6 Tips for Maintenance During Your Certification Journey

So you’re certified. That’s great! But once you have that certification, you need to maintain it. Luckily, you have options to keep it current, level up, or branch out into other technical areas. I like to look at certification as a journey. While you might stop and take in the scenes along the way, inevitably you must keep your vehicle in working order. And we all know that requires regular maintenance—gas, oil, tune ups, and so forth. The same is true with certification.  

I had a great opportunity to think more about certification while I was at Cisco Live Amsterdam, nerding out with our users, customers, and partners, especially in the Cisco U. theater at the Learning & Certifications booth. 

Within these packed sessions, I heard some excellent questions. I was thrilled to hear most of them were about the desire to get certified and really encouraged when I noticed our testing center (or centre as we called in Amsterdam) nearly hit its capacity. People were testing and passing! But what happens after that? How do you keep your certified self tuned up?  

#1: Attend Cisco Live technical sessions 

Cisco Live offers one great way to stay in tune—technical sessions. Every technical session (such as labs, tectorials, and DevNet workshops) are eligible for Continuing Education (CE) credits. Those credits add up toward recertification. 

While you may not get all the credits you need from attending Cisco Live alone, you have flexible options regarding Cisco’s recertification policy. 

#2: Mix CE credits and testing to recertify 

Some people like to recertify using tests, just as they’ve always done. That is still a valid option. In fact, some of the people that tested at Cisco Live were already certified. When one of the engineers working in the Network Operations Center for the conference passed his SECCOR, his CCNP Enterprise recertified. 

You don’t have to either test or earn CE credits. Recertification flexibility means you have the option to do both if you’d like. That is, perhaps you earned some CE credits from attending several Cisco Lives but not enough to get to the 80 credits you need to recertify a Professional-level certification. You can supplement the credits with an exam. For example, if you earned 40 credits from Cisco Lives, you can take a concentration exam, such as ENARSI or DEVOPS, and recertify all your Professional-level certifications. 

#3: Stay on course through learning 

Cisco Live isn’t the only learning opportunity that may come your way in the three years you have to recertify. You might have the opportunity to take courses either with an in-person instructor or online (maybe through Cisco U.). Many of those courses are also eligible for CE credit. 

After Cisco U. becomes generally available this spring, some of the initial learning paths will be eligible for CE credit. You can sign up now for early access a get a sneak preview of how digital learning is evolving in Cisco U. 

#4: Try your hand at writing exam items 

While learning new skills to stay sharp is important—the reason we created the Continuing Education program, some people want to give back in other ways. The exam team is always looking for those certified individuals who can write excellent exam questions. Some of the people taking those exams at Cisco Live commented that they could have written a better question. Well do it! Apply to be an item writer, and help us make our exams even better while earning CE credit towards your own recertification. 

#5: Use the CE portal, and stay tuned for updates 

In addition to the recertification flexibility, we want to make sure the recertification process is as easy to take advantage of as possible. Today, all Continuing Education activities (like attending Cisco Live, writing items, and taking training) require you to submit for credit in the CE portal. We’re working to streamline this process so that in the future, we’ll be able to automatically award credits when you complete certain activities, without you needing to submit anything. Stay tuned for more on that as we continue to evolve and enhance the program. 

#6: Keep your certification active 

Finally, and most importantly, do not let your certification lapse! One thing you cannot recertify is an inactive cert. If you let a certification lapse, the only way to reactivate is to take and pass that certification exam all over again. So make sure you keep your certification active! 

Keeping your certification in tune takes regular maintenance. So keep learning, and stay certified! 

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