lizziem

Hi all
I'm the husband of this member.
I have a question regarding IT certification.
I'm moving to Canada this year and at present working in IT support in the UK. I have been previously informed that my IT certification will be recognised in Canada but thought I would ask on this site to see if anyone could confirm this or knows otherwise.
The certs I have at present are:
CompTIA Network +
CompTIA Server +
CompTIA A +
MCP 70-210
HND Computing Support (2 years college course)

I would be grateful if anyone could supply any information on this.

Thanks

onepixel

Those are good certs to have. The main one they like here is the ITIL cert. I work in an I.S dept for the government. I can tell you that having all the certs does not mean you are the best person for the job. A huge part of being hired in I.S is your personality, obviously you need to know what you are doing but you have to be "the right fit" I am a female and work with mostly men but I fit in well because I have a very quick british sense of humour

pdarwin

The CompTIA exams and the Microsoft one (MCP) are universal and work anywhere. The HND you probably need to get it officially recognized by some Canadian authority for it to have any value.
You can continue taking the certification exams through Prometric here in Canada the same as you did back home.

dgagitw

It's not my observation that people's educational background is really taken into consideration for most IT jobs in Canada. The certificates are good and will help but the HND will most likely be ignored anyway.

Steve_

CompTIA is known in Canada, no-one has a clue what an HND is and 70-210 isn't worth anything, no-one uses Windows 2000 anymore.

The Cisco ones seem to be the most popular, imx. CCNA, CCNE.

ITIL as well but there are various Canadian ones I try studiously to ignore because I personally think they're designed to create a closed shop, CIPS is one I've seen mentioned a lot.

However I'd say the most important thing is that the qualifications are up-to-date and it depends more on experience.

From a practical standpoint IT in Canada is different because the law is different, you do need a working knowledge of things like the Privacy Act and Access to Information Act. Also copyright law in Canada is a bit weird, so the licensing agreements for software are equally weird.

dbd33

I don't recognize this picture of the IT industry in Canada, but then I'm typing on a client's Windows 2000 machine.

Steve_

Really? I can't remember the last time I saw Windows 2000 on a client machine, years ago.

dbd33

What do companies use instead?

Steve_

XP/2003 or Windows 7 and 2008 R2 typically when it comes to Windows. A mix thereof. Occasionally Vista but Windows 2008 died pretty fast.

XP was basically a finished version of Windows 2000, so it went out the window pretty quickly after XP came out (at least imx). It was popular on servers for awhile but the only reason I ever heard for using Windows 2000 on clients was because it was easier to fiddle the licensing.

IIRC, Windows 2000 came out in February 2000 and Windows XP came out in October 2001 so it never really had a chance to get going on clients.

I have an early build of Windows 2000 lying around somewhere, build 1675 I think, it looks exactly the same as Windows 2000 but the log on box and screensaver say "Windows NT 5.0 Workstation". Being a nerd I used to copy them onto RTM versions to confuse people.

Windows 7 is actually Windows NT 6.1

Chookie

Ok just asked Mr Chookie and he says that the only one that might not be recognised is the HND - they might "allow" it, but he can't guarantee it. The rest will be OK though.

lizziem

Thanks to everyone for your quick and helpful replies.

delsol79

Haha tell your client that machine is hack waiting to happen.

I sometimes see Windows 2000 servers still but usually they are running some old software they don't or can't port or basically the server is so ingrained in their infrastructure that they don't have a clue what will stop working if you pull it

britsnake

Where I work there are a number of NT4 and Windows 2000 Servers. We have a number of Windows 2000 Workstations and only recently retired our last Windows 95 Workstation.

This year we are finally updating our servers and desktops (They are pretty much on their last leg).

We are going to have to run many of these older machines virtually as much of the software on them will not run otherwise.

I look forward to working with up to date technology again.