Obtaining a CCT without taking the class

[tbosletj]

This may be a stupid question, I was just wondering if there was a way to take the CCT exam without paying all the money for the classes. I am an ACMT and have worked for Apple for over 5 years and I am very proficient in Mac OS and iOS software. Or, if possible, would a company pay for a CCT and hire you into a job without the certification as long as it's obtained later?

Thanks!

[scottb]

I've likely been using Macs longer than you've been alive, and I learned a lot in the CCT class. Maybe that just shows what a dolt I am, but I think it's a great experience...
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance". Always loved that quote.

Not trying to be snarky, but there's no shortcuts. I'd tell a potential employer your desires to get certification(s) which I would think should make you look good in their eyes.

Also, tell said company that there are "Training Passes" that allow for many certs and bodies to take them for a calendar year. Well worth the money...

Good luck.

[iJake]

All of JAMF's exams are practical and require the environments set up for the class to take so even if they wanted to allow you to just take the exam, which they don't, it would not be practical.

[Taylor_Armstron]

I hear where you're coming from though - I know from MY end it would help if JAMF changed the language used to describe the course. My employers have balked a little bit about sending me for a "technician" level class, instead of sending me to the "admin" level. With 20 years of experience in the Mac arena, I had the same initial reaction.

[djdavetrouble]

I tried to go down this road, had been working as a casper admin for 2 years with no certs. Not only can you not just take the test, but you can't jump ahead on the path. The education is a revenue center for JAMF, your best bet is to get your company to get the training pass and cram as many as you can into a year. Just the way it is.

[scottb]

FWIW, every single person in the class learned something new, including the JAMF instructor. Sometimes it's hard to have to do something that feels like it's not at "our level", but in the end, you get a rad shirt that you just can't put a price on - ok, well maybe it's a rad shirt that costs $2500 ;)
And yes, as was said, you have to start with CCT and go up. We got our pass when the change was made and could not get the CCA without the CCT first. As it turned out, based on the team's works schedule and being in LA, I kinda got hosed as I had no more opportunities for the CCA+
My coworker in NY got four certs in about four months as he had all the classes there.

[millersc]

I agree with @scottb , location is my biggest hang up in K-12. If I was in CHI, NY or other training city, getting PASS wouldn't be an issue. But since we can't get travel taken care of, we're locked out of certifications.

[tbosletj]

I appreciate all of your feedback! Glad to hear the classes are worth it and not just something that's going over basic Mac and iOS software. Will definitely take the advice to see if a company would pay for it. Thanks again!

[cwaldrip]

Like @djdavetrouble said, the training and certification is a revenue stream for JAMF. And a big one I'll wager.

You could try and register for the class and only show up on the last day and see if the instructor would let you take the test - not sure what the JAMF policy is, but I'd laugh if they let you. Think of it as a $2500 certification test, with a free four-day class. They're not going to discount the class or the test. Your best bet would be to get the training pass. Four classes and it's paid for itself. That's a deal if you've got a department of people looking to get trained and certified.

[blackholemac]

I'm going to chime in on this one. While I have not taken the CCT class (I got my CCA back when it was the first level class), I have learned important items in EVERY SINGLE JAMF class I have taken. I will say that while taking a technician level class may sound bad, as an admin, one of the major roles I have is to serve our technicians so they can do their jobs. Seeing their jobs rolled out in front of you and how they can be done using Casper was very important to me. It helped me to write policies, profiles, MCX and build images in such a way to help them get their job done right.

It was helpful to compare notes as well with the other attendees. My CCA class was a mix of Mac newbies and long time Mac admins and I was able to pick brains of all of them. What is best about the classes is that they teach the theoretical building blocks and how to master them and how to customize them to a random environment. Sometimes I have found it good to not necessarily have tunnel vision on my own environment to understand why it is JAMF has built the product the way they have.

Anyway, having attended three JAMF classes, I can say you will learn a lot! I took my CCA in 2012. At that point I had been a Mac admin for 10 years for what it's worth.

[iMatthewCM]

And then just to answer the question directly, gotta take the course to take the exam :)

I learned a lot in the CCT as well, plus you get a nice shirt once you pass!

[roiegat]

I'll chime in as well with my experience. While I was able to take the CCA without the CCT, I will speak about the classes I have taken.

So I had worked about 5 months with Casper learning on my own to get the company I was working for ready before I attended the Jump Start (not sure if they still do it for new customers). But I learned quite a bit from the jump start and re-organized how I did things with Casper.

About a year and half of using Casper, I signed up for the CCA. Going in I knew a lot. I've read the Casper Manual about 4-5 times at that point. I've help set up my companies complete Casper system...so had plenty of experience. But even I learned quite a bit from the CCA course. I learned some different techniques that I was able to take back to work and implement. It was very worth going to and I got to meet some great Casper users. The class had 10 students in it, with varied usage of Casper. Only 8 passed the test. I got a 100 percent on mine....and I think my experience using Casper for 1.5 years had a lot to do with that.

The main problem I see with CCT is that they have both Mac and mobility bundled together. Your test is for both sides of Casper. I never go into the mobility side of Casper, so if I had to take at test on that side, I would probably have had to study a bit more. I've known several co-workers who took the CCT and failed the test because of the mobility side. I know the issue has been discussed before....but just know that if your going to CCT - you'll need to know both sides.

[scottb]

To concur with @roiegat - the CCT was put in place right before we got our Pass. Had to take it and I have to admit, that although someday we might do MDM on portables like iPads and iPhones, I was kinda bummed that the class was so much about it.
Thus far, that knowledge has gone unused, and but the time I ever need it - if ever - I won't remember any of it.
I too got a 20/20 on my course, and we had some people not pass. Regardless of your knowledge level, you'll learn something you didn't know, and work with good people with similar interests. Even learning how to do something a different way can be valuable. Just my 2¢ - I only have one shirt thus far...

[davidelong]

Don't waste your money. The hardware used for the class is sub-par. It went down 10x during my 4 days, including right before the test,.which was extremely distracting and affected my learning adversely. $2500 for a class with patched up hardware that doesn't work - I'm shocked! I observed that the hardware was about 5 years old - an old macbook pro and an old access point. In addition, the class just isn't designed very well. As a college educator, the pace, material, and presentation all seemed non-professional and amateurish. It's far too specific to what JAMF believes are use cases, rather than trying to actually educate the users. We truly believe it's much more about the money, then anything else and our general impression is that the JAMF folks are very inflexible and this is reflected in the training as well as the product itself. In a word - Avoid. You will learn better on your own, and you'll also have $2500 in your pocket.

[Josh_at_Jamf]

@davidelong

Wow, lots to unpack here.

Up front, we're sorry you feel that your experience was dissatisfactory. We pride ourselves on developing a rewarding and enlightening experience for all our customers, but we've obviously fallen short of that mark for you. I'd like to take a moment to publicly address a few of your expressed opinions:

• While I am an absolutely biased source, I can assure you our courses are not "about the money." If it was, there are a lot of options we could have taken but don't because of how we've always valued training. Our team has worked hard to ensure that our course material stays relevant not only to Apple's and Jamf's products and services, but to the workflows and requirements of our customers. Our mission has been to enable Mac Administrators who use our product to the best of our ability. It is our position that to do so requires an established and verifiable level of technical acuity and contextual knowledge of our product and how it works. To this end, we've always taken the approach of selling training rather than certificates, which is why we don't separately sell certification exams. We feel strongly that doing so cheapens the experience of our courses and would have the net effect of making our classes no different than any other course you could just "test-out" of. Simply put, we don't sell certs, we sell training. That's where we feel the true value lies. We also understand that this might not align with everyone's perception of value and are constantly working on ways to better suit our enablement resources to our customers.
• It should also be noted that the development of our courses is detailed and organized process that a dedicated team of individuals is always refining. This is a team of incredibly talented and knowledgeable individuals that are constantly evolving our courses to meet the needs of our customers. The same goes for all of Jamf's products and services.
• This being said, there will be customers that might feel differently than we do. We appreciate and respect that. Given an endless amount of time and resources, we would do all that we could to provide a custom-tailored experience for every customer to meet their individual needs. Unfortunately, this isn't possible. We do the best we can to meet our customers where they are and make changes based not only on product and service releases but also market trends and customer feedback . We're always learning from our customers and incorporating what we learn into our courses.
• We test and vet our workflows and course infrastructure against our equipment constantly. We ensure every course is more than capable of being conducted on the equipment that we provide in our classes. There is no class that we currently deliver that comes close to taxing the hardware we provide in our courses. It may very well be that a piece of hardware from 2015 or 2016 is being used, but we have verified that the hardware can handle the workload. The access points we provide in class are also tested, and are simply used to route the traffic through the server so we can control DNS in our classroom environments. In all, the workload isn't very demanding on the individual client computers.
• However, issues may still occur. When we are notified of such instances we immediately verify and take action if necessary. If we do have to make a change, we always do so to the benefit of our customers. In the event we are notified of an issue post-course, we evaluate customer feedback and performance and look for any behavior or action that might be indicative of a problem. In no way do we ever want the customer to unfairly deal with an issue, especially in the context of our certification courses.
• The use cases and context that we provide in our certification courses are derived from real-world experiences that both our team of instructors and our customers have shared with us. If these use cases do not aptly correlate to challenges you are facing, we welcome the feedback with suggested workflows you feel are more relevant. Your feedback might not necessarily be implemented, but they still hold influence on the decisions our team makes.

The purpose of this post was not to argue your expressed opinions, but to publicly provide transparency on Jamf's position on the topics you've expressed. We truly regret your experience and respect your opinion, though we may strongly disagree. In the end, we've been incredibly fortunate to serve our customers through delivering training for the last 13 years. In that time we've enabled thousands of our customers and have benefited from the feedback that they've shared with us. We stand behind our training offerings and are confident in their ability to help support our customers to achieve success with managing their environments. We are, however, always looking to improve. As the Manager for Jamf Training, I would be more than happy to personally address your concerns further. Feel free to email me at joshua.toro@jamf.com.

Note: corrected minor spelling and grammar mistakes.

[ryan_ball]

Obviously like most things, the quality of the training received is subjective and everybody has their own opinion. FWIW, I really enjoyed the training experience for both the 200 and 300 courses, and I have registered for the 400 now.

Take everybody's opinion with a grain of salt... always.

[isThisThing0n]

I agree. 200 and 300 are well worth doing. You learn plenty, no matter what your skill level.

You get out what you put in. Ask plenty of questions and you more than get your money’s worth.