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What's the Point of IT Certifications?
erica_ann asks: "Fact: You can have the knowledge without having to pay to be Certified when it
comes to computers. Another fact: Just because you have the certification does not mean you actually
know the material as well as someone who is not certified. You might just be good at taking tests.
So what is the point of getting IT Certifications? To have a piece of paper?"
"I have had this conversation with many friends and co workers. One thing I like
out of all the conversations is getting more than just one point of view. I know
my standpoint on it. I
rambled on it for quite a while. But, what I would like to ask of everyone on Slashdot, is what is your opinion? Do you have certifications? Was it worth getting certified? How do employers, employees and management feel about them? Do you pay for them? Does the company pay for them? Is it worth being certified if you do not get a pay raise for it? What certifications bring more
than others? Are specialized more employable than general certifications?
I think many people would benefit from hearing more than one side of the controversy. Maybe it will encourage more employers to reward for certifications. Maybe it will help the next person attain the career he or she wants. Is there such thing as being TOO certified for a job?
Or is the whole idea of getting alphabet soup behind your name just certifiably insane?"
I think many people would benefit from hearing more than one side of the controversy. Maybe it will encourage more employers to reward for certifications. Maybe it will help the next person attain the career he or she wants. Is there such thing as being TOO certified for a job?
Or is the whole idea of getting alphabet soup behind your name just certifiably insane?"
The point of certs is to put them on your resume, which gets you interviews.
That's all, really.
-Peter
The point of a cert is the same as a degree - it demonstrates to a complete stranger that one posesses a certain skillset and dedication. Certainly, we all know that genious who is a high school or college dropout but if you hadn't known this person for longer than a few minutes, just how do you go about figuring out if they have certain qualifications?
Yes - it is possible to do some quick testing in some cases. In other cases, certs are the only tool.
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1. You will have a pointy haired boss. This person will be a "manager", and have little technical skill. He/She will not be able to actually evaluate your work at a technical level. He/She will use "industry standard" metrics to evaluate your performance. The fact that you have a $CERTIFICATE makes you a safe bet for them to hire, since they probably can't tell the difference between someone walking in off the street and lying their ass off, and a seasoned 10 year IT vet.
2. You will make roughly "industry standard" wage, since your boss will really have no idea what you may or may not be worth.
3. Your chances of getting promoted to management are close to nil. After all, you can't go promoting the people that do all the work. They're too hard to find!
4. Your shop will get dragged, kicking and screaming into new technologies, since these likely have no certifications, and therefore no way for management to evaluate their worth. Your positive opinion towards new technologies will be considered an attempt to fill your resume in a vain attempt at escape or promotion.
Get certified... Work for the clueless.
Students with the 4.0GPAs with CS degrees might come out of school and not know jack about shit, while the self-taught guy with a 2.8 in Liberal Arts might code rings around the former. That's a fact.
I am in the process of getting certified and I would relish the opportunity to go back to school and get a CS degree. But the cert is a notch on my resume and a clear win in the short term. Once I'm in the door I know I can do well.
It's all about getting the toe in the door. Get the "piece of paper".
...was a good exercise for me. It made me dig into all sorts of nooks and crannies of Java that I don't usually work with - unsigned right shifts and nested inner class scoping issues and all that kind of thing.
I've probably forgotten most of that stuff, but I thought it was worthwhile to have studied up on it once.
The Army reading list
I have 5 major certifications and can tell you they dont help with the day to day work except for what you have learned from the process.
What it does help with is getting your foot in the door with managers, it helps your resume and it makes you dig deeper the subject than you normally would go.
I do not consider them at all, and am definitely prejudiced against someone who puts them on their resume.
Let's forget for a a minute that that is illegal.
This is a stupid way to think. Having a Cert doesn't make a candidate any worse than having a Cert makes them good.
A Cert, if nothing else, tells you the person WANTS to be in IT.
This
I have never gotten any certification, nor has any employer seriously asked me for one It doesn't matter if you have certifications when you can legitimately claim that you have worked >5 years in that particular field. But in case of a candidate who is entry level or has less than 4 yrs of experience these certifications are a way to get you the interview. There are many young graduates who are probably equally qualified for that position. Those certifications are the ones which get you noticed. That was at least my experience.
Next!
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
The point is so you don't have to work so hard that you succeed in spite of the lack of a degree.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Finally, as a person in a hiring position, I do not consider them at all, and am definitely prejudiced against someone who puts them on their resume.
See, this is one comment I've never really understood. Yes, there are lots of clueless certification monkeys out there. No, in most cases, certifications say absolutely nothing useful. But prejudice against those who may have gotten them for other reasons?
For instance, I am a MCP. I'm not particularly proud of it, being a Unix person, but work paid for it. Yeah, it's a Windows job; I'm living in a place with a weak Unix market and can't move for a couple years, and I choose to be able to pay rent. But I am a MCP, and I do put that on my resume... at the bottom, under "certifications/awards/professional organizations", in the same place I put my ACM membership and my black belt.
So why would that matter to you? Seriously. I'm curious.
Certifications are just paper and don't guarantee any knowledge or skill.
College degrees are just paper and don't guarantee any knowledge or skill.
The trouble is that experience on a resume is just paper too, and doesn't guarantee any knowledge of skill either.
If you're hiring, how do you tell the difference between paper knowledge/skill and real knowledge/skill?
Until everyone's completely honest (and probably after too) hiring will always be a lot of guess-and-check.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Certifications are for predictability and security in recruiting new employees. If you just hire anybody (say somebody who says they're really smart) then maybe you'll get something good, and maybe you'll get a real schmo.
When you hire someone with a certification, they had to go through certain steps to get that. It doesn't make them smart, and it doesn't make them a hard worker, but from the perspective of someone doing the hiring, it makes it more likely that they're smart or hard working. After all, they had to have the tenacity and patience to jump through a certain number of hoops to get the certification. Maybe they'll have the tenacity and the patience to jump through our set of hoops.
People get hired based on past experience, since that's the best predictor we have of their future behavior. (I didn't say it was a good predictor, I said it was the best we have) People who have certifications have demonstrated academic ability in a very specific area of applicability. It's no wonder at all people hire them, since the alternative is even more of a crapshoot.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Up until I read that one comment, I was thinking 'Hey this guy is right. What's the point of certs?'
And then you made yourself look like a fool in my eyes.
My spoon is too big.
I have never gotten any certification, nor has any employer seriously asked me for one.
You've never applied for a job that had a bachelors, associates or masters degree in the requirements?
That's what a degree is - a certification.
Certifications are entirely useful if they are configured properly. For example, lets assume that I am out of town with all of my geek friends and my wife's laptop breaks. She needs it fixed immediately. Who do I trust to fix it?
Right now, there really isn't a certification that I trust. I took the A+ and passed it in all of 20 minutes - it is a joke, although you do have to memorize some arcane knowledge (which doesn't prove useful in the real world). The MCDST is looking better, in this respect. But even this one doesn't throw a tech into a room full of parts (some of them non-functional) and ask him/her to build a product to specification (or repair an existing one).
When the certs require real-world knowledge, we'll have real-world use for them. In a pinch, however, if I were running a business, the cert is a good way of filtering out those who can't even pass a simple test. This Ask Slashdot should have read:
Dear Slashdot, I can't seem to pass the [insert any cert here] tests, why do we need them anyway?
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You make this stuff sound like a law license when all it really is is a few vendor supplied multiple guess exams. That's not much of a barrier really. Just cram for the things like you did in college or high school.
Barrier removed.
--JEDIDIAH OCP,SCSA
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I call shenanigans.
HR does not write the screening requirements for a job posting, I do. And I can guarantee you that I have never put "A Random certificate from a body that has no credibility" as a requirement, so that shoots your to be interviewed pile argument all to hell. Especially since step two of the screening process is discard all resumes with the letters MCSE on them
I call bullshit on you. Certificates are really helpful when you get your employment through headhunters. They love them some certificates. Having said that, I thought I knew it all, or enough of it all anyways, until I got myself into some cert courses. Low and behold, I learned a whole bunch of helpful stuff that I didn't know before the courses. Worth the money? Probably not but the certs I got definitly got me my present job. Nothing wrong with being qualified AND certified.
You'll have that sometimes...
Just my opinion, but any hiring manager that openly states a prejudice against candidates who show that they are continuing their education via certification in a field is not worth their salt as a hiring manager. Every resume should have education and experience listed on it and the certification process is a good example that people are willing to continue their education and better themselves through certifications. I am not saying that in every case people with certifications will be better than those without, but in the same respect people with degrees are not always better than those without as well? What you are seeing is someone who potentially may be a good candidate and has some specific areas of talent that can be looked at during the hiring process. I also am surprised that you have had no experience with any company willing to pay for a certification for you in what you know because I have had the exact opposite. It seems fairly commonplace now in our realm to have companies give financial aid for certification as it is beneficial for the employee and the company (especially beneficial in the contractor realm...) Not trying to be a troll, but I can't take someone seriously who frowns upon further education?
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Other people can't define how useful a certification will be for you. If you earn one with the expectation of gaining employment based on the certification alone, then you are probably not getting as much from it as you potentially could. Some people learn better having a well-defined objective such as passing a certification exam. And some certifications, like CCIE, are certainly not trivial and require signficant discipline and effort to obtain. Accordingly, they will provide a greater degree of recognition.
If you find certifications personally helpful in skill and career development, then go for it. Just don't walk in to a job interview expecting the piece of paper to talk for you. Point out that you earned it, and in what ways it has or hasn't helped your growth. If you are dealing with competent interviewers, they will recognize and value your focus on real-world skills.
So, the answer to the original question, then, would be that having a certification helps avoid getting a job under a stupid boss.
Just me wondering, when evaluating what people to interview, what qualifications would you look at?
The most obvious thing I can think of is experience. But that begs the question of how one gains experience.
I'm not going to completely disagree with you in general, because I come from the perspective that if I were hiring I would not want anyone without a CS degree (where certifications are pretty much irrelevant). And even then I would thoroughly test them, because bad students can get through.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
There basically isn't any point, at least if you're looking at chances of getting hired. It's much more important to have relevant working experience, something to show that proves that you can do what the company wants done.
And, most important at all, you have to get noticed by the company in the first place. The key here is networking: bring yourself and your skills to the attention of people in hiring positions, make friends with them, and you'll be one of the first people they ask for a new job.
It doesn't matter if you have any certificates, it doesn't even matter if you're really good at the work that they need done; if they know you and they like you, you'll get the job no matter how many other people are more qualified.
Most people I know got their carreers started because they either knew the person who was hiring, or they were recommended by a friend. I, myself, usually get offered jobs because of my website. Few of us have any relevant certificates.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Oooo, yea, replace one 500 dollar test with MANY 500 dollar tests! Easy profit for the testing companies, but does it benefit anyone else? No.
.Net or Linux certifications.
Anyway, that's pretty much how they do it anyway, except you'll find that there are many levels of certification, so you can get 4 or 5 different
The whole idea of certifications is flawed, because the testing companies have a stake in putting as many people through their classes as possible. Theoretically they get paid the same if someone bombs the test, but that person goes back and tells all his friends that he just dropped 3000 on a whole lotta nothing, and they all cancel their classes with that company.
I had a guy ask me once if I was A+ certified, and I replied, "No, but I've taught A+ certification classes." It blew his mind. How could I ever have learned enough to teach such a mind-stretching class without actually getting certified? Whereas I was still reeling from the fact that someone would ask that question to an applicant for a mid-level solaris administration job.
The bottom line is, HR loves because it gives them an easy metric to measure candidates. And the testing companies love it because its a big business. And IT professionals buy into it because its a hell of a lot easier than trying to convey a complex skillset to someone who doesn't understand, doesn't want to understand, and couldn't really give a damn on top of it all.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Why the hatred for those with certs? To me, a cert means that one took some time to learn some info about a certain area. I have two, both from vendors, that I was able to earn through the experience that I have. Does it make me talented because I took the time to jump through those vendor's hoops? I don't think they makes me better than an experienced person w/o them, but I also don't think they make me worse.
Do you have the same attitude for those with college degrees? Are they also "opportunists" with a "meaningless validation?"
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
few vendor supplied multiple guess exams.
There's the problem in a nutshell - the certification is a way for competing authorities to milk money out of people, and worse, if the model takes off amongst employers, then it will become a compulsory way to milk money out of people because independent learning will not be recognized.
The Open Source community should start a project to establish a set of knowledge that must be demonstrated in order to acquire certain levels and areas of certification. There's no better way to make sure that the knowledge is up to date and comprehensive.
That way, the accrediting bodies are little more than employed examiners who confirm that the applicant does indeed possess the knowledge on the checklist. This pulls the rug out from under any "educational" bodies that want to establish their own de facto certification scheme that they have a monopoly on.
I'd be happy to help with organizing / co-ordinating such an effort, though I lack the skills to deal with the knowledge itself in most areas.
Maybe we should look at beginning something like this. There is enough documentation out there for all this - it just has to be turned into a exam-style and gradeable format
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Oooo, yea, replace one 500 dollar test with MANY 500 dollar tests! Easy profit for the testing companies, but does it benefit anyone else? No.
Perhaps we should start thinking on OPEN SOURCED CERTIFICATIONS (This is, certifications which are copylefted, open to the public, etc.)
Obviously certification companies are becoming a bad monopoly, just like Microsoft. I think it's time we start doing something about it, don't you think?
It's not nearly as dissociated as the OP suggested. You can't pass an XML web services exam unless you know something about XML web services. A passing score doesn't guarantee expertise, but it does indicate a minimum level of competence.
Generally: Certifications are hoops. They have the same purpose as any other career hoop: jumping through them demonstrates that you're more motivated than your competitors who don't jump through them. As a job candidate, you can consider it a safety measure: you might get rejected for not having it, but you probably won't get rejected for having it.
IT has become too broad to be evaluated in a single test.
It's rarely a single test. Exams are pretty specific to a particular topic: web services, domain administration, configuring BizTalk server, etc. Even the A+ cert, which is pretty superficial, has one part for "hardware" and one for "software."
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
you can start learning, show demonstrable skill
Isn't that pretty much a description of certification?
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
When you look at a resume, what is on the paper is all you know about the person, and I have to screen dozens of resumes for every person who gets face time. I get resume's all the time that have line after line of alphabet soup certifications, those go right in the trash.
overload of certs tells me one thing about a person right off the bat, they spend TOO MUCH TIME on certifications and not enough time working.
- actually fixing the system, or
- offering the service of backing up the drive first for the customer
- or selling the cutomer a new hard drive so the the old one could be set up as a secondary, with all data intact
Certification is supposed to validate technical expertise. The system is obviously fawlty. Right now all it certifies is that the people who are certified know enough to be dangerous.The solution is an internship program, or an apprenticeship program, where a person gains the experience to become trustworthy.
Note to BHO types, this might not install morals, but that is another situation entirely.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
1. For the PHBs and everyone in management who rightfully insist on a core level of competency for new hires and need some sort of metric when references, years of experience aren't satisfactory or need to be validated.
/. posters professing knowledge could pass a simple A+ or Network+ test, let alone that something more involved like Cisco's base CCNA, or the Microsoft MCSE set of tests. And for all the Linux geeks laughing at the MCSEs, I'd wager more than a few dollars that if they tried taking a RHCE exam, many faces would turn red from embarrassment.
2. For the HR folks who are often ill-equipped to evaluate competency levels.
3. For prospective applicants to improve on or dress up their resume. This applies especially to Americans who traditionally have had no opportunity to see abbreviations after their names.
4. For anyone involved in teaching (or selling teach materials) to establish graduation status.
5. For anyone who needs to determine or otherwise establish they know their stuff.
The explosion in the use of certifications is admittedly fair game for fun, but when the tech field reinvents itself every few years, it should be understandable that everyone can be left wondering how well anyone knows anything.
If you've been involved in hiring, or worked in management, you know that references can't always be trusted, and experience is not always a measure of competency. How many secretaries who have been using Word for more than 10 years really know the program? Similarly, I think it's a legitimate question how many regular
Personally, I hate tests of any sort, and even tend to be suspicious of people that do well on them, but I'd be the last to dismiss their purpose or useful, irrespective of the test or who administered it. All the established professions have their legitimacy established using a test, and most have some form of continuing education that requires futher testing and certification. It would therefore seem fair, therefore, for anyone in the tech field be required (as needed) to do the same.
Also, I think I know what this guy means. It's one thing if someone has some small note in this resume listing some certifications, but I've seen people who'll put an insignia right at the top, bigger than anything else: A+ certified, MCSE. In my experience, good techs rarely value their MCSE very much (even if they have it).
Aside from the HR tards and the PHBs, compliance is actually something important.
The last two places I've worked for have been pharma companies. If the FDA comes in to inspect, they ask who runs the servers, I say I do. They ask if I am qualified to operate the servers, I show them Solaris cert, questions end.
It's a check the box for the validation paperwork. Required? No. Handy? You bet your ass.
No certs and I don't feel they would have helped me even during my lengthy unemployment. Around here I really didn't run into any jobs that required them.
As far as my personal opinion, they are mostly worthless. The certs test you on so much minutia that's not worth learning, and in the end you have people who don't know a damn thing more than those without them. I think some of the certs (CISSP and maybe some cisco ones) are worthwhile, but especially with the MS ones, that cert tells you exactly 0 about the knowledge of the person in question. If I had a dime for every question an MCSE has asked me about windows I would be chillin on an island somewhere and not worrying about this bullshit.
You want to know what a meaningful cert would be? Have someone who has never done it before set up an SSH server and client and tunnel windows remote desktop over it. Have someone install and configure a linux box who has never done it. Tell someone to get OpenBSD up and running by using only information available on the web. Have someone write a program to check if a file exists and copy over the file if it doesn't in a scripting language they've never used before given only the web for research. You get people who can learn as they go and certs are irrelevant.
Personally I'd rather have 10 guys who are *real* computer people...not just people in it because it's the new middle management...than 100 paper MCSE's who can tell you some worthless bullshit about printing protocols but can't solve a problem they didn't learn about in class without 10 grand worth of training and a $300 book. Problem solving skills and knowledge of how to find stuff online is ALL you need. I tell people to seach Google groups and they look at me like my head is glowing purple. Do you know how many problems I've solved with that? People have no ability to evaluate sources, cross reference, and learn quickly. 99% of the information you need to do any project is out there, you just have to find it and know how to process it. There are people who "get" computers and those who don't. Certs were invented for all the people who don't. I don't need to memorize this, that, and the other thing about Windows because I'll just learn it when I need to know it. The more critical the project is the more care you take in learning it. Simple.
if it says on your resume that your certified, then you'll obviously get the job over someone who isn't certified..
companies are not entirely stupid though.. I think most educated HR personell, will look at a resume, and choose someone who has more experience as opposed to someone who has been recently certified.. I personally have 2 certifications from Brainbench.com.. its not the best place to get certified, but most of their tests are FREE, if you want the physical cert its like 7 bucks to get the nice shiney piece of paper with your name on it.. Its not much, but it looks good on my resume being that I'm a linux administrator.. there aren't many certs for Linux guys to begin with, so ANYTHING looks good on your resume..
HOWEVER, if you're obviously shooting for a job thats Cisco admin related, or you're a programmer, or a Windows Admin, then you will need that Cert in order to get the job you desire.. its that simple.. its much harder finding or even getting a job regarding the fields I listed above, without a cert..
bottom line, its all a matter of what you specialize in..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
It's easy to verify a cert as being legit. So what it tells you is the person had enough knowledge to pass the test and enough drive to go and actually do so. Is that a guarantee of skills? Of course not, but it does tell you SOMETHING at least. If someone has an MCSE and they've got a few years of Windows support experience on their resume, you can be reasonably certian that they actually know what they are talking about, when it comes to Windows. Again, no guarantee, but more so than if they just listed a job with nothing to back it up.
i hold CCNA, IT essentials 2 am an apple certified technician, and i dont know jack, gets me jobs though.
Certification programs exist largely to commoditize platform-specific labor. They benefit vendors, such as Sun and Microsoft, that sell infrastructure technologies ("platforms") to large corporate clients. These vendors want to assure potential clients that their platforms are supported by legions of inexpensive, largely interchangeable laborers.
The certification programs are the means by which these assurances are made real. They define the minimal skill sets necessary to be considered competent in a particular platform. What makes the programs effective tools for driving down the cost of programming labor is that most certifications are easier for unskilled and offshore laborers to obtain than more traditional means of qualification, such as four-year degrees and on-the-job experience.
Whether certifications are good or bad depends on where you stand. If you don't have technical skills or experience and want to get into a market where certifications are prominent, go for the certification. On the other hand, if you have excellent skills and a track record that sets you apart, avoid markets where certification programs are rife because your abilities probably won't be appreciated. You should realize, however, that much of the work in the industry is going the way of commoditization, and it will be increasingly difficult to find corporate clients willing to pay much more than what the typical certification-holding employee is paid. For this reason, if you have the ability, you might want to start your own business or join a startup.
Easy, automatic testing for Perl.
My experience, around the time of RH 7.2, was basically the same... it's really not that hard. Unlike real life, the questions are fundamentally 'fair'... there's always enough data to determine what the problem is. Real life doesn't work like that.
However, I'd think anyone who could pass RHCE would be a competent junior admin.. I don't think I'd want one in charge of a big network based on that certificate alone, but you can be pretty sure they know how to install, configure, and repair a single Linux box. I'd be perfectly content to send an RHCE off to fix a mysteriously broken Linux machine in another building... chances are pretty good that they'll be able to fix it. If they can't, I'd probably have trouble with it too.
If they can get that good, they can probably get better still. RHCE most emphatically doesn't mean world class, but I think it's a good foundation... it means someone has at least a clue. They won't be a complete chowderhead.
I took the class about four years ago, so exactly what's covered has probably changed. I'm sure it hasn't gotten any worse, though.
Of course, that doesn't work, because a couple of holier-than-thou HR trolls consider certs as negative points.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't... I wonder if it's permissible to say "Certs: I have passed relevant certification tests, but I prefer to stand on my own qualifications instead, as listed elsewhere in this resume. Contact me if you would like to see my certificates."
I've tried to read the comments in this thread, however... Mostly, hiring appears to really coming down to image. It is the age-old tendency for first impressions to count - therefore your image is the first thing that affects you in any hiring position. I do not consider myself good looking - I'm a fairly typical overweight geek. I sit behind a desk doing my job most of the time. However, when it came to applying for my last job, I had to look towards my image. This meant what I wear, how often I bathe, my RESUME. What do Certs do for you? The employer gets to see your resume first. Any cert you have means that you have jumped through a few extra hoops to dress up your resume. You've taken the time, you've spent the money. You've made a decent first impression. If the hiring manager is worth his/her income, you will then get tested on those certs and degrees you have. If you don't get tested, then those certs & degrees are ALL YOU HAVE. Once again, image counts more than it should in society. College was explained to me (and I believe this) as a means to show you are capable or working through a task, learning new things, following a process, jumping through hoops, and finishing the task. That is why degrees matter to employers. Note that even though we go to college to get particular training (which may even be needed), the degree shows this much about you. Wouldn't any cert say the same thing? I've seen the CYOA (cover your own ass) rule - this applys. I've seen the 'You should test their knowledge' - this applys. I've seen the 'HR Filter' - this applys, especially as you geniuses who write HR software do logarithmic checks for statistically significant criteria. Are you willing to put up a good front for an employere? Are you willing to jump through a few hoops and finish a task? Is it worth your time to learn something new so that you can pass a test and get a piece of paper on the wall? Certs are only as useful as the image they project to the hiring manager. Hopefully the hiring manager will take more than just a snapshot, but as a person without certs in the IT field who kept getting turned down because I didn't have them (experience was NEVER mentioned).... well, I think they are a valuable piece of your image to a hiring manager.
You might be able to cram your way through the CCNA without really having a clue but I doubt it. There's too many simulations and troubleshooting questions, where you have to understand the fundamentals of IP in order to figure out why a setup isn't working. But CCNA is an entry level certification. I guarantee you that you will NOT cram your way through a CCIE certification.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Unfortunately many of the people I have encountered are certified but not qualified. There are too many "boot" camps that cram too much into 5 days and then allow all the students to "collaborate" on the tests.
Slashdot - Where the slash is most definitely to the left.
the company I work for is a "Microsoft Preferred Partner"
Why would you want to work at such a place?
The way I look at it, if a company is so hung up on credentialism, I don't want to work for them anyway.
Works out great. They are doing me a service, filtering themselves out of prospective places to work that don't share at least values in the same ballpark as mine.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The simple fact is that recruiters and HR folks look for keywords. Certification acronyms are a major part of them. While they hold no real technical merit, non-technical employees/companies don't know that.
It is a barrier to entry when the tests cost hundreds of dollars to take. I personally refuse to spend money on these exams because I am doing the college thing. The hard thing is that I go for an interview and they don't care about what degrees I have in computer science or that I am working on a masters degree in the subject. If I'm applying for a java programming position and I am not Java certified, I get shown the door...
I got nothin'
In the early 90's, certs were all the rage. Companies thought that if someone had a cert, they were automatically qualified. Oh, how they were burned.
Then in the late 90's, certs weren't worth the paper they were printed on, so regardless of how much you really knew or how much experience you had, if you had numerous certs the knee-jerk reaction was to pass you by.
Then and now the single path that has proven the most worthwhile for employees and employers is the combination of both: certification supported by experience, or experience confirmed by certifications. I'm of the latter crowd. I've been working on PCs and networks professionally since 1984. In 1997 I earned the CompTIA A+ (I took it on a whim while working towards MCSE NT 4.0) In June 2004 I attended a boot camp for two weeks and came away with four certs (MCP, MCSA, MCSE, Security +), then in December I earned my CCNA after a 5 day course. I'm not much smarter than I was before the courses, but people seem to think I am. :-)
My certs had no impact on my position or my salary, but if I decide to depart this company, I know I'll be greeted more warmly at the next one.
for people who have not networked (no, I don't mean computer networking)!
The best way to ensure job security is to make friends and get to know people in higher positions than yourself (that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to kiss some ass, but it probably wouldn't hurt).
I don't have any certifications yet I work for a multi-national firm simply because I have friends who know me and have seen my skills. Often times people with lesser qualifying skills get a job over others simply because someone in the firm recommends them, regardless of their certifications.
So all you fresh grands and no-grads out there start networking!
I believe my certs helped me get my current job. While I agree with others that certs don't prove you know what you are doing, they can at least get you looked at seriously enough to get an interview. It's the interview that usually is going to make or break the decision by the employer.
I was in the situation where I know a lot about computers, but don't have a good way to show that on a resume. I was a college student, who excelled at my computer science courses (but you don't usually put that on your resume - although I suppose you could), and had a few years of lower-level computer support/helpdesk work experience.
My current job listed Linux/Unix experience as a desired skillset. I have been using Linux at home as a geek, and as a computer science student, for about oh, 6 years all together, but had never had a Linux/Unix job. There would otherwise be nothing on my resume to indicate that I actually knew how to use and configure Linux. So, I got the Linux Professional Instituge level 1 Certification. Sure, that doesn't necessarily prove that I'm ready to be a Linux administrator, but it at least shows I was serious enough about learning and using Linux to go out and pass a test about it. (In this particular case, I'm not a Linux administrator, but have a higher-level helpdesk job than I have had in the past, and supporting Linux is a part of this position - and to tell the truth, I know a lot more about Linux than some of the 'administrators' I support pretty frequently).
It got me an interview, and in the interview I had the chance to explain my background and experience with Linux, and demonstrate my proficiency to the department manage, who was satisfied, and hired me.
For people who already have years of experience and a degree under their belt, they can probably skip getting certs. For people just starting out, it's a great way to get your foot in the door.
But a BA/BS/MA/MS/etc. is not supposed to be about proving that you know a certain body of knowledge. It's supposed to prove that you know how to educate yourself and that you understand deeply the fundamental principles behind a discipline.
/gam/
Let me guess, you've never worked with an idiot that had a degree before. Degree's are potentially just as meaningless (or valuable, depending) as certs. I know some of my classmates were absolutely awful coders, yet they still received their CS degree and found programmer positions.
My point is this: if you can't figure out if a candidate can do the job during the interview, perhaps there's a bigger problem here than having a cert on your resume.
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."
How about "Certifications available upon request"?
That may once have been true, but many HR departments are populated with technology professionals, who can filter resumes and get them to the right hiring manager. Certifications, IMHO, should be used to gauge against what is actually on the resume. If there is a certification on the resume and no actual experience, then that resume does not get the same treatment as the resume that illustrates experience in a particular technical skill. Believe it or not, recruiters like me are reading the resumes and not only looking at the certifications and buzzwords. I look for experience by project first. There are times when I have talked a manager into seeing a candidate that only wanted to see CISCO people. He hired the Nortel candidate. It's all a matter of knowing the manager's hiring needs and understanding the technical environment.
The Open Source community should start a project to establish a set of knowledge that must be demonstrated in order to acquire certain levels and areas of certification. There's no better way to make sure that the knowledge is up to date and comprehensive. Doesn't that sound just like a certification exam? I understand that good intentions of such a thing, but roots for the original certifications had similar good intentions, they just got mucked up and corporatized later on.
[sig] 10 + 10 = 100 [/sig]
*jumping on my soapbox*
Certifications were developed by a marketer.
Someone in marketing thought to themselves, "Hmmmm, how can I make more money for the company?". Then a light-bulb went off - let's create "Certifications", but let's not bother verifying identities of those taking the tests, or whether or not they *reallY* know the materials. As long as they pay us, we'll throw some bullshit material at them, and as long as they memorize what we wrote (regardless of accuracy or applicability to real world configurations), we'll pass them.
Thus the certifcation craze was born.
I have yet to meet a single individual who has been certified in anything who actually knew the actual workings of the material they were certified for.
Don't even get me started into the arguments that I've had when it came to installing systems.
I finally had to get 2 identical systems, with identical software products, and told the individual to do their install their way, and that I'd do mine, my way.
Not only was i done with mine in a fraction of the time it took the *CERTIFIED* individual to set it up, mine was the only one that worked. Our network security group wouldn't even allow the other box onto our network because it was full of security holes.
I personally am 100% self taught, over a 20 year period. Information that I haven't used in years, still sits ready, and available for use. Mostly because I learned it (and most everything else) the hard way. Once you've learned something that way, it doesn't just go away.
*standing down*
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
The "point" of certifications is the same as the point of work experience, references, college degrees, military experience, eagle scout badges or just about any damn merit-based reward you can think of... to sell your image to the people deciding who gets the interviews.
Sure, you need some relevant certifications. You also need a college degree. Hey, and work experience, a couple of years at least. Having all three of those things on your resume is the only way you can reasonably assume it'll have a chance.
None of these are perfect, all are fallible, and there is no magic bullet. Really, the closet thing to a magic bullet here is knowing someone who knows someone who is looking for someone to fill a position. It's networking. A list of IT professionals with whom you have worked in the past that have a good opinion of your skills is priceless when it comes time to look for jobs.
The only way you can shortcut this process is if you can somehow land an interview with the team you'll be working with. This is hard to do at large companies, but often possible at smaller ones.
There are bullshit certifications, degrees, work experiences, references, etc. If your boss can't tell the difference during an interview, frankly, there's no excuse for that and you shouldn't want to work for him in the first place.
Typically it's the face to face with the new boss that sells him. Of course, if he's an idiot, that's another story. If he's an idiot, and you still take the job, well... you made your own bed on that one. Don't get to thinking interviews are one-sided.
Work to live. Don't live to work.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Im my shop (of about 25 programmers)...not 1 person is certified. We did hire one guy, but he turned out to be one of the worst programmers I had ever seen. Sure he knew every built-in function, class, method, etc etc, of the development language but he couldnt put them together into a logical program if his job was rideing on it....and it was...and he was fired for incopitance after a while.
anyway some of these tests just quiz you on the syntax of the language. Its like testing a mechanic by asking him to identify every part of an engine but then never seeing if he can rebuild a carbirator or diagnose a bad timeing belt..
Put in your own recruitment ads using your team-building budget, but don't mention the company name.
Interview them, and if they pass, re-write their application and resume so that HR will hire.
Its more work than you should have to do, but it gets the results you want.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
I worked in a major Information Technology group (supporting 80,000+ users). A new position opened up with higher pay and more benefits and they interviewed two people for the job, myself and a co-worker of mine. My co-worker got the job and I didn't.
When I spoke to a friend of mine who was on the panel that decided who got the job, he told me: "He had certifications and you didn't."
I'll never doubt the usefulness of certifications again.
Employers ask for transcripts? Is that true of anyone other than new entries in the field? I have never been asked for my transcripts. Heck, I've never been asked for my degree. And if a company asked me for either my transcript or my degree at this point, I'd probably laugh and leave unless the offer was really good.
What counts is experience and the ability to demonstrate you know what you know. Ancient transcripts that include mostly information on how I did in sociology or accounting have nothing to do with the jobs I look for now. Any company that is going to dwell on such a trivial issue rather than look at my experience and work accomplishments is a company I probably don't want to work for...
Again, unless the offer is really good. Yes, for the right amount of money I'd be willing to play their game. :)
How about IT certification is an attempt to create a barrier to entry in order to create scarcity and subsequently higher wages and professional prestige (i.e. chicks).
You have it perfectly backwards. Certifications are a lot easier to get than degrees. This creates less of a barrier and allows more people into the field much more quickly. It serves to reduce wages. I think the quality of the exams seems to also display this point.
I know a large number of people who have wasted their money on "IT certification" which is nothing but a piece of paper you can wipe your ass with. A better idea is to get some good books and perhaps some hands-on experience instead so you can impress prospective employers with a demo of your skills.
Even engineering licensing is much more rigorous than any of these IT Certificates, but businness has frowned so much on the apprenticeship and work necessary to get licensed that in many fields (including almost anything computer related) most of the engineers aren't licensed.
Well, that's to be expected. Engineers can be held personally liable in the event of death or injury. I.E. if I spec a W8x24 beam instead of a W24x94 because I miscalculated the minimum section modulus by an order of magnitude, I'm going to hurt people. Due to this, the licensing is made difficult to ensure you're not just book smart but have experience and such before being able to work on your own and legally say "this is good."
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
You can't get any good admins because no one can become a good admin now. This is because newbies can't get any experience in system/network admins. Most sysadmin jobs are all offshored and there's only a tiny few jobs for them domestically. And all those jobs require 5-10 years of experience.
Hardly any school in the country teaches system administration in a structured, disciplined way which means you learn it piecemeal and miss quite a few important things (thus inspiring people to reinvent the wheel). Network administration doesn't teach you specific operating systems except Windows and some uberpopular brand of Linux. If the OS game changes on you, like say you're put into a network run by Macs? Crispy toasty city, you're more lost than Goldilocks.
Corporate America has destroyed the entry level base from which more experienced workers are made. You can't get an entry level job to get the experience required for a "real" sysadmin job.
So now you have a tiny handful of old guard admins who are probably employed for life, and the rest of your applicants are newbies trying to break into the industry.
This is Catch-22 at its finest. But Corporate America brought this upon themselves.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
You didn't specify what the certifications were. if was an LPI level 1, it means he knows that the 'tac' command is cat backwards.
If it was an RHCE, it means he sat down on a machine that had 10 problems created on it, and was able to fix it with no other documentation other than that which comes with the distro.
It also meant he took a machine from bare metal to running a bunch of network services, with a particular RAID/LVM configuration, LDAP/NIS accounts, disk quotas, etc. to meet 70% around 40 requirements. In 3 hours.
Most Linux admins can't do that. Those that attempt to, on the RHCE exam, fail 32% of the time.
It's a hard exam. It's a realistic one too. Your machine breaks, you fix it, Sometimes peoples fixes screw up their machines even more. Too bad. Many people fail it.
I think the people that would fail it include both Cliff and you. Lots of people might know how to set up Apache HTTPD on BIND or whatever off the top of their head. Their knowledge though is focused: they have no idea how disk quotas, PAM, or LDAP, or the LVM works. A hard, realistic certification like the RHCE is proof the holder has passed a realitic test of a well rounded set of skills.
Disclaimer: I teach RHCEs, but I'm not speaking on Red Hat's behalf here. And I paid for my RHCE becfore I worked for Red Hat.