Top IT Certifications and Which Certification Is Right for You?

The biggest concern for anyone who wants to start his career is deciding which certifications to start off from. Many get confused seeing the big names like Microsoft, Cisco, VMware etc.
The thing about these IT certification surveys is that they feature more or less the same IT trainings that you would need. Infact if you analyse these IT certification surveys over a few years time, you would see that the list seems to contain the same certifications with a slight change in the order. This is simple to understand as the demand in any particular certification cannot improve overnight and would require a lot of investment in the supporting infrastructure for any certification's market to grow.
It is not merely a co-incidence that the Microsoft, Cisco and CompTIA certifications almost always seem to be in the top 10 list.
The products sold by these companies are pretty famous and hence the supporting infrastructure for such certifications is always there. The only change with respect to these certifications would be an upgrade to the current IT training. For e.g. the demand for Microsoft Server 2008 trainings might shift to Microsoft Server 2012 but by and large, the market remains.
But the critical question to ask in such a scenario is, what is the right certification for you? Merely following data on average salary would not be appropriate because the data contains people with varied experiences across different industries. A person with a decade of experience and a particular certification would obviously warrant a better pay than a fresh graduate with the same certification.
A number of surveys are conducted in this regard that showcase their new top 5 or top 10 certifications of the year that are a must have for bagging the most desirable jobs in the market. These surveys also include the expected salary that people certified in that subject would demand in the market. A few examples of such surveys can be found here or here. Notice how these certifications mention what your salary bump is after getting the IT certification.
It is critical that the candidate going for any particular certification has clarity on the type of career he/she wants to pursue. The candidate must then list out the certifications relevant to his/her industry of choice and then proceed to choose a certification. All the major IT certification providers have categorized their training as Entry-level, Advanced and Master. Depending on the desired careers, candidates must choose the certification of their preference