Introduction & Background
Let me preface this post by explaining that I study cybersecurity in college, and I have not taken any major certification examinations due to the realization that anything I take many years prior to getting “into the industry” would be wasteful due to the fact that they would be expired by the time I am applying to jobs. With this in mind, I always enjoy testing my knowledge and seeing how well I am retaining the information that I am studying, but I don’t want to work myself into a situation where I have to worry about keeping my certifications current, in addition to worrying about my studies, my current professional career, and whatever other ventures I may have going on at any time.
That being said, I remember coming across the CompTIA IT Fundamentals+ (ITF+) certification when it was first launched a few years ago. ITF+ has no expiration date, and while it is not exactly respected as a credential in terms of employment, I always liked the idea of it, on paper, the ITF+ exam tests to see if the tester is grasping some of the key concepts of IT on a broad enough level to warrant them delving deeper into it. CompTIA described the credential as a pre-career exam, meaning it was designed for people who are looking into jumping into Information Technology from somewhere else, professionally.
CompTIA is retiring the ITF+ and replacing it with the Tech+ certification, which for all intents and purposes is the same thing as the ITF+, it just focuses a little more on troubleshooting and basic IT knowledge than being an overview of overall digital literacy. While this has not made the Tech+ the new A+ by any means, it does sound like a step in the right direction by CompTIA to create something below the A+ level, that still covers some practical knowledge.
With CompTIA retiring ITF+ and having already rolled out Tech+, at the time that I took both of these exams, I was able to try out both and give my opinion on them for this blog post.
Testing
The testing process was standard for CompTIA. Scheduling the exams through PearsonVUE and arriving to a testing site (with the option to take it remotely), emptying my pockets and eventually finding myself at the testing station.
While the Tech+ uses the new version of the same curriculum that ITF+ used, I found Tech+ to be much harder, yet I somehow scored significantly higher on Tech+.
To prepare for both of these exams, I took practice tests online and via mobile phone applications, and that was about it. I put in probably 1-2 hours of brushing up on my knowledge before ITF+, which I took first, and then over the 2 or so days between taking ITF+ and Tech+ (I forget exactly how much time I had between the two), I probably put in another 2-3 hours of practice tests, because I wasn’t sure how much harder Tech+ would be.
Conclusion
I was able to pass both ITF+ and Tech+ with (aside from my few hours of rehashing on knowledge prior to the tests) my previous knowledge I had gained during my students for my associate’s degree in cyber security, which I had just finished a few weeks prior.
In conclusion, I do not believe that the CompTIA ITF+, nor the Tech+ will land anyone a job, but for anyone with the free time, and the money sitting around, who would like to test themselves and see if the knowledge they think that they have, is working for their brain as it should be, it is a nice knowledge check, and certainly a confidence boost.
For anyone who is not already deep into their studies and wants to use it as a way to check if your brain can comprehend these IT concepts, it could also be a great way to gauge yourself for that. I have some older friends that are interested in jumping to IT and cyber security, and I am recommending them to consider taking the Tech+ (as the ITF+ will be discontinued very soon at the time of writing this, if it has not already been).
TL;DR
Neither the CompTIA ITF+ nor the Tech+ are going to land you a job (as far as I know), but they both serve as a nice validation along the path of studying Information Technology.
