My parents say that it is unnecessary to complete CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE certifications because they have no scope, but I want to try for these exams. I want to know the job opportunities and the salaries or salary ranges associated with them so that I may show them that Cisco is a fast-growing, major sector of IT. How can I prove that earning these certifications will help further my career?
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There is definitely scope for these certifications, but with any job opportunity, the scope is affected greatly by the amount of experience that goes along with the certification.
The job opportunity scale from a CCNA to a CCIE ultimately maps to the size of the networks you would be working with. A CCNA technician would typically be some type of network administrator with a possible salary around 50K (in the U.S.). With the CCNP and CCIE, you are looking more at a career as a network engineer or architect whose salary can range from 70-100K depending on the responsibilities and size of the network (and, of course, aforementioned experience).
I hope this helps sway their judgment.
This was first published in February 2009