If people who study Cisco have less work experience, they are more than likely to ask, "With the certificate, how much can I get paid? What's the salary of CCNA or CCNP? What about CCIE?"
Why do people with less work experience have these questions and people with more work experience have no such questions? The reason is very simple. Among so many trainees, half of them are on the job and study Cisco in their spare time. They have work experience and apply for CCNA, CCNP and CCIE just for their job demand and personal development. They are very clear about the issue of certificates. So they have no such questions.
I have talked about the salary of CCNA in the course page of CCNA. To sum up: beginners who learn CCNA should not focus on the salary. Passing CCNA test is a basic prerequisite for engaging in the network industry. If you do not learn it, you even cannot get started. So forget the salary and study hard. It will pay off sooner or later.
CCNP is an intermediate and advanced certification of Cisco. Reaching the level of CCNP means that you have the ability to establish and maintain medium-scale and large-scale networks.
However, the most critical question is whether you have reached the level of CCNP. What I'm talking about here is whether your professional ability has been at the level of CCNP, not whether you have passed the CCNP certification. It should be clear to all of us that we don't measure a person's technical level just by certificates. The technical gap among students who have obtained the CCNP certification can be very huge.
I would like to give three examples.
Students of Group A: They have more than 5 years working experience and more than 3 years working experience in network project. Their main purpose of participating in CCNP training is to obtain the CCNP certificate (usually required by the company; expense reimbursed). Students of Group A account for about 30% of SPOTO's CCNP students and the average monthly income of them before engaging in the training is more than 2000 US dollars.
Students of Group B: They have 1-3 years working experience and engage in network management or provide technical support in their jobs. They may have implementation experience of small-size network. (The training expenses usually can be reimbursed and after obtaining the certificate, their salary can be increased by tens of dollars generally.) The average monthly salary of these students is around 3000 US dollars. The purpose of participating in the CCNP training is to improve their skills, meet the needs of their work, and increase their opportunities for promotion or a salary increase. The second purpose is to move to a more professional company after obtaining the CCNP certificate.
Students of Group C: They have less than 1 year related working experience. (College students, recent graduates as well as those who have changed their careers and have no network working experience are included.) These students accounts for the left 40% of the total and they are the group who concern most about the salary of CCNP. If they obtain the CCNP certificate, they will have more opportunities to get professional and promising jobs under the same conditions than those who have not obtained it. Under the same condition of having obtained the CCNP certificate, their initial salary is related to their actual skills, educational background and personal comprehensive ability. Average students can find a job with a monthly pay of 2000 to 3000 US dollars.
In fact, for average students, the difference between a CCNA certificate and a CCNP certificate is not very great. Because a professional job pays more attention to experience and practical ability and certificates can't completely represent your ability, let alone your experience. But for future development, the differences will gradually become obvious with equal efforts. So there is no doubt that we need to be more far-sighted and diligent
