Cisco Certified Support Technician (CCST) - Networking Online Training

Cisco certifications are excellent ways of benchmarking your professional knowledge and experience to an industry standard. Employers trust that a Cisco certification represents a certain degree of readiness to take on the responsibilities of various IT positions, and having one helps your career prospects significantly. The CCST Networking in particular is a good way of demonstrating you have a wide but shallow familiarity with the basics of modern networking environments.

The average salary for a Cisco CCST technician varies a lot based on location and specific job responsibilities, but according to research published by CBT Nuggets, the average salary for a desktop support technician is $47,000/year. CBT Nuggets published many reports on the average salaries for different IT positions, which you can find by Googling "Honest Salaries" – they include charts that break down low and high averages by major metro areas.

If you're trying to land a job as a Cisco network technician, you're going to want to start finding ways to get experience getting your hands dirty with actual network equipment. Courses like this one that help you prepare for the CCST have hands-on labs that give you practical experience with applying configurations and troubleshooting. That's key because employers want to know they can trust you with hands-on responsibilities on your first day.

A Cisco network tech's daily tasks involve configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting network infrastructure – sometimes that's done remotely and other times it requires physically interacting with the hardware. A network tech sets up and monitors network devices, troubleshoots connectivity issues, implements security measures and optimizes network performance. A network tech is very often a junior member of a team, following directions on addressing user concerns, deploying updates and documenting network configurations.

For brand new IT professionals just getting started, yes, the CCST Networking is worth it. On the other hand, if you've already got a networking job or you're looking to level up your experience, you might want to look at the CCNA instead, since the CCST Networking is specifically an entry-level cert. At the same time, earning it can make the CCNA a lot easier if that's already on your horizon.