As an IT professional who has transitioned from Level 1 Technical Support in a high volume call center to Network and Desktop Support in a Corporate environment and now, Information Security, I have found that attaining IT certifications has been key to advancing my career. I have 12+ IT Certifications from Microsoft, Apple, CompTIA, VMWare and others. The story on how I came to obtain each certification was the typical one; Research the test, study, review practice questions, take the exam, pass the exam! But I came to be a CompTIA Security Analytics Professional for free without taking an additional exam at all.
On 12/21/17, I received an email from CompTIA telling me to login to my account to download my new certification. Even more intriguing, the subject read “Congratulations on Earning a CompTIA Stackable Certification!” At this point, knowing I hadn’t taken an exam in a few months I thought, spam or not, I’m going to see what this is about. Upon logging in, I was happy that the email was real and I had a new certification ready to be viewed.
I was still a bit confused as to why I was getting this certification for doing nothing. To be honest, I didn’t read the email very closely when it first arrived but I went back after retrieving the certification and it basically explains the situation perfectly. Clicking the “Learn More” button took me to the CompTIA website where I found in-depth information about the newly released CompTIA Stackable Certifications. The purpose of this new offering is stated to be to “…demonstrate that you’ve earned multiple CompTIA certifications and have the knowledge and experience needed to grow your IT career. “ Furthermore, the site visualized the two different tracks, the CompTIA Infrastructure Career Pathway and the CompTIA Cybersecurity Career Pathway, and the certifications within them.
I qualified for the CompTIA Security Analytics Professional certification due to passing both the Security+ CE and Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+) CE exams. An important distinction that I read is that you need to have taken the newer “CE” or Continuing Education exams that require renewal of your certification through continual learning. Good-for-life certification holders can earn these stackable certifications as well but they must re-certify and validate that their skills are up to date.
Now that I fully understand the new CompTIA Stackable Certifications and the career pathways, I appreciate the idea. Not only because I qualified for one of these new certifications with no out of pocket cost or effort. I believe it will encourage even more people to further their computing knowledge and take CompTIA exams. For those of us who had already taken qualifying exams, we get an added benefit that will boost our resumes.