Is Louis Rossman RIGHT about CompTIA? 

I have to take the Comptia trifecta as a part of my degree (WGU) after working in the industry for 5 years. It's amazing how much on there I have never used and how much rote memorization there is for things you will never have to know off the top of your head (data transfer speeds for legacy cable types, etc). I tried to study for the A+ when I was starting out and felt stupid because it was too hard for me because of all the memorization for things I later found out were borderline irrelevant. That said, I still think they have value for people trying to break in to the industry. Realistically, the days of "just get experience, bro, you don't need certs/degrees" are over. It's not the 2000s anymore, the field is getting more competitive, requires more knowledge and there are fewer bottom rungs to move up with. It's sad, but complaining is pointless. The more you can do to set yourself apart from other candidates- especially for entry level- is paramount.

There's a lot of bloat in the CompTIA A+. I am studying it again for work and I procrastinate on it because there's a lot of old technology I simply don't need.

The certifications are a way to weed out people from the application pool. Many people can learn on the job, but many companies aren't willing to train. They want people with 5 to 10 years experience ready to go day 1!! You don't need college you don't need certifications, but if you want certain jobs, you'll need all those things you really don't need😂

i got the A+ in 2007, then much later i got my security+ around 2018, cloud+ in 2019, and the CySa this week. both the cloud and cysa were beta tests that cost me 50 bucks to take. I also got my CISSP last year in 2022, and my CEH this year. Next up is CHFI by the end of the month while i finish my last 3 courses in my masters in cybersecurity at WGU. I plan to get CompTIA's highest stackable cert by the end of the year, the CSIE. I find myself learning a lot from the study materials and labs, so i'm not stopping. I work as a director of cybersecurity at a software dev company and have been in IT and management for over 15 years. I'm hiring for an IT specialist position this august and I love to see compTIA on resumes, along with any other cert.

Comptia is basically gatekeeping people from getting IT jobs, even though I have an associates degree I still can't get a job in IT. but I have to pay money to a private company to get another paper saying I know what I am doing the thing I already studied for. It's non sence

'Non-profit' means 'after all our expenses are paid (including salaries) there is no board of directors that takes dividends'.

For entry level types having certifications is pointless. There is absolutely no reason why companies should not be doing OJT for true entry level jobs.

No certification or degree actually teaches you how to do the job. The job teaches you how to do the job. The certification and degree is just to give you a higher chance of getting an interview so that you can get hired. It's not the 1990s and 2000s anymore where you can just walk into any industry and get hired just because you chose to apply. The disconnect is that people think that the CompTIA trifecta is anything more than breaking into the industry. CompTIA trifecta isn't going to give you a networking job or any mid-level job.

CCNA changed my life.. I had A+ Pentest+ and Sec+ but Cisco cert got me in...

As much as I agree about the pricing of their certs and my disdain for the wording of their exam questions, what genuine alternative is there? CompTIA market themselves as being vendor neutral. I guess it can somewhat hinder their material. I moved into IT 2 years ago as a 30+ year old service desk engineer, with little to no relevant experience. What I did have was my A+ and Network+. Studying for those certs allowed me to converse with my peers and not feel out of my depth. They also gave me the confidence to study for more 'well regarded' certifications. I think it's totally normal to have a love/hate relationship with CompTIA.

Agree, CompTIA will help get a job... the big thing that is missing that I'm sure we both agree on is EXPERIENCE. I have a friend that went through a Master's Degree in Cyber Security. The University was supposed to call me (his boss) to validate that he had a certain amount of experience in each of the domains required and verify his work experience (years). Did I get a phone call? Nope. These education systems are so frustrating not only at entry level, but at higher education levels. We should do a podcast sometime : )

overally expensive, bit slimmy with the exams process, passed all the questions and content they provide, passed all the questions backwards.... failed test?, PEARSON view is the problem imo

Respectfully disagree with your take on this one. If a cert helps you get a job, then by definition it is useful. CompTIA A+ has personally changed my life… in 3 years I’ve gone from $12/hr to $38/hr (without college) all because of the journey that CompTIA started me on. HR does not filter by “labs” completed on a resume, they look for job experience, CERTS, and schooling.

This breaks my heart. Computing is rooted in self discovery, self learning, and community based learning. The idea of being certified in this limited scope is not right. Money grab?? 🤔

I look at certificates like this: they show you’re willing to learn, they show your interest in certain areas of IT, they show you’re familiar with certain concepts, and they help you land job. However, there is no substitute for real-world, hands-on experience.

i got A+ Certified back in 2003 and it opened alot more doors for me than the degree i wasted money on in networking basically learning NT 4.0 anyways, it helped me get into IT. granted 20 years later now im a network engineer but i agree for small devices i think they need a cert for that.

Yeah, Comptia certs will help you get a job but it sucks that some employers still require it but what can you do.

I love technology but i learn very early on working with different IT managers and Techs that CompTIA is just a money dump. Dont get wrong the certs they teach you some valuable things but i think it way over price for notes you just have to memorize. I learned more doing hands on IT work. That being said thats one reasons im getting out of the tech field. The domination of certs and the other is that i worked for a MSP which is borderline modern day slavery.

Unfortunately, I have a love and hate relationship with comptia because some of the stuff is relevant to helpdesk and some it is unnecessary. Comptia doesn't belong in the right repair decision. Based on Louis Rossman video, some of stuff covered in comptia is mobile devices, active directory, networking, mobile devices. I'm not sure how long he took the exam but it does cover some tech related stuff relevant to helpdesk. The A+ is required by some hiring managers. Do you need it? It really depends on the hiring manager and company. I have trained over 1,000 students and some of them got jobs without a cert. It goes back to the resume, project work, LinkedIn, who you know, job recruiters, etc. It's very involved in landing that first job.

They existed in a time where they were the only player. Nowadays, I see no reason to do any of their certs, plenty of cheaper better alternatives exist.

Even though I just have an A+ and in the field, looking at the amount of entry level tech jobs that requires more than just an A+ is a bit alarming.

I don't understand? My A+ cost about 1500 bucks for the whole course... This is labs questions, chapters & chapters of knowledge. So you don't really use active directory, networking, domains, troubleshooting?

The issue with comptia, is its not developing itself. I dont think it can. The reason for that is that its information has to be so general that a google search for whatever you may encounter in the real world would be more benificial. If they were to get specific, the individual studying should probably just do the exam for that brand. (cisco,Juniper ect.h)That being said, having a cert is better than , no cert.

If I have to consider a part time job or a small loan to pay for testing, thats too much to pay

A note to anyone who's joining a cloud bootcamp:- These institutions keep lying out of their a**** to keep selling their courses. I'll just say it as it is the IT industry has 4 domains development, testing, networking and cybersecurity unless you've intermediate to professional knowledge in it you'll never get a sniff at your first cloud job. Here i said it now stop crying and get your full stack knowledge or Devops (Glorified Testing) or CCNA or Security specific specialization and then start learning your cloud. The cloud is just a big data centre with regular IT roles IntelliPrats can leave now.

I got very frustrated with the CompTIA material, the way they teach and troubleshoot is just wrong, it made me want to write my own material.

6:00 Agreed with you, only the person themself can say whether the cert changed their life.

I know a guy who didn't know anything about IT and was taking apart a power supply until one of us other students who was farther along in the CompTIA A+ book helped him to stop and not die. We studied for some months and I passed the exams.I just repaired a corrupted Windows OS installation using bootrec commands; learned that in my CompTIA certification. The certification is necessary to help train entry level technicians in a methodical and verifiable way. There are not many companies willing to teach or do OJT anymore, so we are left with certs. to overcome the lack of experience. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

CompTIA Exam costs $335. Way too much. S/B about $125-150

Changing your life through CompTIA can mean anything: - You met the love of your life at the exam center, the person you married and have kids with - You were booked on a flight for your vacation but the exam date was on that day so you rebooked for a later flight. The flight you were booked on originally crashed into the ocean, killing all aboard or - You landed your dream job by getting CompTIA certified

Agree that CompTIA is a grift. $300 for a cert that is completely full of irrelevant information. I have worked in IT about 10 years and never got the A+ now I have gotten the Security + but God was it a pain in the ass. But do I think it was worth $300 per attempt? No. I totally agree with the fact that there is so much info that you got to memorize that is completely not needed in the real world. And that is why I could never wrap my head around it and study for it. Because I know I don't need any of this.

Listen, as someone who is breaking into this space & currently studying for Network+ with a goal of getting into cloud it seems like 45% of the material seems absolutely pointless to know. I have studied material from Mike Meyers, Professor Messer & several books. I just don't get why I have to study shit that was around 15 years ago. Lol

3:58 CompTIA certification costs deter so many newbies. Theirs cost $350. Cloud Fundamentals certs cost $100. You can get AZ-900 and AZ-104 and save around $90. That's a problem that must be addressed.

I don't think it's a surprise that companies that rely on certification revenue push for people to get certified. That said, no one's outside your house with a gun keeping you from trading out a hard drive. Calm the hell down, fix your own device. No one cares.

So with all this being said, is there a better cert to get or is CompTia still the gold standard?

Great Content brother

As a person who learned IT on his own through passion and self interest. The comptia a+ is absolutely ridiculous and stupid. The questions are all over the place and most of them aren't even helpful for real IT situations. These questions are ancients and the knowledge from the comptia a+ makes you look like a noob honestly. If that's all that's required to get into IT that hugely alarming. I would never trust someone with only an a+ unless they have a portfolio showing they have interest elsewhere in technology. it's so stupid most jobs wont even read your resume if you don't have this stupid certification. Almost all job posting require it and I got it just to get through the stupid filtering.

CompTIA Certifications teach you less than nothing because the time that you spent memorizing pointless things could’ve been spent getting experience with actual equipment. They would have you believe that a dragon drop simulator is somehow preparing you for anything that you will ever do, outside of playing video games.

Never took the A+. When I got into IT it wasn't required and by the time it started popping up in job requirements, I just lied about having it on my resume to bypass any filters. I had enough basic knowledge through experience to carry me through any entry level/mid level technical interview. Also, the amount of people I've seen go into Help Desk jobs without any IT background tells me there is no shortage of jobs looking for a warm body to play ticket jockey and learn along the way. Especially given the high turnover in that department. But maybe that's just the area I live in.

I got my a+ beginning of this year. Im gonna skip the net+ and get ccna, maybe sec+, and ccnp or ccie

So how do you feel about EC-Council?

Yup if you want to be an administrator on any government system you have to have Sec+.

A+ was absolutely useless to me. Its largely a meme. Security+ has been life changing for me, as i had a prior secret clearance and it landed me an IT contracting job. That said, CompTIA needs to clean up and slim down their material. Much of it is knowledge you'll look up or never use most of the time.

He was absolutely right

Agreed, CompTIA sucks, but the Sec+ helped me get into PenTesting with a degree in networking and systems. How much of the Sec+ did I already know and how much was useless? Quite a lot. Its mostly too high level and most their examination questions are "common sense" answering.

I'm about take A+ and Data+ and I feel it's pointless. I'm ground zero coming in and those materials were lackluster.

I payed 8k for a failed attempt at programming less than a year ago! I'd say I got a steel of a deal...

I'm a Clinical Engineer, which is a field with a heavy IT component that's why I'm here... The Right To Repair is almost like something that would go among the Top 5 Constitutional Amendments to me.

I'm a hiring manager that has work in commercial and government contracting spaces. In the commercial market I only regarded most CompTIA Certs (except CASP) as entry-level and shows me the candidate may have some high-level understanding but doesn't speak to their ability to execute, however for entry-level roles its a sign of some level of drive. In the government contracting space the SEC+ is the easiest and quickest cert to achieve the DoD 8140/8570 requirements. There are other qualifying cert but most people get that one.

It's kinda nuts that the COMPTIA A+ is more money than a CCNA. The people trying to get an entry level job are the ones that *really* need money, not the other way around. You can still get a job as a software developer that potentially pays more than both of those certs with no credentials other than your portfolio. Anyways, there's a lot wrong with the world. This is just a drop in the bucket.

I have an A+ certification and I understand the certification is to help you get a job but the test is mostly multiple choice with very little performance based. I think the tests should be more performance based which would be more beneficial. Most jobs that I see listed want working knowledge of active directory but the test barely covered it. Overall, I think there is too much useless memorization of things that will never be needed in the real world.

for me it was 70-410 (5 takes), then I completed the other two exam 70-411 (2 takes) and 70-412(3 takes) for MCSA WIndows Server 2012 R2.

Where could I go and learn to get into the industry i have no knowledge or experience in IT industry

These CompTIA certs are way too expensive. There is no reason for them to be almost $300. I’ve hit a point where I can’t progress in my career at 27 cause I can’t afford to drop $300 on test that I may not pass, but everyone requires. Even if I pass it, it does not guarantee me a better job cause i still have to make it through an interview. I’m terrible at speaking to people, so I struggle with interviews, and not amount of certs is going to fix that. I just want to sit a dark room in the back of a corporate office messing with PC…

Active directory used to be part of CompTIA Server+

Not sure how much value I can add here but here it goes. If you do not want to get a big loan or have to work full time then going the university route is not viable. CompTIA at least gives you some basic knowledge to get started and a cert that will help you find a job. (I also have a big issue with their prices and I never would have imagined that they are a no profit lol with the prices for stuff) My other issue is ofcourse that you need to memorize a lot of things that are not needed at all. Still is there any other Certificate that is as good as this to get you started? I think this is still a much better way then to study at a college which costs a lot more.

What I find crazy is that if you get the trifecta, A+, Net+, and Sec+, you can still only really get into a helpdesk job. Recently saw a reddit post of someone who got all 3 and had side IT projects they were doing for fun, get a job as helpdesk for their ISP for $17/hr. Like what? Those qualifications should allow you to get jobs above helpdesk.

Working as a Systems Engineer, been in IT for 7 years. only in the last couple of months I decided to get a cert. I agree with Louis

I took the ITF back in 2022 and was wanting to take A+ but decided not to after I learned some bad things about them from tweeting at Linus.

Ive been debating about WGU for degree, the ONLY reason i might choose it, is because of cost, paying for subscription access vs per credit. If choose wgu, i will choose business, because at least im paying for actual classes, not comptia that is borderline useful.

He's correct, Most of it is about how well you take such tests.

I just wonder if having 1 year experience in IT, plus 1 year experience as Information Security Analyst, plus Sec+ and Net+ would help me get a next job that would pay me over 80K.

a CompTIA is the next step after a CLAIT course... needed before doing / re-doing a CCNA ...or MTA... - I look forward to doing a refresher CompTIA again, I might be of Tutor standard this time... wish I could re-live the buzz of cracking it with subnetting....

I believe in studying for whatever cert, understanding the material, but not taking the exam. That being said, here are my certs: CompTIA Network+, Security+; GIAC GCED; Cisco CCNA R&S, CCNP R&S (now Enterprise); VMWare VCADCV.

I’m all for vendor neutral certs for people who want to upskill from other industries, not everyone is trying to get into IT. ComptTIA may not be the best manifestation of this. If they fixed their act and reduced prices, it could help elevate the IT indistry

I have decided to skip the A+ exam. It will do absolutely nothing for me in my current path and role. I am currently studying SC-900 and plan to do Net+ Sec+ linux+ pen+ CySA+ cloud+ and server+. My main focus tho is pointing towards Microsoft currently as my current role of a technology operations support technician focusing towards security, my company is moving towards all Microsoft applications and software. Comptia has gotten ridiculously expensive for what they offer. I feel a Microsoft and Google certifications are the way to go right now.

Real world hands on experience > Any certs, theories, books, simulations, virtualization

I hope these certs help me to land a job, they are dumb as hell, and it seems that no professional writer is hired to forge the horrible questions proposed. I do find funny that they are industry relevant (I hope, so I get a job).

Do you watch Eli The Computer Guy he's the truth brother.

Wait a minute. 6 months ago your video “Start your IT career with CompTIA” you were singing their praises. What gives?

I've learned so much from just building PC's, updating my devices like my Steam Deck, and RU-vid having tons of info on what I needed for situations. I've taken a few mock exams as I am prepping myself to get A+, and a lot of the questions just seem to come out of everywhere. Some are for when you're out on the field installing cable (I'm talking stuff like Comcast or Spectrum), some are about the various cables and what to replace, some are about the various chips on motherboards (sometimes from the dinosaur age), and it just feels like I am a squirrel going from one set of info to another from a completely different area of the various fields. It's crazy! Another problem I am facing is the amount of money to get into IT. One is the price of exams, and the other is the price of tinkering. I love building PC's, but putting together a PC still to this day at least costs half or more of a paycheck to build the barebones for a low-end PC. I want to put together a server for updating other PCs for windows, but at this point I am wondering if sacrificing my laptop would be more cost effective than trying to fill up my spare PC case. And even with all of that, I still have to fork over some cash each time I want to do the actual exam. The driver's test exam is $15, the CompTIA A+ is $246*2 to take the full exam (yes, you have to pay $492 to get full A+, and that's only if you pass the first time regardless of the retake vouchers). Granted it is cheaper than going to college, but if you don't have a well paying job (which is what this is supposed to help us get, go figure) you will be SOL until you can save up. I want to get into the field, but at this rate it's gonna be a bit.

I agree

I've been working in help desk for about 3 years now and don't have any certs. I do have two degrees though, but still feel very strongly that those entry CompTIA certs are laughably overpriced. It's a complete money racket for them and they're well aware of it. I'm honestly considering leaving the field because the pathway to advancement and higher income is so damn confusing it's exhausting. Plus, most of the tech jobs here in my area are primarily developer stuff as well. Anything in IT here is either some insane requirement positions or a $17 hour help desk position. Sorry but I'm not 20 years old anymore so that doesn't pay the bills folks!

There is so little lab in Comptia. 😂

Big Huge Agreement ... I.T. would be a lot funner without the unnecessary barriers and the unnecessary jerks. So ... any ideas for getting into IT via routes other than A+?? It'd be great to know about I.T. courses that actually show the tech how to do it.

i mean i wont disagree the tests are outrageous luckily my local CC offers them through a work force grant that i qualify for so Im essentially getting mine for free as long as i pass my exams. I just got A+ certified and im currently working on Project+ until the next Net+ course at the end of this month. If i wasnt getting the courses for free theres no way id be able to afford them

Well said. In today's day and age, CompTia> master's degrees. It's hard to be looking for a job and pay $700 - $900 for a test that does no good. I don't have the money for that.

Second

it's funny to stumble across your video bc I just discovered him in a video related to Tesla spying not their customers