Are IT Certifications Meaningless?

superflippy writes "In his article Hiding Behind Certification, MIT's Michael Schrage argues that CIOs who rely too heavily on certifications as a measure of an employee or sub-contractor's abilities are wasting their companies' money."

Comments

o but yes

[loveandpeace]

I'm comfortable arguing that, on average, the costs associated with credential-driven IT decision making consistently outweigh the benefits.

here here! by the time you have gone through the hoops and mastered their little quizzes, much has become irrelevant and you are out of touch with the issues in your particular workplace. what ever happened to being able to give a decent discussion to determine what is important in an employee? have management become so out of touch that they no longer know what questions to ask?

Re:o but yes

[kfg]

have management become so out of touch that they no longer know what questions to ask?

What on earth and in the name of all that is holy (or even partially) ever gave you the impression that they ever knew in the first place?

As a general rule they're faking it just as much as the prospect is.

KFG

P.S. The old hippie in me just had to go and take a look at your site. Two comments come to mind. Jitterbug Perfume is the best of Tom Robbins books. While I enjoyed them all to one extent or another that's the only one I'd be inclined to re-read.

Also, it's that big key at either end of the second row from the bottom.

KFG

Re:o but yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no certification but I work for a top company (in the industry and world alike) making about $90k. In fact, I have a 7th grade education officially. No highschool or college. No certifications whatsoever.

Most of the best technical people I've ever known were self educated and had no official certification or schooling with regard to the job.

The deal is, people who are really into the job and really know their stuff teach themselves because it's a passion and then they easily find a job, because of their passion. People who approach the tech field like a real estate agent or a burger flipper job don't know anything (or at least not much) because to them it's just the current career trend. For all they care, it could just as well be a nursing certification they're going after. So they have to go the official routs to get knowledge and experience, then go to certification trainings and such all the time.

Companies also need to remember that someone with a certification and not much else may have a college degree, but probably has less than six months experience. LIkewise, you could take an 18 year old kid with no college education and no certification who has very involved, self-taught education and has six years of experience because he's been living and breathing tech since he was 12.

Re:o but yes

[loveandpeace]

it's not that i don't know how to use the shift key; it's that i reserve it for Very Important Matters. big on the jitterbug, as well as its perfume, from one old hippie to another.

Re:o but yes

[sumdumass]

i bought the MCSE study guide for win2000 server and read the books in an afternoon by glancing thru them. i figured i would go and take the practice test to see if i needed to work thru the entire program or just concentrate on certain areas. Belive it or not, i was able to pass the practice tests only missing one question and i guessed at about half of them. I decided to give the regular tests a try and scheduled an apointment. i missed like 3 questions and again guessed at over half of them.

I might have been extreamly lucky but if i can do it then most everyone else could. I'm not a racket scientist or anythign remotly close. I do however have a good sence of reasoning when problem solving so my guesses might have been a little more logical then others. My first interview for a job after that had a question that i didn't know, instead of guessing at it I decided to tell her the truth that I didn't know but i was willing to look it up. Needless to say i got the job. Not because of my mcse but because of my truthfulness and willingness to check before just doing the wrong thing. I quite that job about 2 years after and followed the manager (that hired me) to another location that pays almost double what i was making.

Re:o but yes

[Pantheraleo2k3]

A racket scientist? Were you trying to get a job at SCO or MicroSoft?

OOoo, finally some hope!

[coupland]

Wow, this article finally affirms what I've always known -- that I'm uber-qualified. I have no certifications, degrees, or qualifications of any sort. I am totally 733T! Thank god, I had almost started to believe the nay-sayers.

Oh, and you know how Einstein got bad grades in school? Yeah, well mine are even worse!

Re:OOoo, finally some hope!

[Tatarize]

OT: Einstein had great grades, he did manage to fail a French class once. The bad grade rumor was started by the fact that he was getting 6s and suddenly started getting 1s (might have been 6s to 1s I forget). The school system part way through Einstein's education flipped it. This is what lead to the confusion, looking at his early grades is misleading.

Re:OOoo, finally some hope!

[Sardak]

This is almost exactly what I've been saying for years. I'm mostly self-taught in all the fields I'm experienced in, but I do have about 9 years of experience in software development and network admin. Personally, I find that a job becomes more appealing when the HR or whoever is doing the hiring actually takes the time to look past a few pieces of paper and really digs into the meat of the job in an interview. It's kind of funny that this article showed up today, as just yesterday I took a call at work from someone trying to push MCSE/etc. I listened to his opening and flat out told him that I wasn't interested in his certifications and that I felt experience and decent management were more important to me than making a few extra dollars an hour.

Re:OOoo, finally some hope!

[ebyrob]

Or else you'll be eaten by a stuffed tiger.

Experience is worth a lot more

[fiannaFailMan]

There's no certification for being able to handle an akward system administrator who throws a hissy fit every time you misunderstand him but whom you still rely on to gt your job done. It's the people skills that count for a lot more in many ways. Any old eejit could learn how to fix as network. Not everyone can influence the powers that be to get it done when they're not motivated to do so.

Re:Experience is worth a lot more

[cecil36]

I agree. The certs are nothing more than opening the door of opportunity for you to get into or advance in IT. I entered the IT job market with nothing more than a CS degree. After a year of working experience, I tested for and passed the A+ exams. I then picked up additional training for the CCNA certification. This coupled with networking knowledge gained from my job at the time allowed me to pass the Network+ exam. I have yet to pass the CCNA exam (missed by a small number of points in my two attempts), but my two certs and three years of working experience out of college to back them was enough to land my present job opportunity after I moved to Georgia.

As stated in the parent post, people skills count. I've learned this the hard way. For a while, the only type of work I was getting was contract work, but when the contracts ended, I had to start all over again. I submitted applications and resumes to nearly every company in Central Georgia that was hiring IT folks. Received a lot of rejection letters in the mail and didn't quite make the impression I needed to make during the interviews that I was given. Thankfully, a local non-profit media production house decided to take me on as their webmaster for several months full-time so that I can save money to pay bills while I continued to look for something permanent. Many times, it's who you know and who you encounter while job hunting coupled with the impression you leave on them during the interview that will get you your opportunity. Both the job with the media production house and my present job with a consulting firm were given to me from people who referred me to the hiring managers who both interviewed me on the spot, and presented me with offers to start on the first day of the next pay period. The wages weren't what I was looking for, but that will change as I gain more experience and perform well in front of the supervisors.

Re:Experience is worth a lot more

[perlchild]

Just how much of a chance is it to trust to a signature of someone on some paper, that says someone did something, with that something being specified elsewhere, and that elsewhere being paid to deliver that assessment, and evaluated by the number of signatures it delivers?

Most certifications(indeed a lot of diplomas) are not independant assessments, they don't all certify the same things to the same level, and accessing just what is certified is not always obvious. That means certifications remove a lot less risk than you seem to think.

I'm not saying they are bad though(I have some, some of them are good). But the idea that just holding the paper has any worth is laughable. EVERY ONE has to be cross-checked with the issuer before it should even be considered in the evaluation of a candidate. That means they can be used to tell candidates apart, but they cannot be used, like they are in most places, as a litmus test to accept a candidate, or to quickly sort a large number of candidates. They can do good, once you've whittled the less down to 5 or less.

Re:Experience is worth a lot more

[Cybersonic]

I completely agree. People skills are much more important than lousy certifications...

-Ralph Bonnell - CISSP, LPIC-2, CCSI, CCSE+, CCNA, RSA/CSE, CSFE, eSCE, PCIA, ACIA, STAR, MIPS-I, MIPS-E, SCP, BSPE, SSE, MCSE 2000 - http://ralph.cx/resume/

Pretty much

[Lane.exe]

I got my A+ certification and CCNA and I've never used them for anything. They certainly never helped me when I was a sysadmin. I can see some certifications as being somewhat helpful, but nothing beats experience.

Re:Pretty much

[SeXy_Red]

That may be true, but if you didn't have those certs you would not have gotten a job in the first place. Employers look at certifications of applicants because most of the time they have nothing else to gage an applicants qualification and knowledge. I personally think that more employers should give a short test as part of the interview, this way they can be fairly confident that the person they are hiring actually knows how to do the job.

Re:Pretty much

[spacemky]

I too have CCNA and also MCSE, and while I don't use it much, it still think it's a valuable thing to have. Not that I use the intricate specifics required to pass the exams in real life, but I think the groundwork that the exams and studying provide are valuable.

The bottom line for CIOs hiring is to look for experience first, but to also look for certification. If someone is serious about their IT career, and wants to make a living in it, I think they'd be serious enough to go and get the certs. While my knowledge from experience well outweighs what I learned from my certs, they both still compliment one another, and make me even better at my job.

Re:Pretty much

[AKAImBatman]

I personally think that more employers should give a short test as part of the interview, this way they can be fairly confident that the person they are hiring actually knows how to do the job.

I actually did something similar when I was recently interviewing junior programmer candidates. When I noticed that they had "Masters Degree" written all over their resume, I decided to put them through the wringer and ask about various data structures and search algorithms. (Note: I never got a degree myself. Too busy actually performing the job.) I usually started with something complex like Hashtables, then went progressively simpler to Binary Searches, B-Trees, and Linked Lists. Oddly enough, no one knew how hashtables worked. One guy stuttered through so badly that he barely even managed to explain linked lists (and I wasn't tremendously happy with his explanation). The guy I ended up recommending was the one who simply said "I don't know" to the ones he didn't know, and gave detailed explanations of the ones he did know.

Of course, none of this would tell me if the guy could write *good* software. But at least I'd know that he had the basics and could be taught. If it had been a more senior position, I would have taken great care in attempting to find public examples of their work, and spend time chatting to ascertain how passionate they actually are about technology. Sadly, I can't say that I've interviewed a single person who has actually wowed me. :-( It's especially amusing when one considers that I converse with these people online quite often, but never meet one in real life. (The ones I know online are never where I am at the moment.) We must be extremely rare.

BTW, if you're looking for the type of API I'd demonstrate to a tech interviewer, look no farther than my GAGE gaming APIs. The API is clean, the code is simple, and the algorithms are original and unmatched. If I saw something similar out of a candidate, I would go throttle my manager until he was hired. Too bad that pretty much all senior candidates I've dealt with don't even have code to show.

MSCE

[PoderOmega]

As I am sure many will agree (and say here), MSCE consists mainly of buying the books and decent memorization skills.

Re:MSCE

[dzym]

Such as remembering that the proper acronym is MCSE not MSCE.

Do you also let the FBI pick up your garbage instead of the BFI?

cut the fat

[2057]

I like the idea behind certification, but the costs are way way to high. It's good to be able to point to something and say "This proves I know this", but when it costs over a grand to take the test, It takes the quality of the certification away.

Are IT Certifications Meaningless?

[AsimovBesterClarke]

To paraphrase someone else:

"If you gotta' ask, you ain't never gonna' know"

Re:Are IT Certifications Meaningless?

[HuguesT]

To the curious: Louis Armstrong's answer to the question "What is Jazz?"

There is too much technology to get ceritied

[Thaidog]

Technology changes too quickly and there is too much technology for me to get cerified and actually think it amounts to anything.

As far as I'm concerned the only thing a certification will get you is a job. It looks good to bosses on your resume. But if you're boss was smart enough, they'd know what to look for... which in my opinion would render most certifications meaningless.

I wouldn't say that they're meaningless ...

[Aleatoric]

But they certainly aren't sufficient credentials in the absence of any other experience or education.

Any employer who hires someone based on some single, simple criteria, whether that be just a degree, just a certification, or some other buzzword of the week is nearly always going to get less than they bargained for.

Too many people (employees and employers) use things like certificates because they're too lazy to actually do the work needed to either advance their *real* skills or hire someone with real skills.

Re:I wouldn't say that they're meaningless ...

[archen]

I certainly agree. I think if employers are going to want certs, then they STILL need to look at the employee and try to gage their skills regardless of their papers.

The Vice Pres at my company needed an office assistant and hired a lady who had actual PAPERS that said she knew how to use MS Excel. Within a week I ended up showing her how to minimize windows and change the font in Word. Eventually she had heart problems from working with the VP's nightmarishly complex spreadsheets (yeah, seriously) so she left and it all worked out in the end. But really, how hard is it to test basic knowledge? If they say their a Photoshop expert, ask them to describe 5 image formats. They say they can program, then ask them to compare the weaknesses of 3 languages. If they say they can admin MS Exchange, ask them how fast they can reboot *rimshot* -- Seems to me if you really need to hire someone, then you could at least take the time to understand WHY you are going to pay them to work.

Everyone knows...

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

That unless you have bags and bags of experience and a lengthy CV, your resume is rarely indicative of your true employable skills. The 8-year old Indian kid who got his MCSE is easy proof of this.

I find some cert courses are good for teaching the fundamentals, rather than proving expertise. I'm studying for a CCNA right now, and while I doubt it'll prove practical for a low level sysadmin job, it is certainly giving me the base networking knowledge required to further pursue a career in network technology...

Veto CMM where you can

[YetAnotherName]

Organization certification such as that with ISO 9000 or SEI's Capability Maturity Model forces you into a role where projects you take on affect your certification. I recall one subcontractor who had a CMM level 5 rating; the company produced absolute garbage, but goodness, did they ever produce it so well. They had level 5.

What was especially telling was when we let them go. Their only defense? "But we're CMM Level 5!" They had no idea that process quality was completely separate from product quality.

Some personal experience...

[JOstrow]

I just graduated from a smallish high school earlier this month, and our technology program consisted of one class: ROP Computer Systems Management.

Over three years, I had about six different teachers, due to budget problems (in California). The one we had the longest started us on track for an MCSE. Just about everybody in the class got their MCP in Windows 2000 that year, and when I realized how inept a lot of my fellow classmates were, I lost faith in (at least Microsoft's) certifications.

"I can't get my e-mail."
"Why not?"
"The screen's messed up."
"How is the screen messed up?"
"It just went blank."
"Have you tried downloading another graphics driver?"
"How do you do that?"

That's a "Microsoft Certified Professional" talking. Pathetic.

the problem is

[mastergoon]

Now days, the good jobs go to some guy with 12 years experience on his resume and a couple degrees, and everything else goes to some shop in another country. I'm not actually against outsourcing in all regards, but those of us still in school, or just getting out, are left out of the loop, even though we are often better coders than the others.

mastergoon@gmail.com

Re:the problem is

[achesloc]

Meh. That is a load of garbage. If you know what you are doing and you have a degree from a good school, you will get a job. I have had no problem finding employment ever, even while being in school during the last few years. In fact, I am current working at a temporary summer position making ~45k/year as computed using the hourly wage they are paying me at 40hrs/week. I have one semester left before receiving my master's degree. All of my friends that graduated last semester found employment. Most had many offers. The reality is most of the cert. only people are not worth anything. How could you ever think a certification is even close to earning a quality degree from a good school? The guy that has that degree destroyed the cert. guy in high school academically, and that is why they went to the quality university.

Don't agree

[Docrates]

If I interview a candidate for an IT position that has relied heavily on certification, and uses his or her certification repertoir as the one main reason I should hire them, I immediately get suspicioius.

That only tells me that that person needs to go through the traditional courses to learn new things and chances are he/she won't be an ingenious innovator who can improvise good solutions to non standard problems.

So far I've been right.

Every time I've decided to hire a certification trained person (regardless of college degrees) I've ended up with people unable to think outside the box.

I don't want to generalize here, but I've seen the pattern.

Good for you, but can you do anything

[Sabalon]

We've had lots of MCSE's apply for various jobs (or CCNA, etc...) However, we've found many bought the books, took the test, passed and expected money to be thrown at them. For the most part, if something was outside what the book covered, they were lost.

MCSE - need to tie accounts on the Unix and windows box together (glossy look as the resist the urge to say "Migrate to active directory")

CCNA - Yeah...we don't use Cisco - stare of disbelief as if I just grew another head.

It's great if you can pass these things, but if you can't apply the knowledge and extrapolate from it, may as well use the certificate as bird linings.

Certifications have negative worth

[fuzzeli]

I do a fair bit of IT hiring. Listing certifications on your resume is, in my eyes, a ticket for a one-way trip to the circular file, unless you've got other stuff on your resume to mitigate your certifications. Especially if you're foolish enough to list A+ or other bogus certifications. So, I guess, actually, certifications are valueable, because they allow me as an employer to quickly sort the poseurs out of the pool.

Yes

[sburnett]

I am a high school student and took a course through a vocational center for Network+ and iNet+ certification. I received 900 on both exams (perfect score), yet don't feel as if I know much about networking at all beyond the basic "this is a Cat5 cable" and "this is how to configure a network interface in Windows." The fact that anyone can get a perfect score, let alone a teenager like myself who does computer stuff as a hobby, shows how meaningless these certifications really are.

As a heavily certifed consultant...

[potus98]

...I can attest to the fact that some clients DO place too much weight on certs. I'll be the first to tell you that some of my certs are valuable and backed by years of experience (VCP - Veritas Certified Pro) while some are the result of cram/pass (CCNA 2.0) or somewhere in between (RHCE).

I've found that being up-front and honest about which of your certs fall into which catagories lends a high level of credability to yourself in the eyes of a potential client/employer. When asked about a specific cert that falls in the cram/pass catagory, I'm brutally honest: "Well, I am certified and I have worked on the equipment in a lab environment; however, the certification was required by my employer so we could resell a particular product line. I can get it up and running solidly, but not off the top of my head..." This was especially true when I used to work in the "channel" (ISVs, resellers, SIs).

I would not fall into the poor attitude of "all certs suck and are worthless"! Proper certs AND documented real-world experience can be a powerful weapon as you try to sell yourself. They can also be a way to get around the gatekeepers to access the real decision makers.

Most, but not all..

[tji]

Some certifications require meaningful knowledge and the ability to prove it in book and lab tests. For example the CCIE certification from Cisco has some pretty tough testing.

I considered going for CCIE in the past, but at that time it was a single test that covered a huge amount of ground. I would have had to learn about DECNet, SNA, Appletalk, IPX, and others. But, it was clear at that time ('95-96) that TCP/IP was the future. So, I didn't do it. I think they now have several CCIE tests, each for different areas of specialization.

But, most of the other certifications I have seen are meaningless. My previous employer tried to send me through various certification classes. They were mind numbingly boring, and I chose not to do them.

In that job, that was no problem, because I had already proven my knowledge. But, I have seen quite a few job listings where they list those silly certifications as desirable. So, you have to rely on the interviewer to be bright enough to assess your knowledge rather than relying on the certifications.

My advice would be to go through the drudgery of the certifications if your employer is willing to pay for it. I wouldn't make it a big part of my resume or anything, but if they ask for it, you will have it.

Oh well.

[dj245]

I was going to reply to this, but I don't have my SCIWE (Slashdot certified insightful writing engineer) certification.

Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[Agent Green]

In one aspect, we can all thank Microsoft for this one with their MCSE mills which turned out a bunch of talentless mouse jockeys. Mind you, not ALL are talentless...but a lot I knew from the boom were. This had the unfortunate effect of taining a bunch of people who really didn't care about much more than dollar signs.

Now, I know a lot of people who have, as a result of articles such as this, let their certifications expire...which I think is a bad idea in some cases.

The problem with certifications is that in many cases they have been overvalued by the people who get burned by hiring the talentless paper monkeys. Unfortunately, certifications are still required in many cases to get through the HR vortex.

However, if certification is used as a minimum baseline of knowledge, it can at least determine a minimum amount of knowledge required. It should be part of a set of tools used to gauge the quality of a candidate, and leveraged by the employer as part of a further interview process.

I'm standing in defense of certifications, partly because I renewed my CCDP and am working on my Solaris 9 certs. Exciting? Not really, but there is still a minimum amount of knowledge required, at least conceptually. To me, it's a validation of my experience that I can at least still learn something. At a minimum, I'm trainable...and familiar with concepts that the application/hardware vendor wants me to know.

Now, for the other tools...it depends on who really controls the interviews. Awhile ago in the network analysis team where I used to work, there was one particularly brilliant hardass. His only interview question was to hand the candidate a dry-erase marker and draw out their home network and explain how it worked, was addressed, and protected. As far as he was concerned, the group needed a net geek, and someone who didn't have their own network at home wouldn't be interested in the job enough to excel. Anyways, I digress...

The hardest test I've taken to date was the CWNA, which really threw me for a loop...and I dread the CWSP which I want to take by the end of the summer.

Take three candidates with roughly the same experience: one has nothing more than a high school diploma, another a college degree, and the other has a 4-year degree and some certifications...HR is likely going to pick the third candidate. Sorry folks...that's just how it is in the business world.

(CCNP - CCDP - CWNA - A+/Net+)

Certs Let The Hiring People Cover Their Asses

[John_Booty]

Hiring people is an expensive, crucial process. So managers face a lot of heat when new hires don't work out. Furthermore, we all know that a lot of new hires *don't* work out.

That's why IT certifications can help people get hired. If a manager takes a chance on an "unproven" but possibly brilliant guy with no certs, she's going to have a lot of explaining to do if that new hire turns out to suck.

However, if she hires somebody with all the proper certifications, she can have a) piece of mind b) a nice, plausible excuse if the new dude doesn't work out. "He had all his certifications and gave an impressive interview - we did everything right, but the guy just turned out to be a dude"

For whatever it's worth, I'm a programmer with no certifications. And I think that references are more important than certs, at least in the hiring processes *I've* seen, from both the hiring and the hiree end. However, there's no denying that certifications can be a nice comfort factor as well as be a deciding point between two otherwise-equivalent potential hires.

I think the article misses the point

[spidergoat2]

Certification mills are the engine that keeps teh IT industry running! Think about it. Five years ago when the dot com economy was in full swing, you couldn't turn on a tv or read a newspaper with out seeing ads for some place that would give you some kind of certification in the IT world. Well, where are they now? The economy tanked, and the education mills dried up. If we don't get unqualified people back into the IT industry, it could be years before we see a significent change in the US marketplace. Don't even wonder why jobs are being outsourced overseas. They have the unskilled yet certified labor to fill those positions!

How to tell if the interviewer is clueless

[Safety Cap]

If she/he asks any of the following:

• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses?
• Why do you want to work here?

How can you tell if the interviewer knows what she/he is doing? If you get a form of the following question:

• What's your business plan for doing this job?

Q.E.D.

Re:How to tell if the interviewer is clueless

[kfg]

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Well, let's see, it's 11 A.M. I guess that means I'd be getting out of the shower to refill my beer mug.

KFG

Just one factor.

[nobodyman]

Are they meaningless? I don't think so, but I fear that some CIO's interpret certifications incorrectly. Schrange makes a valid point when he writes (emphasis mine):

Frankly, I'm with the school of economic thought that argues that the real value of credentials and certifications like CMMs and MBAs is not that they indicate greater skill, but they signal to the market that these individuals and organizations will jump through hoops to demonstrate how much they care about being seen as top-notch.

In other words, the willingness to procure credentials can reveal more about attitude than aptitude.

This is an excellent point, but is it so wrong to evaluate a candidate's attitude and drive just as much as their aptitude? In my experience, I've seen better results from hard-working, honest people than from very bright, unmotivated jerks.

Do certifications mean someone is more motivated? Well, I'd say that it's a good (but not infallible) indicator, and should be evaluated along with other factors.

Here's a stab at what might also work:

evaluating Certifications, degrees, and so on.

seeing how well candidate gets along with potential peers (a la group interview)

score on a mental alertness (read: IQ) test. Yeah, it's Orwellian, but generally speaking they are a good indicator at your capacity for abstract thought.

Re:Here's a serious question...

[0racle]

Do you think that someone is going to go all the way to the CCIE level, without already having a job in the field? For one, the cost alone is going to turn everyone away except those who really need it. The MCSE and CCIE are two completely different beasts that you can not compare, and the reasons for getting them are different. If however you want to talk about the CCNA to the MCP, or possibly even MCSE to CCNP then you might have a better comparison, but even then your getting them for different reasons. You can get basic Cisco certs just as easy as the MCP without having any real experience in networking, but since its the MS certs that are looked upon by most as the one to get your foot in the door, most people go for that as their first, by the time they're looking at others, they either hate their job and won't waste the money, or they've had some experience and have learned from it.

Short answer: Yes.

[Daniel Baumgarten]

For one, I'm sixteen years old and entirely self-taught in computers, and I'm quite adept enough at server administration.

For another, here's what I think: Any hacker can do any certified admin's job, and any hacker can do it better. I suspect that often times, people who just learn the technical skills and miss out on the culture of computing and the Internet fail to "get it," fail to see the beauty of Unix and good design. (And you-know-who, proprietor of the title of MSCE, likes it that way. But I digress.)

I have little experience with actual certified admins (that which I have had has evidently been negative), so this is all speculation, really, but I consider it good speculation. If you can't appreciate the art, how can you master it?

Reality Certifications rule

[humankind]

I am proud to say I don't have a single certification. No MCSE no Oracle DBA, or any of that crap even though I probably know more about Oracle than most DBAs and more about Microsoft than most MCSE's. OTOH, I have written software that's received the industry's highest honors and awards, and developed Internet-based systems that are used by millions of people each day.

I work for my own company these days, but I often wonder if I decided I wasn't subjected to enough sadism (I routinely watch "Office Space" to reaffirm my life choices) whether or not I'd be "marketable" in today's job market, whether or not having degrees and certifications would be more important than a lot of productive, world-class real-world experience.

Maybe I can afford to be more arrogant about this, but I really wouldn't want to work for any company that only cared about paper-based qualifications. I have faith in my experence, my track record and my ability to convince others that I am the right person for the job.

That notwithstanding, I do recognize that there is an absence of means by which "computer people" are qualified as being "certified". There are times when I almost wish there was the computer equivalent of a Bar or CPA exam, just so I could fly through it and distance myself from the large array of hacks that rip off people. But in the end, I think paper is worth little more than its weight... in paper.

here's a view from under the middle class

[Velex]

My boyfriend and I are barely living about the poverty line. Some really good months when I get extra hours at my day job, and the fast food place I work at on the side needs me to cover an extra shift, and his customers feel like actually tipping him for delivering their pizzas, sure, we can squeeze into the very lower middle class, but usually we're scrambling to just pay bills and eat well. And even for the breif moment we are in the lower middle class, all that usually means is buying new black pants and white undershirts and socks because they're ripped and have holes.

What does that mean? It means that neither of us have $150 per class to even work on our gen eds at the community college (I could hardly even fit a class into my two job schedule right now.) We certainly don't have $500-$1000 to pull out of our asses to get MCSEs, MSCDs, and whatever else wants to be the cool certification this week, even though both of us could certainly pass if we bought a book and bought the software. Spending just $300 each last summer to get A+ certified about broke the bank!

But there's the other trick to breaking into the IT "industry." We need to keep our software current. An MCSE and MSCD would do both of us some good, but how can we do that when all I own is a Windows 98 SE liscense and all he owns is a Windows XP Home liscense? Neither of us can certainly afford to shell out the money to get Windows Server 2003 so that we can get experience.

It's a vicious cycle. Both of us are trapped in crap jobs because we don't make enough to educate ourselves to even get considered for interviews for better jobs that would pay enough that we could keep current. A lot of good both of our excellent GPAs from high school did us. Employers won't even give me a chance to show them my coding skill, and they won't give my boyfriend a chance to show his administration skill.

In the end, it's a plug for free software. I could kick some ass as a developer if an employer needed someone to code QT, but no one uses QT. Somehow people got on the bandwagon of shit that is Win32. Now, if you want MySQL skills, sure. SQL Server 2000? Dream on. Even at my day job, my boss refuses to upgrade from 6.5 since it costs too much. Visual Basic .NET. I'd love to. They all tell me it's finally become a real programming language. Too bad. I'm stuck in Visual Basic 6 at my day job for the same reason.

It really doesn't matter to employers that I have the methods and attitudes that produce good products. All that matters is that I threw money at some college to give me one piece of paper, and then I threw money at some other business to get more pieces of paper.

You know that certs are worthless when

[bersl2]

13-year-olds can pass the test.

I'm sorry, but that means that no actual thinking goes on. Nobody can put together multiple complex concepts to do much of anything at 13.

In a Word... YES

[midifarm]

How many of us know people with college degrees that can't use common sense? Can't follow directions from MapQuest?

Degrees are nice for certain things, but have become the litmus test for so many professions especially IT. When in fact, so many guys have been too busy coding and fixing networks and upgrading systems to go out and get a piece of paper that says they passed a test on things that they've been doing for years.

Peace

useful for something

[frovingslosh]

I learned ten years ago, when I was running a Netware shop, that to many people had Netware certification but no real clue when it came to real word issues not covered in their limited scope tests. I wouldn't actua;;y refuse to hire someone just because they had Netware certification, but I would much prefer someone with real experience.

On the other hand, MSCE certification was a good indicator for me. If someone had acutally paid to become a Microsoft puppet, and expected extra preks and pays and status for it, it was easy to decide that I would not hire them

Why does this keep coming up here?

[drinkypoo]

And why is it under Developers? But that aside, some certifications are meaningful, and some are not. A clueless manager (one who can't even be bothered to read the free industry publications for example) won't know the difference, which degrades the value of all certifications, but you don't want to work for a shop like that anyway, right? You want to work for someone with a clue.

A company that knows certs are meaningless...

[AtariDatacenter]

My company is a big [VENDOR X] shop. We have an internal '[VENDOR X] help desk'. This is comprised of first level employees who have been through [VENDOR X] training and passed their [VENDOR X] Systems Administration test. 100% [VENDOR X] Certified Employees. They're tier 1 ticket-takers who answer the calls, do some minor lookups for tickets, toss the tickets around, track things, and generally play go between. Little to no hands-on real-world experience, and their training decays quickly from lack of use.

The tier 2 employees? Tier 3? Many had some form of [VENDOR X] training years ago. The last time the company authorized training for most of them was in either 1999 or 2000. Most are not certified. The vast majority (especially after rounds of eliminations over the years) are very competent and some even quite excellent in their technical knowledge.

The company only minorly encourages the Tier 2 and 3 employees to get certified. The Tier 1 certification is required via contract with [VENDOR X] as part of their agreement.I think this pretty much spells a company that knows that certs are meaningless. Clued managers don't look for certs. But there certainly are some organizations out there for who certifications are everything.

[VENDOR X] used to allow plausable deniability that we're talking about any vendor under the sun, and not one in particular. Apologies.

Certifications can get you a job but...

[Doc Squidly]

While a certification may get you a job it will be your hard work and knowledge that lets you keep it an gain the experience.

True, many people with certifications don't know what the should. That's when you show up with the same cert, do a good job and make them look bad. Your employer (or consulting firm, in my case) will that much more impressed with you.

Who do you think they'll call for the next contact.

*Note* Would those who have gotten certs only for the money please change careers. You're degrading the value of certifications. Thanks.

Re:Certifications can get you a job but...

[k12linux]

*Note* Would those who have gotten certs only for the money please change careers. You're degrading the value of certifications.

There are a lot of people in the computer field who don't have a clue what they are doing. It isn't only those who have paper certs. You might as well say, "will those of you who suck at IT get out of the field", and hope they realize that they are the ones you are talking to. Consider these:

In colege, one of my classmates was a complete air-head. I once spent a full hour explaining why they couldn't average a series of percentages and get meaningful values. At one point or another during the year I knew them they had asked for help from every single person in the class. They passed, got their degree, and were unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

At my previous job, one co-worker got their certs the hard way... real world experience, classes, and turoring by others. After 5 attempts, they finally passed their TCP/IP test and got a cert. Since then I fixed serveral servers they messed up and was called in regularly to work on small projects that were beyond their abilities.

This person had 3 years experience, certs, and couldn't admin their way out of paper bag.

The third person I will mention was at the same company. They were a UNIX admin for only about one year with only about 2 years total experience working with computers. They already had an AIX cert, and one day decided they were bored and wanted to try MCSE (with no prior Windows admin experience.) They studied a couple of weeks, took the tests and passed.

Of the three, I would hire the 3rd in a second and would probably stamp "Do not hire" on applications from the other two. The third was able to learn fast, comprehend and apply what they learned. Today (6 years later) they have Solaris, Oracle and Linux certs and are a senior UNIX team admin at a well-known fortune 500 company.

For all intents and puposes, the third was only a paper cert with little or no real-world Windows experience.

That begs the question... what eliminiation criteria would be appropriate to weed only the first two out of the applicant pool?

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[Martin Blank]

Microsoft gets a lot of flak for the MCSE certs, but Novell's CNE program really started it as far as I am concerned. For years, a CNE meant a lot more money on your paychecks. Admittedly, the CNE was also a difficult certification to get compared to MCSE, but it was Novell and not Microsoft that set the ball rolling in the first place.

I use certifications for personal goals now. By the end of this year, I want to get MCSE:Security, CCNA, Foundry's baseline cert (can't recall it right now, but we are a wholly-Foundry shop), and start in on GSEC, and eventually I plan on having a few others, including CISSP. I'm not using them for pay boosts (well, not primarily), but as guideposts, and the material I have from work does a good job of structuring things in layers so that I learn it all the way through.

I already know that I know more than the certified people at work. Most of the people there that really know their stuff are CCIEs -- and anyone with that gets my respect. There's one guy that's a CCNA, CNA, and MCSE+I (I actually had to look that one up to find out the Microsoft still allows it to be used), among other things, and he's a dimwit who gets a lot of really basic things wrong and is a constant source of annoyance to many of us. One day, my alphabet soup will not only be thicker than his, but I'll actually have real responsibilities, unlike him.

the best MCSE article of all time

[Clover_Kicker]

Marijuana, Mountain Dew and My MCSE

You'll be able to relate to this if . . . .

[LazloToth]

. . . you are in management and do hiring and firing. Here's the truth of the matter: if you came up through the ranks - - and I did, starting with PC support - - then, by the time you're the one making choices about who joins your team, you know how to do the interview. You make the candidate write something to make sure he can spell and put a sentence together. You talk to him for a little while to make reasonably certain he is not schizoid. You have the criminal background check done to make sure he isn't a fugitive. And then, you give him a practical interview with maybe 20 tasks to perform on a workstation and/or server. These tasks range from the obvious to the arcane. If things look good after the practical interview, you have a serious chat about how he got his education and where he wants to go with it. The words "self taught" always ring loudly. Certs may enter in to such a conversation, but, from what I've seen, the hungry guys and gals who love computing have a glow to them that the money grubbers just can't fake. This is how it has been for me, and I have hired only one disaster (drug problem) so far. I'd be curious as to whether other IT managers would share this point of view.

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't,

[Fomhoire]

About three months ago I came very close to landing a fairly decent job. The manager of IT wanted to hire me even though I don't have an certifications. Unfortunately he wasn't able to bypass human resources and their prerequisite that all new IT employees have certifications. This guy spent nearly three weeks trying to get them to bend the rules. HR took the position that people have to be taught everything they know and since I don't have any formal IT related education or certifications I couldn't possibly know what I'm doing.

Simply put, they do not understand that people with motivatin can be self-taught.

In a lot of companies all that matters to HR and corporate types are certifications and degrees. You must realize many times the people making these decisions are the ones that had to be taught how to right-click.

"Quickly Changing Field of IT", My Fat, Hairy Ass!

[Fortunato_NC]

I see a bunch of folks in this thread talking about how certifications and education are worthless, because they're quickly obsoleted in the fast paced, quickly changing world of IT. I call bullshit. Most certifications are worthless because the cert's exam questions become compromised rendering the test invalid. The people running the GMAT manage to put out a new test every thirty days, I don't understand why MS, Novell, and Cisco can't do the same thing.

For that matter, I've never understood why people are happy to post their "braindumps" of memorized exam questions on the Internet. The people you're feeding answers to are the same people you're going to be competing with for jobs. You're flooding the same market you want to compete in!

I've been in the fast, quickly changing world of IT since 1993, and for all that's changed, many "tried and true" tricks still work. They might need to be updated, but the concepts are similar. For example, suppose back in 1994 I had a bunch of identical machines I wanted to configure quickly. I'd pull out the old laplink cables, pull out my special floppy that would copy the disk from my working configured "master" to the "clones". In 2003, I use a network and Ghost software, but it's pretty much the same. In 1996, I made a firewall with a floppy disk and an old 386. I needed a router in a pinch a few weeks ago, and I made one with a bootable linux CD.

In IT, understanding a few basic concepts will get you a long way. Until earlier this year, I'd never touched Windows XP - we hadn't used it at work, and I have Macs at home. But when a few Windows XP computers showed up in the office and on customer's desktops during support sessions, did I throw my hands up and whine, "Omigod! The fast pace of the quickly changing field of IT has obsoleted my skills and left me behind!" No, I didn't - I applied what I'd learned from previous Microsoft operating systems and *I* *figured* *it* *out*.

If you took someone off the street and taught him Windows NT 4.0 inside and out, then gave him a computer with XP or Server 2003 on it, it's not like he's going to be completely lost because the tech blew right past him. He can take the skills he's already picked up, and apply them as he learns a new system. Same thing with certifications. If I've been using and am certified on Netware 4 (and I mean CNE-level, not a CNA), then I'll probably be able to get the hang of Netware 5 pretty quickly, even if my certificate doesn't say so.

A certification, or any sort of technical training is valuable if you learn its main lesson - how to think when looking at a particular manufacturer's products. If you think the goal of the certification process is the piece of paper, you've missed the whole point. The problem with most technical cetification testing programs is how easily they can be "gamed". Someone who's learned what's really supposed to be taught by the certification process is invaluable. Someone who's memorized the answers off a few dozen braindump sites will be near useless.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[f0rt0r]

I just finished interviewing and doing follow-up email ( this last part got me the job! ). There were two interviews, in the first one I met my potential future coworkers. They checked my experience, asked a few light technical questions, and then I was scheduled to interview with the director of the IT Solutions dept. Well, I was expecting a simple interview where they would check me out for corporate culture fit, but instead I was given a hypothetical enterprise network management problem, and told to explain how I would solve it step by step.

I did this by drawing my solution on the whiteboard and then later coding a bit of it on a piece of paper. I walked through the psuedocode part and then explained/justifyed each line of the actual code. It was very grueling experience, and at the end the director told me what he liked and did not like about it. The next day, I did a follow-up email to the interview, filled in the holes in my earlier solution, and the director called me back almost immediately after I sent the email, telling me that it was an awesome solution to the problem.

A few days after that I was told I had that job...

Lesson learned - Experience, certifications, and schooling can get you in the door, but be ready to be put on the spot once you are in there.

I have seen people bs their way into technical jobs and on the strength of their certs/degrees, but I don't think that really works anymore. Companies run lean and mean these days, so they try and get the most for their money.

Anyone else have a different recent experience?

assisting in interviews....

[ecalkin]

Many years ago I was a corp tech support person. One of the strangest duties that I had was to assist local store manager interview potential store techs. She would start and ask the regular HR questions and get a feel for the person in general and I would talk to them about their technical background. After the interview I express values of good, bad, and BS.
One the high end we had a gentleman that had services F16s in the airforce. I had to explain to the store manager that while we were not likely to have people tow in jet aircraft to fix, his experience meant that he could probably learn whatever technical skills we needed him to learn. He unfortunately was not in our price range . On the other end was a gentleman that had fixed *boilers* on merchant marine vessels over the last 20 years. I later had to explain that this was largely mechanical repair and he might fix printers but I was skeptical.

I helped interview a wide range of people and it was always interesting. And yea, I did get to filter a fair share of b---s---.

eric

Re:assisting in interviews....

[cheezit]

You didn't supply the specifics, but a lot of the old school mechanical repair guys have/had a very subtle and intuitive grasp of problem solving and creative solutions. Boilers might not be F16s, but you can bet that F16 had manuals for every part.

Repairing a 40-year old Russian boiler successfully has got to be tougher than following the pretty flowchart in the manual for swapping out bad-for-good using a warehouse full of milspec parts.

I've had fun watching some military types (AF, usually) get completely boggled by the lack of structure in some corporate IT shops. As if it is anyone's fault but their's that they can't figure out how to get anywhere.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[Anonymous Coward]

It all depends on what companies you're going after.

Fortune 500 companies are run like you say, full of HR staff who can't tell a valid candidate from their ass, so they latch onto some kind of meaningless benchmark like a piece of paper which, in all reality, means that individual spent a crapload of money to get that piece of paper. In other words, they're hiring out of the good ol' boy network. New money, old money, you're hiring the upper crust.

Small companies can't afford to have that band of incompetant fratboys running things, they need their employees to actually get work done. They can't afford to hire the George Bushes of the world, otherwise they'll be out of business in no time.

This is, IMHO, often why small companies go under - either they start out strong and then a fratboy manages to get in a position of power who calls in a bunch of his fratboy friends and they drown the company (unfortunately not by holding keggers, all joy left their hearts a long, long time ago), or they start out with the wrong mindset, hire a bunch of these boobs, and then go under, - and quick.

Me, I'm in the games industry. Aside from EA and one or two others, there's nothing approaching an HR department like you speak of. HR usually equals a single person, and if they're even smaller (usually the case), hires are directly handled by the CEO, or if they're a little bigger, department heads. These people rarely have a Harvard degrees and has learned their lessons the hard way about who can pull their own weight.

Or, at least, these people do at the places I get jobs at. The past is littered with companies run by boobs who went out of business by hiring more boobs (John Romero's side of Ion Storm, f'instance, had it's share of boobs - and I don't solely mean that one Level Designer / Romero Squeeze / Plastic Surgery Test Monkey).

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[tigerc]

MCSE Certification

Standing in line in a Taco Bell....

[yukio]

...and the two high school kids in front of me in line were both bragging to each other how they'd aced their MCSE exams after studying via flashcards.

As a hiring manager at the time, I remembered that and didn't make it a requirement when evaluating candidates. I was more interested if they'd done a similar type of work and what their approach to solving different types of problems might be.

Ironically enough, I'm now in search of a job - and even as a former manager type - can't get past the door without the 'certs.

Just amazing.

"Your customer service skills and commitment to service really don't matter.... if you're not an MCSE or MCP, etc." - words directly from an HR person here in SF.

Many jobs are not garden variety this or that...

[carlos92]

...and the capabilities required are not likely to have been tested by the certification exams, not even likely to be found together in an individual not already at the job.

We had to fill several positions for Java programmers lately, that in addition to Java programming required learning Server Side JavaScript (an ancient language) and touching many script written in that language. We wrote a custom Java/HTML/JSP exam that the candidates had to take. The exam tested what we thought was required for the job, and left out what we didn't care about.

We hired three people who passed the exam. One of them had taken several Java courses and his CV was pretty impressive, but he had an awful programming style, bad variable/class/method naming habits, an excessive inclination for using complicated OO design patterns, and an *unbelievable* tendency to misunderstand everything. We eventually lost patience and had to fire him, and trying for find a replacement we found out that in addition to the exam, it was better to interview the candidate and give him a ver brief OO design excercise that he could solve in private, but he had to explain the solution verbally.

The ability to understand a clear statement of the problem that he had to solve and the ability to explain his solution are as important as the knowledge of OO design principles in real life, and the former are unlikely to be tested by certification exams. Plus, if you criticize his design, to get to see how he reacts to criticism, which he also will have to take in real life.

My certifications were useful

[danharan]

I got hired into a Java/Oracle shop after learning PHP/MySQL, and spending just a few hours doing the Java tutorial.

In the first few months, I scrambled hard to get used to the new language, tools, etc... Certification gave me a clear learning path, and showed the boss that I had the right attitude. I also learned the Java API inside out, and actually became much more productive... it's amazing how many people code for years in Java and don't know that there's this handy-dandy java.util.Properties thing in the API! Someone had duplicated it, so I refactored it, made it faster with 200 fewer lines to maintain. (In fact, I erased more lines than I wrote; my productivity that year was probably a negative 7-10,000 lines, )

When my trial period ended, I got a raise. 3 months later, I was almost done certification, and I got another raise. They had to lay me off after a year, but one of the two clients I did work for offered me a position, paying 5k Euro more- I wouldn't have been on the client projects if it weren't for the fact that I was certified.

I'm now self-employed, and when I sent out resumes, the certification helps me get an interview (I don't have a degree). It might prove I can jump through hoops, but it also proves I at least know my API.

Any HR person that relies on certs alone is an idiot. Disregarding them entirely would be stupid. But if you are on the other side of things, certifications can be damned useful :)

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh... the problem is that the IT word is generally made up of two camps of people:

Those that can learn on their own

And those that must be trained and tested.

You, unfortunately, fall into the later, and THAT is whats wrong with certifications. As you yourself articulated, the hardest interview you ever had was what those in the former category would consider the EASIEST. If you truly are an IT person, you don't need some silly piece of paper to prove your skill - you can simply convey it by talking about yourself, and showing that you learn on your OWN. If you are another of these papermill creations, that has to be sent through training to learn your IT skills you are of NO USE. The market and technology changes too fast to accomodate people with certs that need to be trained, and that is what the author of the article was really dancing around.

We live in a time when its not enough just be someone that can be taught how to run a Cisco box, how to configure a sun or install patches on a Windows box - you have to be someone that learns extremely fast and enjoys the process of change. Ergo, the interview that you dredded, show me your home network, is possibly the best way to know if someone is truly qualified for any IT position. No certification on earth can prove that someone has genuine raw talent and enthusiasm for their work. At its best, it just shows you can take a test. Whoopie. Show me what you can DO and how well you do it.

Certifications are a joke. As the old saying goes, what do you call a doctor that graduated from the worst medical school on earth at the bottom of his class?

Doctor.

Would you want that highly certified doctor working on you if you had a choice?

as a someone on both sides...

[ecalkin]

I have several certifications and I am (was) a certified trainer for Novell and Microsoft.

The key to usefull people is experience and certification. There were two things I saw with self-taught technical people:
first, there were gaps in their knowledge that came from being able to do things without understanding exactly what they're doing or the underlying technology. I did this to myself when i first hooked up two windows nt machines together and wondered why they didn't see each other. They would be properly setup but i couldn't browse to the other. i would get disgusted and go get something to eat (or do *something* else). when i would get back, presto, it worked! later when i was reading the microsoft courseware I came to understand the timing of the Browswer server and how it worked. So *training* helps fill in the gaps of knowledge. *testing* demonstrates that you have been paying attention at least a little. and *certification* demonstratates persistance.
The second thing that I noticed was that self taught people could not see their lack of knowledge. If there was one thing that I started out all classes with it was this: I can teach you what's in this book, but the most important thing to learn is where this book takes you after the last page. I could tell pretty early who my good students were because they took what was handed to them and pursued it farther.

I have passed about 70 of these test (most needed to teach a class), and have sat a large number of classes as a student. One of the things that I am proud to say is that there were very few useless classes (or test) that I studied for. There have been an amazing number of times where little details in a novell, microsoft, or cisco course have helped me fill in the blanks to solve a problem.

eric

Its for they do not know

[dilvish_the_damned]

Certifications are no longer a shield that the HR department may hide behind. No longer can they simply respond "she/he had the certifications" when an employee has proven themselves to be less than adequate. Your employment prospectives will follow suit if relying on such a mechanism. Proven worth will make you desireable and indispensable.
But then again, its never bad to have some paper behind you if your trying to break into the industry you desire.
Also worth noting is that I am biased. Veiw this comment as non-factual and opinionated. Also, all systems level hirees go through me at my orginization.

When I must interview a prospective person, I will ask them questions that they have no hope of answering. I am interested in their learned tactics for figuring out the answer.
all of this for the problems you will face in everyday life will rarely be textbook.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[dsrtegl]

Coming from a military background (no college), it was hard at first to enter the civilian workplace in a tech field. Even with 8 years of experience working on some of the most advanced systems out there, -SOME- HR folks have a hard time looking at you without a formal education. Some of my experience can't even be put on a CV because of their classified nature. So, what do you do?

I took a crappy first-level phone support job and began taking cert exams. Lots of them. I passed all the NT4 MCSE exams in 2 months (while working, no classes) and then started on Cisco and Compaq ASE.

They served to get my foot in the door for the interviews until my resume filled out a little more. Once you're in there, they don't mean diddly. Only good communication skills and experience will get you the job offer. I think they are sometimes more important than any degree or cert you can put on your resume. After all these years I've still never been to an interview where they didn't offer me a position.

Now that I have 3 director-level posistions on my CV, and am running my own company, they're less important. I've let most of them expire simply because it's not worth the time invested to keep taking exams to prove that I haven't forgotten every thing that I know. When asked I simply say "I am or have previously been certified in "Blah Blah" and that's usually sufficient.

And for all of you who are in my position, having good skills and experience, but no sheepskin - I explain it this way:

I graduated high school in 1988. If I had gone to university and attained a bachelor's in CS, I would've graduated in 1992. State of the art technology in 1992 is largely irrelevant today, and the only thing that would have been proven by that degree is that I could finish what I started.

Most PHB's who have heard that have agreed and I have even been told that having the confidence to say that was one of the factors that lead to the offer.

Just my $0.02.

It *is* a little crazy...

[XeRXeS-TCN]

...how people lay down such importance on qualifications. Some of the most skilled and technically minded people I have met have had no university level qualifications, or at the very least none in the IT field. Yes, it's nice to be qualified in certain aspects of a field, and it looks good on paper, but where does it really get you? I mean, I'm sure MCSEs have been hired for administering Unix systems before, just for having some generic IT qualifications...

If you read any books like "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution", or "Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government - Saving Privacy in the Digital Age" by Steven Levy, you tend to see that *many* of the real pioneers of computing (and cryptography) were either people who didn't care too much about their actual studies and dropped out of university, or never went there to study in the first place. It's not to say that you don't *need* higher level education, but that example tends to imply that in many cases, people can get on just fine without it.

Easy guide to certification and employment

[WoodstockJeff]

If an applicant shows you his/her certifications first, move on to the next person. If you have to ASK them what certifications they've received, move them to the top of the list, because they're not relying upon their alphabet soup to get them hired!

A hiring manager's perspective...

[denmon]

As the IT Director for a software startup in Pittsburgh in 2000-2001 I had the opportunity to review several hundred resumes for about 10 IT positions. Initially I had a positive view of mainstream certs like A+ and MCP/MCSE. After dozens of interviews it became clear that on average, those who touted their certs the most actually knew the least.

I was amazed that candidates with networking-related certs couldn't adequately answer basic questions like the difference between shared and switched Ethernet, or the purpose of a subnet mask. Eventually it got to the point that I was less likely to consider a resume that had certs listed prominently compared to a resume that had no certs at all.

There are two attributes that I found were most likely to result in a successful, productive hire:

• Good interpersonal skills. Sounds trite, I know, by in my view IT is a customer service position. You should enjoy helping people, not get riled easily, and be able to talk to them on their technical level without being condescending. Candidates with successful experience in front-line retail sales (department stores, automotive shops, etc) often downplayed this element of their work history, but I found it to be a positive indicator of a "customer service" mindset.

• Self-motivated technical experience. Many people find it hard to break into the IT industry; that's fine - what did you do in the meantime? Build a home network? Put together a PC from components? Try other operating systems? Do volunteer IT work for schools, libraries, churches, friends & family? Great. Write some software of your own, esp. OSS? Even better! I found that the candidates who explored and learned new technologies just because they thought it was cool made the most capable employees when it came to integrating diverse systems and solving odd problems.

So are certs a waste of time? Not necessarily. My perspective is specific to a startup environment, where everyone needs to be able to do a lot of different things. Large companies often use certs as a filter, though, and if you don't have them you might not even get in the door.

Plastering your certification logos across the top of your resume is unlikely to impress anyone who is competent technically. You can still mention them, but make sure to have plenty of evidence of actual doing in addition, even if it's not formal job experience.

Re:"Quickly Changing Field of IT", My Fat, Hairy A

[winwar]

Actually, I think most certifications are considered worthless because many people who get them memorize information to pass tests (they don't have to get it off the internet-they can use the test materials). I imagine few people fall into this category:

"Someone who's learned what's really supposed to be taught by the certification process is invaluable."

Hell, I know more than a few college grads that have difficulty thinking and learning. Why should people with certs be any different.

A cert that is based on regurgitation of information is fundamentally worthless. It measures the fact that you spent X amount of time and Y amount of money, no more. People who rely primarily on this information for hiring decisions are idiots. Of course, you might have to actually LOOK at all of the resumes you get. OH THE HORRORS. In the end, you have to actually INTERVIEW people to find out if they are qualified. OH MY GOD, THAT MIGHT TAKE DAYS, I mean we are only hiring a person that can screw up our company and paying them a lot of money. But if there is no penalty for hiring bad employees (but he had a lot of certs, education, etc.-it's all CYA for bad managers) it won't change....

True Story

[Obiwan Kenobi]

I got a job as a 'Computer Operator' at a small community bank. During that time, I did all kinds of stuff. This includes, but isn't limited to, setting up an entire Ethernet network (they were beginning migration from some sort of serial/token ring thing when I joined), along with working in operations, printing statements/checks, doing wire transfers, mopping floors, couriering, etc.

I applied for a Network Administrator position at a very large credit union. I have no certifications, only years of experience (of course long before small community bank I was messing with DOS/Win/Linux/etc).

Long story short: I got the job against 150 applicants. Why?

Why did I beat out so many of the finalists, most of whom did have certifications?

Well, the answer's obvious, isn't it? Experience beats a piece of paper every day of the week.

I'm not saying that certs are worthless, but experience weighs more on the decision, and is taken into consideration a bit more, than certs.

I feel very fortunate to have the job I do. I suffered for four and a half years as the bank lackey, and it paid off.

Re:Transaction cost

[cecil36]

This might help you in your search, but put under your education and certifications section "XXXX Pending". On some of my resumes, I listed "Microsoft and Cisco certifications pending", because I have the training and the background required to sit the exams (classroom training for Cisco and working experience along with self-study materials for MCSA/MCSE), but when asked about it in an interview, I state that my present financial situation dictates that any money coming in go towards keeping gas in my car, a roof over my head, and food in my belly. Employers should be understanding of this.

I would also recommend stashing at least 10% of your pay into a slush fund to fall back on after you move. Some employers won't consider a candidate outside the commuting area because they may want a relocation package as part of the job offer.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[websensei]

you hit the nail on the head, brother.

pretty crazy. The only hard seeming part was it actually had questions on what options were shown in this particular pane of the Wizard in this particular situation. Why the hell do I care? I can read it when I come to it.

this sums up the whole discussion, as far as I'm concerned.

personal anecdote: I majored in cognitive psychology because it interested me at the time. I worked as a paralegal then taught English in Prague. after travelling, loafing and eventually running out of money, I took a job as a "web developer" with no formal training whatsoever. in the ensuing 8 years I've taught myself html, javascript, css, xml, java, sql, jstl/el, become an expert in configuring apache (mod_rewrite in particular), struts, tiles, the http protocol, content management systems, release engineering and software configuration management... etc.
In this 8-year career so far I've never been out of a job, I've earned a healthy paycheck, I've done extra well-paying consulting work on the side, had as many as 8 people reporting to me in a technical managment role, carved out my own career path and currently work from home as many hours/days per week as I like (I find 1/2-time is the right balance for me). On the whole I've been very happy with my career and my choices. And this is without a technical degree, without a certificate of any sort. I read, I do, I learn.

When I interview candidates I often ask them to solve technical problems for me on the spot, or to tell me their thoughts on web standards, or simply to defend their choice of browser. One thing I *never* do is ask about certification.

granted this is a rambling anecdote, and there may be certain cases where a cert. helps open the door... but not in my experience.

ok enough.
g'night all.

Certs aren't t worth the paper

[George Worley]

Certs aren't worth the paper they are printed on. A few years back I was working in a Novell 3.11 and 3.12 IT department. There was 3 of us and none of us had a CNE so the owner of the business decided that it was time to hire a CNE instead of sending one of us to "school" for CNE. One was hired. And, I kept going behind him and correcting errors. I got tired of this so one day I saw a major mistake in the config file. So I decided that I would take a long weekend -- the company owed me several weeks of comp-time -- and left my pager on my desk and left town. I was back in 4 days and the server was down for 3 of the 4 days. I knew what the issue was but took about 20 minutes (I could have fixed in about 5 but I didn't want anybody to know that I knew that there was an issue with the server before I left town.) The owner determined that having a CNE wasn't such a good idea after. All a cert means is someone took the time to spend allot of money on classes without any real world experience. No piece paper can replace actual hands on experience or OJT. There are book smarts and then there are those who have the natural ability to make the computer do what we want it to do. If I was hiring an IT professional, I would take someone with 20 years of experience without certs before I would take some with less then a year of experience with all of the certs.

Re:Certs aren't t worth the paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this really speak to the certs? I think it speaks more toward the attitude. "I know something big will happen, so instead of POINTING IT OUT to him and HELPING HIM GAIN EXPERIENCE, I'd rather let him fall on his ass because he only got this job because he has a cert". Did you *try* to help this guy to get into the groove, or did you just fix it?

I mean, he might have been unqualified, and he might just have been a moron who memorized some test questions, but as you so eloquently put, experience counts for much more. But how do you gain experience if the people in the company won't help you out?

Re:Certs aren't t worth the paper

[Idarubicin]

The owner determined that having a CNE wasn't such a good idea after.

And I sincerely hope that after firing the CNE, the owner also fired your sorry ass.

You were miffed that they hired someone with paper qualifications and no experience, so you decided on your own initiative:

to quietly fix errors made by the new guy, rather than talking to him and helping him gain that vaunted experience you're so proud of,

to not talk to your manager/the owner about the problems the new guy was having/causing,

that the company should suffer several days of server downtime because you didn't like their hiring decision.

Did I miss anything? Incidentally, I note that the other two guys in your IT department couldn't fix the server while you were gone. Maybe management had the right idea, trying to hire someone with qualifications--what if their resident expert was unavailable over a long weekend, eh?

Hypothetical question to hiring managers: would you prefer an employee who makes honest mistakes, or one that will let the network go down for several days out of spite? (The correct answer is c: Go back to the resume pile and find someone else.)

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[andy55]

As the old saying goes, what do you call a doctor that graduated from the worst medical school on earth at the bottom of his class?

Doctor.


There is also another saying... If the bare minimum wasn't the bare minimum, then it wouldn't be the bare minimum.

Would an employer rather have a network ace than a trained guy for the same price? Absolutely--of course he would. Would that same employer keep a trained guy on the payroll that returns his worth in pay? Again, absolutely--your assumption is that every employer has unrestricted access to a bunch of talented net geeks.

I'm not saying I'm disagreeing w/ all of your post, but to say that all certs is a "joke" is a gross overstatement.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[Pig Hogger]

You, unfortunately, fall into the later, and THAT is whats wrong with certifications. As you yourself articulated, the hardest interview you ever had was what those in the former category would consider the EASIEST. If you truly are an IT person, you don't need some silly piece of paper to prove your skill - you can simply convey it by talking about yourself, and showing that you learn on your OWN.

How sweet, cute and naive. This is all fine, but when the guy who calls the shots (he who calls the candidates for interview) is stupid enough to only looks at the letters after your name, you're toast if you ain't got'em.

This, my friend, is life.

My Situation...

[burns210]

I am about to enter college to study computer networking, and am wondering how slashdotters that are in-the-know, think of my plan/situation:

I have just recently graduated highschool(this month), and have finished 1/2 of the CCNA(v. 3.xx), I have 2 internships, 1 a 9-month(school year) desktop support intership troubleshooter high school staffer machines, printers, etc. The other, a 3 month(june-august) that I am currently in, is a networking intership with the school district's VERY competant Tech department, including cable management stuff, Avaya switch and layer 3 config at the Avaya CLI, etc..

For college, I plan on going to the comm. college's network degree that offers a CCNA, CCNP, Cisco WLAN and Cisco Security(yes, an associates that is based on Cisco classes, i know). I will be eligable to take all those tests, with reasonable assurance of passing.

So I will be a Networker, with about 1 years experience, with as high as a CCNP, and some limited but hands-on experience with Avaya equipment, as well. If I want, in the next 2 years(as I attend the community college's program) to get myself to be 'more attractive' to a potential emploter for being a networkin admin, or similar, what should i focus on? Part-time intership, passing the cert tests, getting non-networking certs as well(A+ and Net+ would not, I am told, be difficult for my knowledge, though studying would be required)?

Any suggestions on what you would want me to do in the next 2 years, so that I would be more valuable to a future employer?

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[Mattsson]

For your standpoint to be true, the people that do the interview has to have at /least/ the same level of knowledge in the field as you do.
In allmost all the interviews I've been called to or been assisting at, the one who actually decides doesn't have this knowledge. It's not his area of proffession, so he doesn't need it.
So he looks at the persons certificates and see that this person *should* have the required knowledge, talks to him/her to see if he/she has had any previous experience, etc, and to see if he/she fit into the corporate culture. If the position requires knowledge in, say, compaq fibrechannel solutions, a person who isn't a certified compaq fibrechannel technician isn't even called to an interview.

So, no, a certification doesn't show your knowledge, but it is essential it you want a qualified work.

Even if you're the worlds best surgion, you won't do one damnded operation, legally, if you haven't got an exam.

I work in training and technical education

[Anonymous Coward]

However I worked for 14 years in the industry and didn't get a single certification until I started working in technical education a year and a half ago.

I now hold LPIC-1, CNA6, and CDE certifications.

Based on my experience before and after having certification, I have to agree with the large numbers of posts here I've read that say essentially that certification in and of itself is pretty meaningless unless the test actually requires practical knowledge. I consider my CDE to be the most significant certification (even though it's discontinued) because it required that I actually sit down and fix a broken system.

The problem with certification, as I see it, is largely an economic problem.

In order for companies to make money certifying people to perform a particular task, the tests have to be easy enough to encourage large numbers of people to try to attain the certification.

This is all well and good in the scope of the certification business.

But for those who have received the certification, the certification holds more value if there are fewer people certified.

Look at the valued certifications - CCIE, CISSP, and yes, the CDE as well (there's only about 1,000 in the world and won't be any more because Novell killed that program off). These certs have very specific value because (a) they are relatively difficult to attain, (b) few people take the tests because the tests are actually *difficult*, and (c) you actually have to know something about the subject in order to even think of taking the test.

I used to work with a CNE who blew smoke out his ass on a regular basis - it was really embarrassing, because anyone with any sort of technical background knew that he didn't have a clue what he was talking about, but he could present his ideas in a way that sounded convincing to the uninitiated.

I also worked with another CNE who had no clue how to even make a bootable diskette. Used to be that you couldn't get the certification without that fairly basic piece of knowledge.

My advice to anyone looking to get into the IT industry is this:

1. Learn to write code. If you understand how software works, then you can *really* excel in this business - because when the system breaks (and it always will at some point), you'll have the skills to understand what's actually going on inside the machine and stand a much better chance of being able to figure it out.

2. Learn to troubleshoot a problem. Programming helps with this, but if you cannot effectively troubleshoot a problem, you're going to be pretty useless in the IT business. This means being able to look at a problem and dissect it logically, break it down into component parts. From a programming standpoint (should you choose this path), this means understanding how to debug code properly - displaying and following variable values through the flow of the program, using breakpoints, and other such techniques. It amazes me how many would-be programmers don't even think to print the value of variables at various points in the program - they're SO damned focussed on the end result that they don't think they can vary the output of their program during the development process.

3. Learn something about electronics. Computers are electronic devices, so learn something about electronics at a basic level. For one thing, this will help you with troubleshooting software because most electronics classes have you troubleshooting electronic circuits.

4. NEVER EVER ASSUME YOU KNOW EVERYTHING!!! You don't - and can't - know everything about a technology. There is ALWAYS room to learn more. That's one of the things I love about working with technology. Those who claim to know everything are either deluded or lying - and it really makes it difficult for those of us who DO actually know an awful lot about a particular technology.

No certification here!

[rice_burners_suck]

A couple of years ago, I tried to get a job at one small company, where I was supposed to be the sysadmin, help desk, programmer, purchaser, webmaster, etc. Basically, I would be responsible for all of their computer needs. These are all things that I know how to do, more or less, and whatever I don't know at any given moment, I'm good at figuring out when I need it.

Anyway, when I showed up for my interview, the boss, who is a sort of layman nerd, the kind who reads Wired magazine and thinks he knows everything about computers, but who has about 150 adware and spyware programs on his Windows box that runs slow as molasses, that all he uses it for is checking his Hotmail account, asked me what certifications I had. Well, I had none, and that's what I told him. I think the interview ended abruptly at that point. I didn't get the job.

But the story gets better. As it turns out, I am a half-distant friend of this one guy who works there, and about six months later, after they hired someone with about 50 certifications, my friend told me that this guy doesn't know jack about schitt. They have so many problems there, it's not even funny. And it's stupid, obvious stuff. I mean, come on! I know I could have done a much better job there. Even another friend of mine, a machinist who doesn't give a rat's ass about computers, set up a complete network inside his company, where every job is referenced to a database that he set up. Hell, this guy knows so little about computers, he doesn't even know his administrator password to modify the database, so it's been the same way for years and years... but it gets the job done. No certification, no knowledge of anything... Sure, if it were hooked up to the Internet, he'd probably have the whole system h4x0r3d up faster than he could say Jack Robinson, but he knows that he doesn't know jack, so he has a single "Great Quality" PC hooked up to the dial-up for emailing customers. If he could do all that without knowing schitt about jack, imagine what I could do for the company that wouldn't hire me because I didn't have all kinds of glossy certifications from fancy companies.

Oh, the end of my story is that I finally got a job at another small business, actually an indirect competitor of the first company--same general business, but different market segment. When I got there they had 3 computers, and 1 printer. When someone needed to print, they'd wheel the printer over (it was on a cart), hook it up to the computer, and print. If all three needed to print at the same time, you had two people standing around waiting for a 50 page piece of crap the other person was printing to finish... What a waste of time! Now, they have 24 computers, including 4 servers, with a nice company network, a professional website, everything stored in databases, automated backup, and I'm continuously working on ways to make the most of our computational resources to better serve our customers, our sales team, and the employees inside the company. Still no certification though.

Use Certifications?

[freeze128]

I keep my A+ certification card in my wallet. Sometimes when I visit a user's desk, I hold my wallet up next to my face, exposing the card, and say in an Agent Mulder deadpan voice "A+ certified technican. I'd like to ask you a few questions about your operating system."

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[dbirchall]

The biggest problem with MCSE, as far as I can see, is the way it's structured - two MCSEs might have no common knowledge whatsoever except the basics of installing Windows and setting up a network.

Last time I checked, there were 2 required tests within the MCSE, then you had to take a couple tests from a menu of several, and then a couple from an even larger menu.

This leads to freshly-stamped MCSE's knowing Exchange or SQL Server or security or IIS, and so on. Need someone who knows Exchange inside out? An MCSE might be your person -- or might be utterly useless.

UNIX admins, by comparison, are generally expected to have a reasonable amount of proficiency in all areas and uses of the system, usually with particular strength in one or two.

("You're a UNIX admin? You're the bad guys, you keep things running." - An MCSE to me on our way out of a consulting firm where we'd both been interviewing.)

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[ballwall]

MCSE:Security... I was trying to come up with a punch line for that, but it pretty much holds its own.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[hazem]

Fortune 500 companies are run like you say, full of HR staff who can't tell a valid candidate from their ass, so they latch onto some kind of meaningless benchmark like a piece of paper which, in all reality, means that individual spent a crapload of money to get that piece of paper. In other words, they're hiring out of the good ol' boy network. New money, old money, you're hiring the upper crust.

This isn't the complete picture. I have a friend who works in HR at a very large corporation. I commented on their "scoring" system that weeds out a lot of people simply based on experience-based questions for each position (ie. "do you have a bachelors in ____, do you have experience with SAP"). I told her a lot of very good people probably won't score in the top 10% that they actually look at.

She said that of course, N*ke wants the very best person for the job. But each position may have a between 100 and 1000 applicants. Even if they simply cut the bottom 90% based on their score, they feel reasonably certain that they'll still get someone who be able to do the job very well... even if the best person was in that 90% they didn't consider.

It's kind of the like the decision-making problem of "value of perfect information". When making a decision, you try to evaluate "what would the outcome be if we had 'perfect information' that would give us the absolute best outcome". You then figure that you'll have a certain probability of a "good outcome" and determine the cost for that. The difference in return between your reasonably assured "good outcome" and the "very best" outcome is the most you should be willing to pay for better information.

In the case of hiring, you could get near-perfect information by individually interviewing all 1000 applicants. But that would cost quite a bit more than interviewing only the top 10%. If you interview the entire field, what are the chances that someone not in that top 10% will bring enough value to the company to compensate for the much higher costs from interviewing more people?

It's a gamble, and a successful company finds the right balance.

You were lucky

[msobkow]

Many companies won't consider candidates without certs, even though they know they get certified deadwood more often than they get talent.

I have met a grand total of two MCSE's in almost 5 years who had any skills whatsoever. Both of them were good before they took the certs -- the certs were just so they could get their foot in the door for contracts.

I have never asked anyone about their certs in an interview. I have never hired anyone who thought their certs should impress me, nor recommended that anyone be hired on basis of their certs.

In fact, I specifically prefer to recommend those who've bootstrapped their skills by learning on their own. They'll be far better able to deal with learning the business environment than someone who can memorize the right answers for a cert, but who has never learned how to think about the use of technology.

Re:You were lucky

[antirename]

I hear you. I just interviewed a guy who listed Perl, PHP, and Python on his interview. None of those would be needed in the job (mechanical engineering) but I know Georgia Tech doesn't teach Perl either. That means he taught himself, or taught himself with the help of Google and some buddies. The inclination to learn, without someone holding your hand, is priceless. Especially in engineering. We gave him an offer, I hope he takes the job.

Of course they're meaningless

[dtfinch]

At least for any long term career. Contractors will probably need them because they often work short jobs with companies who don't know them well enough and can't wait for them to learn something. But for everyone else, certifications are absolutely, positively, meaningless.

Certifications are narrow, and rarely test genuine problem solving skills. They're a marketting tool more than anything else. They sell you the study guide, the test, and once you've invested so much into getting the certification you've just gotta recommend their products in the workplace, otherwise, why did you just go through all that work of getting certified?

The most important skills are a lot more general than any piece of software you apply them to, and can't be easily verified with a certification. If you can learn on demand, quickly, solve any problem, and have a working understand of good design practices, that's more important than proving you know how to use a piece of software.

But what do I know? I have no certifications. Never needed or wanted one.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

In one aspect, we can all thank Microsoft for this one with their MCSE mills which turned out a bunch of talentless mouse jockeys. Mind you, not ALL are talentless...but a lot I knew from the boom were.

I have a cheap, 5 dollar low end SCSI card here that proves your point.

I have a friend who spent 2 years at Computer Education Institute. or CEI for short. After graduation, she decided to build a server to put her knowledge to use. After going to the 2nd hand parts store(Gotta love Computer Renaissance(sp?)!), she came back with a mobo, RAM , videocard, low end scsi card and a few IDE drives. I mention to her, "What's with the SCSI card?" "That's an ATA controller." "No, too many pins. 10 to be exact. Plus there's the SCSI logo printed on the board. Plus the phrase, "SCSI Active Termination" is also printed on the board." "Oh. Oops." I then asked, "Wait, server? What's with the video card?" Her and her roomate gave me a blank stare before asking, "How else are you going to get video?" I reply with, "Telnet?" "What's that?"

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[junklight]

Not always - I hire people who can do the job. I avoid certification like the plague (for the reasons mentioned above) and I recently have started being very wary about recent university graduates (in the uk) because they now seem trained to get jobs rather than do them.

I am about to be part of the procurement of a big outsourced project - and you can bet your bottom dollar that it will go to a company that has the (demonstrable) skills and not those with the best sales guys/credentials/BS

What the fuck?!

[Inoshiro]

"If I had gone to university and attained a bachelor's in CS, I would've graduated in 1992. State of the art technology in 1992 is largely irrelevant today, and the only thing that would have been proven by that degree is that I could finish what I started."

Yea, because all those things like algorithms, O notation, principles of optimization, etc, have all changed completely and totally in the past 12 years!

Zing Perhaps you'd have a better appreciation of what you don't know if you took the time to learn about the depth of knowledge that exists in a CS course. Yes, some people can slack through, but there's a reason someone who goes to University will be paid more -- they also happen to know more.

Re:What the fuck?!

[dasmegabyte]

Yes! Yes! Algorithms, O notation and code optimization are *EXACTLY* what we want in a propsective network administrator! You're hired!

Actually, I am a programmer. None of these things is really all that important anymore -- not as important as getting the program churned out as quickly as possible. You don't write the hash algorithm, you call new Hashtable(). You don't worry about the Big O of operations, you just write them and then rewrite them when they get slow. I guarantee you, knowing how to track down a speedbump in a profiler is far more worthwhile a skill than being able to identify the PRINCIPLE behing a certain segment of code. These are the kind of things that seem so important in school...the things that the instructors get very serious about. And in the real world, they're recalled by veterans over beer as a waste of goddamn time.

In fact, I dropped out of the CS program early when I realized that everything I was learning I already knew, most of my time was spent writing bullshit lab write ups for other people and the stuff I didn't know could be looked up on the Internet and learned in roughly ten minutes. The SCIENCE of computers is laregely academic in the real world, and those parts that aren't academic are best learned on demand.

Where I Work...

[Trolling4Dollars]

...certs are likely to be a liability. When we interview a candidate, the things we look at are practical experience, apparent knowledge, attitude and the most important factor; passion. If the person has his own network at home, or maintains her own website with custom code, or got fed up with a commercial app and wrote their own replacement, then they are likely to get hired. Nine times out of ten, those folks don't have any certs.

Based on most of our interviews (not all), we've seen that the people with certs are probably the worst candidates. They are usually arrogant pricks who think they should run the department, or they are clueless dorks who can't find the on switch. One of our tests that we give a candidate is presenting them with a PC that has it's cover off. We ask the person to identify as many components as possible. Without fail, most (again, not all) of the people with certs do miserably on this part of the interview. They can't tell you what kinds of slots are on the motherboard, or what kind of ports are on the back of the system. They can't tell you what expansion cards (if any) are in the system, or even identify the CPU. Some of them even make the egregious mistake of calling the box itself a CPU. But the people without certs usually have a pretty good idea of what a PC is made of.

Where passion is concerned, we usually ask our candidates to tell us about their pet projects at home. It's rare, but occasionally we'll find someone who is just as into computers as we (managment) are. This one guy had fourteen servers at home, including one Sun SPARC box and a DEC Alpha box. When asked to name file systems for OSes, not only did he mention Unix file systems before Windows file systems, but he actually knew VMS' file system as well. Now THAT'S passion.

Attitude will get you far, if it's right for the job you're applying for. We look for people who know computers well, but are confident enough to keep quiet about it. Hotdogging will get you nowhere, except maybe a pink slip. Claiming that you know more than you do will make you look foolish. Keeping your nose to the grindstone will get you advancement. And IF you decide to go get a certification of some kind, we'll applaude that, but don't expect to be treated any differently. Arrogance is always an unpleasant trait and is the number one reason we DON'T hire, certification or not.

We had some idiot with a ton of Microsoft certifications come in. To begin with, he completely failed the PC test. He couldn't tell if the system had ISA or PCI slots. He only knew NTFS and FAT as file systems. He still had the attitude that he could "whip this place into shape" even after flunking the PC test! He only had certs and no practical experience. This is your typical candidate with certs, especially MS certs. Needless to say, he didn't get the job. I imagine he probably conned someone else into hiring him. More than likely for some "suit" position that pretends to be a technical position.

Which leads me to one of my last points: Where I work, EVERYONE (managment included) has to be able to operate our systems. This goes all the way from our department head to the lowest grunt on the totem pole. This includes, not just Windows servers, but OpenVMS servers, Cisco network devices, Sun servers, Tru64 servers, HP-UX servers and Linux servers. No one is exempt from crawling under a desk to troubleshoot a PC problem. We maintain a network of thousands of people, millions of users and millions of items to track in inventory with only three main admins and six technicians and we do it pretty well.

I'm not saying that certs are bad, per se. But if you are going out to interview, put them on the resume, but downplay their significance and emphasize the knowledge you acquired outside of your cert studies. If you didn't learn anything outside of cert classes or books and you don't play with this stuff in your spare time, consider looking in a different field. If your primary goal is to make lots

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

In the case of hiring, you could get near-perfect information by individually interviewing all 1000 applicants. But that would cost quite a bit more than interviewing only the top 10%. If you interview the entire field, what are the chances that someone not in that top 10% will bring enough value to the company to compensate for the much higher costs from interviewing more people?

I think there are two points to make here:

• The sort of tick-box filters used by incompetent HR departments to find the "top" 10% often do nothing of the sort. I've seen plenty of schemes that would weed out pretty much everybody I'd want to work with in favour of certification monkeys, for example.
• In a field like software development or system administration, someone in the (genuine) top 10% of the employee base really can be worth several times what an average worker is, if the work will benefit from their higher skill level.

Of course, it costs more to employ someone Really Good(TM), so that's quite a big if in the second point there.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

As usual ,simple question hiding complex answer

[elpapacito]

The question is : Are IT Certifications Meaningless ?

This is not a good question to being with, but the answer is no. For instance, if company X requires company Y to have somebody with certification Z and enter the contracts also because of presence of Z, then it's meaningful
in a business sense.

It doesn't matter that a bunch of other techies say that Z is 1.superficial 2.insufficient 3.barely relevant , even if they're "right" from a technical point of view. Remember that in the "logic" of profit, anything that brings in profit is meaningful.

Now, from a less profit-centered point of view, we could argue that a number of so called certified-persons obtained the certification with fraud , or by simply memorizing a number or recurrent question and answer : this is true for any certification, not necessarily only in the IT business.

The problem with such people becomes manifest when they're asked to do something out of the ordinary or when the problem involves variables that come from sets of variables outside the scope of their certifications. This is predictable and to some extent excusable, as nobody always knows how to handle any combination of variables.

So, who's supposed to do best in such instances ? In my experience, self-propelled "geeks" :-) fueled by a natural interest for "tinkering" and for technology in all its manifestations do better then "average" people ; for the simple reason they really really like their job, almost always want to learn and are willing to work overtime to solve a problem they find interesting.
In other words, they rrrrrealy are into their work and _not only for money_ even if they obviously ask for money.

Some company noticed that there is a shortage of such people (when the quantity is compared to demand) and attempted to "produce more" of them ; most of times the process of creation, according to such companies, involves memorizing a ton of variables and learn how to set such variables in a way that the "machines" works at the end of the day. Or at best, their students are asked to solve some well-know set of problems.

What they really are producing are not technicians, but (sometimes) well trained monkeys, but marketing always sell them as "specialized technicians". I do not mean monkey as a derogatory term, as they obviously are human and rationally expect to be treated like human beings , but they're trained exactly like I would train a monkey : monkey press ESC key at instance X, monkey set ten variables with 10 clicks. Monkey see, monkey do.

To a degree monkeys are welcome and useful, but they hardly are technicians. They most certainly are not "geeks" , they only share basic dna :-).In my experience, out of 100 monkeys one hardly finds 10 monkeys evolved into geeks, and many don't evolve at all.

Industry wants geeks, because they're flexible.As usually, industry doesn't want to pay proportionally for their skills, but now some industry pretends that geeks are formed en-masse and if possible totally at the expense of society (from public schools, as private are more expensive and usually less cost effective) as they understood many companies in the business of preparing geeks are only selling HOT AIR ; blame marketing, as usual, and blame companies that expect their own hot air not to promote the hiring of more hot air.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[codeonezero]

Well, my personal experience is that I started working at this PR company about 4 years ago doing basic drone work in data entry part time (I needed a job, and I dont like to lie on my resumes). I started off with basic stuff...I had some programming background since I'm pursuing a Computer Engineering major.

Shortly I realized they were quite behind in terms of tools they were using, always going about the long way of doing things.

There really wasnt an IT person on staff, except for the IT Consultant they hired to come in occassionally and take care of some problems.

After showing them how to use Access more effectively, and fixing a few problems in Access, I started getting trust from them to go in and start adding and updating stuff for convenience.

One such case was that before if they wanted to create a new list of contacts for a new event based on an older list, they would go in one by one and add them in...Imagine doing that for 1,000 people? That took a long time. Naturally I picked up SQL and Visual Basic, and all of a sudden what used to take a day or two, could be done in under a minute! :-)

We did end up having an IT person hired, but unfortunately the gentleman passed away, and shortly after I kind of got pushed to the front by the CFO. At the moment I dont have an official title, so I gave myself one.

So I do most of the more basic IT support and troubleshooting. If something like say the Exchange server get's borked, then we call in the IT Consultant. I dont presume to know everything, and when there's a problem I really can't fix, I admit to the CFO that's the case and the IT Consultant gets called in.

I dont have any sort of certifications, which may be seen as a bad thing. However, I do have tech experience which gives me an advantage and also I'm trusted by the company to fix something if I know how to.

The basic point here is that you may be able to get away without certifications at a smaller company, but you have to be trusted to not bork anything up.

There are examples of other people in the programming field of which David K. Every of MacKiDo and iGeek fame comes to mind. He doesnt have an official computer science or engineering degree (at least last time I checked), yet he's done contract work for big companies including (I think) Apple. As he put it once "And it's something I warn kids about; you can succeed without a degree, but it is a lot harder."

I would assume the same can be the case with IT certifications, though as David Every also said once "The irony is that while many companies will not hire employees without degrees, they will hire consultants without one."

I'm definitely finding both of these to be true to some degree :-)

cert / degree is the key it does not open the door

[oo_waratah]

I was at a conference this week and the comment was made that the students do not understand that the "degree/cert" is the key to the interview, their real knowledge got them the job. Do not forget that Open Source is a certification, how many commits have been accepted from you.

My Mum also told me that as a secretary she would filter the resumes her manager based on rules. Uni degree or 5 years of experience. The manager did not see your resume if you did not fit a 'tick list'. So have the appropriate experience or qualifications to get to the top of the resume pile or you will not get an interview.

Any qualifications will get you to the interview what you do once there opens the door. This was pretty much my story, I had a High Distinction in a single computing subject and no other qualification. I play with computers during high school, this was before the IBM PC was released. It took me about 8 years to get an 'official' programming job. I was configuring reports, doing operations management, loading tapes for a long time before my break came. So if you are at the beginning take the loan get the certifications. If you are not willing to bet on yourself why would anyone else do it.

I read up on the juniors that are "sure" their ability is worth a shot. They are "smarter" that a qualified person. To be sure there is the expectional case that this is true. Most homebrew people cannot cope outside reinstalling a simple computer. Depth on one type if computer does not equal breadth. Certification forces you to learn some of this breadth and opens eyes as to how much there is to actually learn. A failure breeds some humility.

I also read with joy the "qualified" person saying they would not trust an unqualified hack. I lack ANY formal qualifications. I do not have CCNA, I just taught it for a while. I am not a qualified programmer but I just finished a semester teaching 120 students. I really do believe that I am better qualified than most "papered" people out there. If you really want to excel at computer you must be willing to read and learn. You must be willing to struggle through some awful textbooks at times (I read a windows programming manual, took me 6 months! Bad was not an understatement). You must invest your personal time to learn, write Open Source software like OpenOffice.org (plug!)

So what does make the difference. Interview well, actually like the person you are talking too. If you think they are high paying idiots it is likely you will not perform and then you will loose the job. Like the job first and let the money come to you. It is a formula that has worked for me.

Experience is the best certification.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[JanneM]

Exactly. I would go even further, though. For a large organization, most positions require some level of competence - and competence over and beyond will be wasted to soem extent. A large organization is by necessity fairly bureaucratic and inflexible, and it won't really help all that much if you are doing a better/faster job than your job profile calls for.

So, what a large HR department wants to do is to find the people fulfilling the technical requirements, and then focus on how well the applicant will actually function in the corporate culture and together with the other members of his/her future department. This is much more important than relative technical skill beyond that necessary to do the job.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[geckofiend]

Funny, I've not gone without work for over 14 years. Nor have I have not been able to buy the latest toy I've wanted. I don't have a single cert. Hell I don't have a single degree. Certs and degrees mean "verifiably trainable" that's about it.

If the idiots doing the hiring are basing it on certs and not skills then you really don't want to work there. Who wants to work with a bunch of talentless hacks?

Picture IT

[wbhauck]

I'd rather see a picture of what tech books are on a candidate's bookshelf rather than any certification. If the only book there is a test prep for a certification, I don't want him. If it's loaded with coffee-stained and tattered OS, networking, programming language, database, and other types of technical tomes I'm interested. Especially if I see older and updated editions 'cause he cares enough to keep current.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[PastaLover]

You misread the original post. This person never stated that he had trouble taking that test. He specifically said the hardest test he had ever taken was <insert weird acronym here>.

This person even agreed with you when he said that that guy was "particularly brilliant". If you're going to work in the software world without even being able to read an interpret a <100 line slashdot post correctly, how do you expect that people will allow you to work in >100.000 lines of code programmes?

It all depends...

[gadget junkie]

on WHO is doing the hiring. BTW, it is also a good litmus test of an organisation's skill.

Consider this: be they big or small, companies who let dept. heads, instead of HR or else, do their own recruiting have, on average, more distributed responsibilities.
After all, it 's acceptable to think that this organizations are driven by results.

Now, people driven by results are less likely to be impressed by neat pieces of paper. they'll start to go into the technical questions earlier, rely more on interviews, do their own questionnaires, etc.

The fun part is, that goes both ways: by the level of the interview, you can get a feel for the company's level of skill and ability that you will not have if you are handled by HR.

So, if a company is staffed entirely by PHBs', it shows early on, and you can draw your own conclusion. I may be a difficult subject, but when I considered changing jobs, I had to have a final interview with the person responsible for my area of work (Finance). .....naturally, if I had to ask..... it was -1 on moderation results!!!!!

totally meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a medium-sized company and as such, have realized at least three times that certification is meaningless.

Our Netware admin who got certified in 1993 and never got recertified (back then Novell certs expired). All he does is use fancy terms to explain why the servers are screwed up - then reboots.

Since he doesn't know what he's doing, he got the ok to hire a consultant to set up Groupwise. The consultant had no clue, took him more than 5 days to figure out how to get connected to our ISP via ISDN PPP connection, then configured that server with a 192.16 IP (an IP belonging to lanl.gov) instead of a 192.168. Over 40 hours to misconfigure something - at (at the time) $95/hour. He was certified.

And the last example. We switched ISPs. Had to give our current router back to the ISP and get a new one. Sales staff was wooed by fancy buzzwords without conferring with me. So once the new router was delivered by the consultants, it took *4* people to try to configure it. They had no idea that Cisco routers don't come standard with a WIC. So they had to scrounge around town for one. Took them approximately 55 man hours after that to try to figure out how to configure the router for the new ISP. They left one night, left a note on my desk saying that it was ready to roll but "it may need some tweaking tomorrow." Needless to say they never plugged the router into the T1 jack so as such, never tested it. One of them was Cisco certified. The other three were along for no reason other to try to screw us with a higher bill. This order was placed 2 months prior so we wouldn't have any issues when our previous ISP's contract expired. The T1 was installed 2 weeks prior to them coming out. Because of their incompetence, installation was delayed, our ISP shut off service as expected and we were down for a week while they tried everything they could to figure out how to configure the router.

I don't claim to know much about Ciscos, but what it took them over 55 hours to not do, took a friend of mine 5 minutes to do correctly, once i plugged the router into the switch, had him SSH into a server I run, then telnet to the router.

I'm not a Cisco nerd. I'm not a Netware nerd. I don't run Windows. Yet I've seen that certifications don't mean squat.

Re:Not entirely useless...

[smallfeet]

Having Certs to get past the the first barrier in getting hired is one big issue.

Another is yearly performance reviews at a large company. I have been pressured to get a cert so that I would have a 'positive action' to report on my review. But then, oddly enough, there was an issue about the company reimbersing me if I tried to get in a cert in an area unrelated to my work.

I figured if I had to get a cert I might as well learn something new. The company was only willing to pay if they could use the cert in marketing me. Humm, so I guess that is really two other issues with certs; quick checks on reviews and companies selling consoltants.

Sometimes You Have To Get One

[FoeQueue]

I feel like I fall into the "can learn it camp". My boss walked up to me one day and said, "can you get your MCSD.NET and Java certs quickly?". The main reason, EXTERNAL contracts.

This issue goes beyond the internal hiring process and straight into the RFP process. I would hope that whatever the solution is enlightens the people who write the RFP as well (who are usually the same types of people who are HR drones).

I'll have to say one thing though, I have my MCSD.NET and Java Dev certs. For someone who falls into the likes to learn camp, I think the process was "ok". The exams were WAY too easy. All I found was that you are exposed to a broad set of technologies at a low to medium level of difficulty. One last plus: when in a technical interview, I now KNOW what they should know if they passed the exam. You should see the looks on thier faces...

MCSE

[outriding9800]

Hmm.. I will be. After all this time I thought MCSE stood for Must consult someone experienced

Not at all useless

[macemoneta]

Requirements for certifications can be used to filter out clueless employers .

If a company's management chain is so weak that they need to use certifications to determine employee skill, you can be sure that working there will be a bureaucratic nightmare.

random certificate thoughts

[brer_rabbit]

Mainly because I don't have a job now, I'm working towards certification in two areas. Before I get into that, my background includes a bachelor's in electrical engineering and 8 years of experience in the software industry. So I have a foundation to add the certificates too, as a job applicant I'm not trying to push the certs as my primary experience.

That said, I'm working towards certification in both C++ and UML. The former I have experience debugging, but I'm not (or rather, wasn't) comfortable designing with. The latter is to help with OO knowledge and design. The certificates are through the University of Washington, not some technical school of questionable reputation. The amount of work for these classes is on par with standard 3-5 credit engineering courses. I know Sally Struthers can't offer anything comporable, which is why I wouldn't settle for certification from a non-major university.

Do I believe the certs are *necessary* for me to get a job? No, if Seattle had a decent job market I could land a job pretty quick (I've gotten response from San Jose/Portland, I'm just not willing to relocate yet). But really I need some resume fodder to keep me looking busy, employers don't like long gaps of unactivity in a candidate.

On top of that, after being out of college for 8 years it's about time to go back and take some classes to brush up on technologies I didn't study in college. Note that I said classes, not certification. Really, their is no reason to get certification for everything and if only a single class is relevant to your discipline.

Summing it up, classes from major university == good. Certification is not necessarily required and may in fact be overkill. Certification is not a substitute for real experience/education.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[ThisIsFred]

Microsoft gets a lot of flak for the MCSE certs, but Novell's CNE program really started it as far as I am concerned. For years, a CNE meant a lot more money on your paychecks. Admittedly, the CNE was also a difficult certification to get compared to MCSE, but it was Novell and not Microsoft that set the ball rolling in the first place.

I've got an MCNE (took the stuff at a harder level because I thought I'd go CNI later), and I have to disagree here on two points. First, a CNE isn't supposed to be the equivalent of an MCSE. The MCSE is more like the Certificed Netware Administrator program. Well, it's more inbetween, because it covers client operating systems, which Novell does not produce (NDOS doesn't count). Either way, I got the distinct impression that the course material was unnecessarily drawn out in order to keep butts in seats to justify the price tag. In other words, it wasn't competitive use of my time.

This brings me to another point. I learned all the basics many years ago under the watchful eye of an experienced senior tech while on the job. I've since greatly expanded my knowledge through countless hours of reading (both dead tree an Internet) and hands-on experience during two subsequent jobs. I don't have an "A+" or "Net+"(?) certification because there was no such thing then. I definitely wouldn't have had the money for these programs then, and I don't have it now. Even if I did, I wouldn't waste it to pay for something I already know. How do I fit into this equation?

Here's another one to throw a wrench into the works: Since I'm the "boss" of my department, I receive resumes every once in a while. Now, my professional career in PC and network administration started 9 years ago, and that's all I've done in those 9 years. What am I supposed to think when I see someone's resume where they had 3 unrelated jobs, one technical job, and another unrelated job? Is someone who has uninterrupted experience in my field better than a career-hopper? I would have said "no" a few years back, but since then we've hired someone with a resume similar to what I've described, and she's been wonderful. Granted, she's not obsessive about it like me, but definitely worth more than my employer is paying her.

Re:word of advice from a hiring mgr

[Just Some Guy]

If I were said PHB, this quote would kill your job opportunity with me:

Somehow I mysteriously broke seijinohki's SMTP server while changing some security settings last night due to some strange MyDoom bounces I got. Joe and I have been on a day-long quest to fix it today, and, just as we're about to give up and nominate mizuno to be the new SMTP and POP3 server, it fixes itself as the Macho Man Randy Savage begins rapping.

Here it is, paraphrased as management would hear it:

I was screwing around with someone I didn't understand and things stopped working. We almost abandoned the project and scrapped the server, but something else happened that we didn't understand and it began working again.

That is the kind of thing that will keep you out of a server room forever. Feel free to keep your own blog, but make darn sure that noone can get there by Googling for the name you put on your resume.

Re:Not entirely useless... (Re:o but yes)

[GarryOwen]

As an ex-instructor at CEI, its all about leading a horse to water.
First of all, 2 years at CEI is a long time which means she was screwin something up to drag it out that long.
Second, I taught on average 20-30 students per class. Of that 10% were hard core into what they were doing, had the natural talent, and will probably succeed in IT. The next 20% had the natural talent, but didn't study hard and they might do well. The next 40% studied hard but didn't have the natural talent, they might suceed but it will be a hard road for them. The last 30% were waste, they were had no talent and didn't care about the courses.
If anything CEI is better than most comp. schools in that the classes are longer (18 class days per class) and not too focused on certs(though you will get encouraged to take some).

Now for the main benefit for alot of certs is that vendors(Cisco, MS, etc.) will give the company kickbacks and benefits.

Certs/Degrees: inconclusive evidence of ability

[curtlewis]

To me, the only thing having a cert says is the person had too much money to waste on a 6wk class. It does indicate they have some knowledge of basic and intermediate features and concepts, but with those types of rush em thru classes, how much do they really retain a year down the road?

It's really the intelligence level of the person that matters. I've seen people with certs up the wazoo that can barely add a user to a unix system. I've argued with a Director of IT (and his subordinate manager) that collisions were not propagating all over our net because they stop at the switch port... by definition. I've seen people with college degrees from impressive and not so impressive schools that barely know what they're doing. I've seen people with no more than a high school degree that know their stuff inside and out. And I've also seen degree'd people that really know their stuff as well as a high school grad that didn't know much.

A slip of paper with a stamp of approval means nothing. And it really tells a prospective employer nothign other than you took a course. It doesn't tell you if they learned anything or can apply any of that to the REAL world.

I can tell you this. If I interview several people and all do reasonably well and their experience level is: lots of certs, college degree, college and certs, no certs or degree, but 4 years experience in the industry, that I'm going to most likely hire the last one.

Nothing beats real world experience. Of course, that's not to say i couldn't make the wrong decision. The 4yr exp. guy could have got a gig thru nepotism and skated for 4 years, but hopefully the interview would have weeded him out if that was the case.

Re:in a word....

[east coast]

A few years ago we hired a PC/Network Tech. Any resume with an MCSE on it went straight to the round file.

Thank God for them... I'd not want to work for a company that is too arrogent to realize that not everyone out there with talent can afford long hours and college tuitions while trying to support themselves with a full time job.

Certs aren't great but to blacklist anyone with one is a sign that your company isn't serious about the best employee but rather about touting that your staff is only made of college graduates.

Being a non college graduate myself I can tell you that these kids with their degrees have nothing on a few years of experience, certs or no certs.

Are Certs worthless?

[fudgefactor7]

Actually, no.

They prove that you can:

(1) Look stuff up; and,
(2) Remember that stuff long enough to take an exam.

It's experience that's really valuable, but a cert has it's place. Plus it gets your foot in the door. It also can be used to confuse the clueless boss (or potential boss) as some companies follow the insane process of having the CIO and the CFO (who is almost always a CPA) be the same person. That's a true disaster, folks, I know...it's what I have to deal with daily.

MCP, A+, Net+ -- and I'm not upset I spent the time and money on them, but I'm also smart enough to not lord it over people either.

How technical HR should work, IMHO

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

if there are 900 applications in the pile, and you have to pare down the list almost immeadiately to a more manageable fifty candidates or so, how do you make the cut?

If you want 50 out of 900, you probably just pick all the comprehensible and not obviously lying CVs you've got, and you're done. :-)

But seriously... Of course you have to filter, but HR drones who do it with tick-boxes and don't know what the job actually involves are the worst kind of counterproductive. In particular, they frequently fail to understand the relationships between different-sounding skills in IT, and consequently can't gauge how well an applicant's skill set really matches up to the requirements of the job (assuming they even understand the latter).

Basically, HR tend to look for all the direct matches, but you'll be very lucky to find a perfect match for both the technical skills and the context you'll use them in. Usually the difficult -- but more important -- part is looking at the supporting skills. Has this person used the right technical skills in other contexts (and if so, how close are those contexts to yours)? Have they used related technical skills in the right context, so they have experience of that problem domain and its quirks? What is their breadth of related skills overall; how adaptable is this candidate in practice?

To give a concrete example, suppose you need an intermediate-level programmer for a particular development project, which is written in Java. Most HR people I've encountered will look at a CV, look for experience using Java, and just bin those with the fewest years of experience or something equally black and white. A significant number would fail to appreciate that any J2SE or J2EE mentioned on the CV is Java work, and give it no credit at all.

Now, someone who understood would be looking for what parts of Java were used. There's a world of difference between writing end-user apps with Swing and writing back-end J2EE code! They'd be looking for whether the previous uses had been in related contexts or not, and they'd be looking for general experience with things like OO programming languages, distributed systems, use of Java-related tools or other programming languages with similar characteristics, etc.

Of course, as well as technical skills, you're also looking for any useful soft skills: is this candidate used to working in a large/small team; do they have any management/leadership experience that might be relevant to this position; do they have "customer-facing" experience? Often these will be far more important distinctions between similarly technically qualified candidates than an extra year using this or that specific tool.

The thing that always gets me is that a lot of HR people claim this is all too difficult to do in practice, and with 900 candidates you have to shortlist before you can look at this level of detail. What I don't understand is what value the HR people add at all, if they're just going to run the CVs through an automated system without giving them even a minute of informed personal attention each to get the right people on the shortlist. You pay your HR people to facilitate getting the right people into your organisation. Giving each potential candidate that minute or two during shortlisting, so the more technically knowledgable people can then interview the best directly, is exactly what a good HR department is for.

My boss had a good test for me

[JThundley]

When my present boss considered hiring me at his PC-repari (Windows) shop, he read through my resume (Mostly Linux stuff ;) and said "Here's a new computer for a customer, build it." I did and have been working happily there for 3 months.