Are Free Certifications Helpful?

orangecat asks: "I just took the Linux Administration Certification test at brainbench.com, a company which provides free certification in many categories, both technical and non-technical. Would listing these free certifications on a resume be helpful, neutral, or a hindrance, particularly for someone with little or no relevant job experience, formal education, or "real" certifications? If so, are there any sites for free (or low cost) certification that are particularly recommended/respected?"

Comments

From someone who interviews people...

[trims]

...from my perspective, I only consider two "Certifications" worth anything:

• CNEs more than 2 years old
• Cisco stuff

Both have achieved the goals of a good certification system:

1. Wide-scale recognition with those responsible for hiring (and these days, that's the technical people doing the hiring interviews)
2. Clear understanding of what the certification actually means. That is, what skills sets does that certification test for?
3. Respect for the level of competence required to obtain the certification. E.g. How hard are the tests? Are they hands-on, or mostly book-learning? Is is possible to "study-for-the-test" and not really know the concepts, just the answers to the questions?

For obvious reasons, things such as an official Professional Engineer cert carry heavy weight.

However, I can't see how any certification is worth anything without some pre-existing experience to give it meaning.

My best advice to you is this: You're obviously looking for an entry-level position. You can list them on the resume, which won't hurt, and might actually help get you the interview (since HR still does some pre-screening of applications). However, it won't matter one little bit in the interview; what matters here is your ability to communicate what you do know, what the limits of your knowledge are (and BE HONEST), and your fit into their environment (fast learning ability? Steady work ethic? Dependable schedule? Coding Genius? Team player?)

In short, having those Certs might might add slightly to your chances of getting your foot in the door, but it's up to you to perform in the interview, which is what really determines whether you get an offer or not.

-Erik

No relevant experience?

[Carnage4Life]

I just took the Linux Administration Certification test at brainbench.com, a company which provides free certification in many categories, both technical and non-technical. Would listing these free certifications on a resume be helpful, neutral, or a hindrance, particularly for someone with little or no relevant job experience, formal education, or "real" certifications?

My suggestion to you is to pickup relevant experience on your own. If you are looking for a developer position; create your own app that shows of your skill (mine was an online survey that used Java servlets and an Oracle database). If you want to be a sysadmin, create a page that documents your skills and resurrect some old machines and manage a home network. Remember, the one thing employers value more than certificates and degrees, is an ability to work and a penchant for learning because the rest can always be bought later. After all several people who are being educated at the expense of their employers because of their potential. The key here is that you are trying to get a job with the certificates as your only source of legitimacy. Especially since it is trivial for one person to amass several certificates simply by scoring above average on an online multiple choice test. I suggest using online certificates simply as coating on the cake. If you have no relevant job experience or formal education I suggest scratching some of your personal itches. I'm currently working at a Fortune 500 company designing and implementing an extensible, regression testing framework for large B2B websites they plan to launch later this year. Besides getting a good salary my rent, cable and phone are paid for by them (because I'm an intern). The interesting thing is that the clincher that got me hired was work I had done on my own free time during spring break.