taking two paths to certification pursuit. Path 1 is a “do-it-yourself” or self-study path; Path 2 is a “take a class” path and includes an instructor led class:

Path 1: DIY		Path 2: Take a class
Exam 70-680	$150.00	Exam 70-680	$150.00
70-680 Exam Cram	$29.78	70-680 Exam Cram	$29.78
70-680 Study Guide	$35.59	70-680 Study Guide	$35.59
70-680 Practice Test	$99	70-680 Practice Test	$99
70-680 Resources	Free	70-680 Resources	Free
		Instructor-led class	$1,350
TOTAL	$314.37		$1,664.37*

* See the last page entitled “Other (Hidden) Class Benefits” that may change this number for you.

On the DIY side of the budget, the costs are a relatively modest $315 or thereabouts. Costs that include instructor led training could easily top $3,000 (based on 5-day classes at leading training companies such as Global Knowledge or Executrain). In the sections that follow I’ll explains ways that you can save 10 percent or more on these costs.

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.