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?"

Comments

What would the little kid say?

[nokilli]

Do not try to understand the point -- that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.

What truth?

There is no point.
--
You didn't know.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

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).

Re:What would the little kid say?

[jedidiah]

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

Re:What would the little kid say?

[SatanicPuppy]

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.

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 .Net or Linux certifications.

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.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[h4rm0ny]

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

Re:What would the little kid say?

[tambo]

The point is that certification has become dissociated from the actual abilities, and hence, the evaluation becomes useless.

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

Re:What would the little kid say?

[Analogy Man]

I think that you hit the nail on the head. The value of most certifications begins and ends in the HR department.

My previous employer pushed for certifications. I observed that the worst project managers were PMP certified, the least infrastructure savvy admins were MS certified...

If I am hiring a person, I want to know their ability to solve problems. I would not trust an HR department to ask the right sort of questions to determine that.

In one interview I conducted a person explain at length the previous 3 projects they had led that never made it to production. He was very proud of the 18 months and thousands of pages of training materials that the customer never deployed. I understand that sometimes projects go south, but this guy started his career on the Titanic and more recently move from sea to air in the Hindenburg ....

Re:What would the little kid say?

[hector_uk]

i hold CCNA, IT essentials 2 am an apple certified technician, and i dont know jack, gets me jobs though.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[exKingZog]

In our place, a senior IT guy (sometimes myself, sometimes my colleague) always sits in on any tech interviews; we ask the technical questions, the HR woman asks the standard HR questions, then we compare notes - and IT can veto HR's decision.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[jacem]

The real problem is what do you do when the HR department starts demanding things like an MSCE in Solarus and or an MSCA in Linux. Yes I have been asked for these

The worst thing that M$ did to all of us was change thier product nameing scheem. At least befor XP came out we could all laugh in the face of a recuiter that wnated 10 years windows 2000 experence.


JACEM

Re:What would the little kid say?

[B'Trey]

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.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[jedidiah]

Being forced to actually know a little something about the profession that you are being asked to practice is hardly a "barrier to entry".

Even the CCIE is nothing to be impressed by compared to a legal, medical or engineering license.

People that think that even Novell certs are an attempt at Guildsmenship need to get out of their cubicles and venture forth into the outside world a bit.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[StarvingSE]

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...

Re:What would the little kid say?

[Miguelito]

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).

Bwah ha ha... what a laugh. As someone that is an admin, and interviews people for positions now and then, I can tell you that I (and everyone else in our group that interviews as well) see(s) certs as useless. Far too many people have gone to those quickie schools like MicroSkills and just learned how to pass a cert test without actually understanding the underlying technology.

In fact, if someone really stresses their certs in the resume and/or while talking.. that tends to be a big negative. You can talk to your knowledge, telling me you have a cert isn't the answer to the question, and yes.. people have done that.

It's actually almost scary how hard it is to find really good admins now. Putting up a job opening will result in tons of responses, but 99% of them seem to be people who think that since they were able to install Fedora at home, they're qualified to be a sysadmin.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[ahaning]

What you and Mr. Jobs do behind closed doors is of no interest to us. Thanks.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[GabeK]

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.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[h4rm0ny]

Fundamental difference - The current certification is (a) proprietary and (b) varying from organization to organization. What this means is that the certification industry goes into lock-down with a few (or one) major vendors being sole suppliers of that certification that says your worth employing. This has all the potential for price-hiking and standards distortion you would expect.

A community maintained certification would mean a much lower barrier of entry to independent groups keeping prices sane, better maintained standards of excellence, possibly even making certification mean something,

Because assessment would no longer be tied to the course (which it currently is because its the same people who want to sell you both), people like myself who already know a Hell of a lot and don't want to have to fork out money for a course I don't want will simply go and get their accreditation for much less.

Winners all round, especially the employers.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[Loconut1389]

This seems like a similar idea to HAM Radio examinations. You pay a very teeny testing fee of a couple bucks and people who've received a particular level of qualification can host the tests, though a minimum of two people is required IIRC.

What I'm worried about with the current scheme is that I'll spend $7k+/semester on tuition and get my nice BS in computer science and then have to fork out another few k in redundant certifications. There are guys ive worked with that have had to do just that.

I'm all for a HAM Radio Exam style setup with some sort of self-moderated body with partial governmental/other oversight.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[dnoyeb]

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.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[Halfbaked Plan]

They don't come to the three of you because you have no certs.

You're getting by on reputation. Be careful not to move to another part of the country. You should even be cautious about moving to another part of the company.

It's dangerous to 'climb' within a company purely by reputation, without any documentation at all. I know. I was a 'Software Engineer' without the paperwork for quite awhile. I like what I'm doing now, but it would suck if I had my ego wrapped up in the work I do.

Re:What would the little kid say?

[pyite]

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."

Re:What would the little kid say?

[el_chicano]

in our program we include... 3) HTML & Web design;

Let me guess... You were out sick the day they covered the <br> tag! :-)

Re:What would the little kid say?

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

The most popular definition of the HAM acronym is based on the three scientists who's research led to the discovery of wireless radio.

Hertz, Armstrong and Marconi.

Although, to prove it wrong would most likely require an aging HAM operator which probably predates the the early 1x1 callsign configuration (if they had a callsign at all when they started). That person might still remember how HAM got started. Till one is found, it's HAM, not ham.

Interviews

[pete-classic]

The point of certs is to put them on your resume, which gets you interviews.

That's all, really.

-Peter

DUH!

[ellem]

To get past the HR Trolls!

The only way to pass them is to point shiny Certifications into their beedy little eyes!

Re:DUH!

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

Not funny, too true.

I've worked in places where I didn't get to vet the resumes or write the classified ad. The most HR would let me do was reject the subset of resumes they deemed worthy and ask them to set up interviews with those that remained. It's quite interesting when they post ads asking for experts in 'Windows 97' or 'Novel Netwear'.

Re:DUH!

[zerocool^]

Laugh, but it's true. Having the MCP or MCSA gets you past the first round of minions who are just throwing out resumes that don't have X, Y, and Z (for example, the HR guy will trash the resume if you don't have "A Microsoft Cert", "2 years experience", and "A college degree". Once you're past the automotons, you get to the actual tech guys who interview you to feel out your actual skills.

Another reason (and this is the reason I have one) - the company I work for is a "Microsoft Preferred Partner", and in order to be a partner, all your techs have to be microsoft certified.

And even at that, I still see value in certifications. Yes, it's possible to pass the tests and not learn anything (like those cert-mills teach you to do). However; it's also possible to think you know everything and not be able to pass the test.

I know there are probably a lot of MCSE's on slashdot, but ask yourself: How many do you personally know. I'm MCP / MCDST and 1 test from MCSA, and I've been working on the tests for like a year (though I haven't looked at any materials on the tests in 6 months). But, it's unlikely that an MCSE really can get all the tests passed while knowing nothing. I mean, you have to pass:

*Windows XP
*Windows Server 2003
*Installing and implementing a Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
*Planning and maintaining a 2003 server network infrastructure
*Planning and Maintaining a 2003 Active Directory infrastructure
*(Designing and Implementing an AD network OR designing a secure windows 2003 server network), *and one elective, which ranges from MS SQL server, to ISA server, to exchange, to MS solutions Framework.

It's unlikely that someone will pass all those tests, and know nothing.

~Will

Re:DUH!

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

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."

Re:DUH!

[GigsVT]

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.

Re:DUH!

[Manfre]

How about "Certifications available upon request"?

Re:DUH!

[Halfbaked Plan]

No, and typing 'xyzzy' doesn't make them disappear in a puff of greasy smoke, either.

depends on expereince

[Brigadier]

I used to be one of those few IT guys who had a completely unrelated degree (architecture). However I somehow managed to procure enough experience that I really didn't need all the certificates (MSCE A+ etc.) I also know of many others in the same boat. However if your lacking experience then certification is a good way to get people to take a chance on you.

Re:depends on expereince

[Uruk]

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.

The Point is Simple

[dsginter]

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.

Re:The Point is Simple

[danheskett]

The people who usually bitch about certifications are the ones who have met a person who is an MSCE and is an idiot. They think: "this guy doesn't even know X, how can he be an MSCE? That MSCE thing is a joke!" Usually people have this attitude because they have no idea what a certain certificationa actually certifies. Really, before you bitch, find out what tests the person had to pass. Chances are you imputing more value to the certification than is deserved! I used to get a lot of crap from a certain subset of "know it alls" when they learned that I am MCDBA certified (Microsoft Certified Database Administrator). They just assumed based on the name that it says I can write a few SQL queries and create a few tables. A really common bitch I heard was "it's not anything I don't know from writing my own CMS with PHP and MYSQL". A very typical, but wrong, view. The certification tells my boss that I have a specific subset of database administration knowledge. The implication is that the non-certified employees "could just learn it if they need it", which is probably true to a degree. The point is, for the specific job, it required performance tuning a huge database running against a clustered SQL Server backend. "Learning on the job" was not acceptable risk for management.

Re:The Point is Simple

[riptide_dot]

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.

The point of a college degree is not to demonstrate to anyone that you possess a certain skillset; it simply demonstrates that you have a certain amount of dedication. That's why "true" 4 year degrees from accredited institutions are worth more than condensed "equivalents" from places like University of Phoenix or some correspondence courses. I know plenty of people without a college degree that posess all the skills they need to do their highly technical jobs, and I also know plenty of college grads that don't know jack. The college degree proves that you:

- Have dedicated yourself to something for an extended period of time (and are therefore somewhat dependable).
- Can handle being tested on knowledge that you were supposed to learn during the time you dedicated yourself to something (NOT that you know it, but are comfortable being tested on it).

Both of those would hold true whether your degree is from Yale or Heald, but in this example, the Yale one would hold more weight because their workload is considered to be harder, and it's a four year undertaking (at least) compared to a two year one. Thus a certification isn't worth as much as a college degree(obviously), but has value nonetheless because if you have one, a potential employer knows that you are at least qualified enough to pass a test on the subject matter. It should not prove to anyone that you are dedicated or that you actually know the material (with a few possible exceptions, like the CCIE), because all you really did was pass a test.

Re:The Point is Simple

[danheskett]

8k+ tables? 3 TB+? How big does a "huge" SQL server DB go?
2500 tables, 1.5TB, about 400 inserts a second at peak, 10K queries a second at peak. That's pretty much closing on the max for a well designed SQL installation. On a different contract I dealt with a 2TB data warehousing application that really pushed the limits of what SQL2K can handle. About 10 tables, one of them had about 500M rows. Not very write intensive, maybe 1-2 inserts per second, but very heavy on the reading.

Re:The Point is Simple

[RAMMS EIN]

``They think: "this guy doesn't even know X, how can he be an MSCE?''

Well...why would one need to know X to be a MSCE?

You don't expect an RHCE to know Solitaire, either, right?

Re:The Point is Simple

[Slime-dogg]

I bitch about certifications, not because I do not know what is on them, but because people who get certs without a degree will be considered for the same job as someone without a cert, but with a degree. If I were a hiring manager, the first thing I'd look for is a degree (CS, EE, CE, etc). Then I'd look for certs to refine the search.

It pisses me off that many people who go to school for four years or more, who have paid quite a bit of money, and have been taught intellectual adaptability are passed over. Call me an elitist, but I view those with no degree, but have certs, as inferior to those who have degrees.

Re:The Point is Simple

[barzok]

The people who usually bitch about certifications are the ones who have met a person who is an MSCE and is an idiot

Several years ago, nearly all our Windows admins were MS-certified, and our servers were a disaster. They honestly believed that the best way to distribute anything to the servers was via a floppy, carried from box to box. One of them was well-known to have the domain admin ID and password under his keyboard. And I don't mean "everyone in the datacenter" - I mean a third of the entire IT department knew it.

All the certified ones left (via a variety of methods, most of them not entirely voluntary), and the non-MS-certified replacements/guys remaining whipped our datacenter into shape astonishingly quickly. We now have MS's monthly patches evaluated, tested and rolled out in under a week, and management of them is entirely centralized. The systems are more stable and more secure.

A Few Thoughts:

[TripMaster Monkey]

Fact: You can have the knowledge without having to pay to be Certified when it comes to computers.

This was exactly my situation before I learned (to my chagrin) that most employers simply won't take you seriously unless you throw the alphabet soup at them.

Another fact: Just because you have the certification does not mean you actually know the material as well as someone who is not certified.

Again, something I'm uncomfortably familiar with, having to work with more than one 'paper MCSE' in the past...

So what is the point of getting IT Certifications? To have a piece of paper?

You got it. Unfortunately, that piece of paper is the only way non-technically-minded individuals have to gauge your technical prowes, so they tend to attach unreasonable worth to them.
This isn't a problem...it's an opportunity. "Turn the problem on its head...that's what the Bishop always said..." (apologies to Harry Harrison).
Most people in the IT field are good test takers...if you don't think of yourself as a good test taker, you probbly haven't worked hard enough at it. In a world where you will be judged all too often by your alphabet soup, test taking is a skill you must master. Myself, I've only studied for exams from books, rather than take expensive classes, commonly take about 20 minutes to finish a certification exam, and I haven't failed one yet. Am I that much of a genius? Heck no...I just test well, that's all.

To my mind, the key to testing well (as well as actually coming away with knowledge you can useon the job), is to actually understand the material, rather than simply know the answers by rote. When you can answer the practice questions without looking at the multiple choice answers, and understand why your answer is correct, you're ready.

Re:A Few Thoughts:

[Bonhamme Richard]

I actually recently had an economics professor explain to me why a college degree is worth something. I know that if I really wanted to understand a subject, I probably wouldn't go to a school of any kind to learn about it. I would buy a bunch of books, sit down, and read until I understood it. If it was something like programming I would code until I got it, if it was physics I'd build catapults and other toys to figure it all out.

I would probably end up understanding my subject really well, but no one else would know that. My degree is going to say that Mellon believes I know enough about ECE to set me lose upon the world with its reputation attached to my name. So a potential employer knows that CMU trusts my skills, and he will too. While I don't know much about IT certification, I'll assume it has a similar idea behind it.

Basically, a college degree is the economic equivalent of a warranty for a car. The university loses something (its reputation) if the produce (me) doesn't perform as expected. Is the reputation of a IT institute worth much? Probably not. That means that the warranty (the degree) is probably worth about the same.

I always thought of IT institutes as a kind of community college for CS students. I would say that if you have no work record, no college degree, and a passion for CS, the IT institutes sound like a good idea. If you have a strong work record or good degree, just look for an employer who knows what to look for.

Just my thoughts.

I saved this from a previous slashdot article.

[Vodalian]

When a shop requires certifications (MCSE, Cisco, Novell, Solaris... don't care which), you can count on the following:

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.

CYA

[TheWanderingHermit]

Since I'm in my own business, this doesn't apply, but if I were a mid-level manager and needed to hire an IT person, and I hire someone with certification I can truthfully say I checked his qualifications. If they screw up, well, it's not my fault because I checked on what I could. But if I hire someone without certification, and they screw up, I can't prove I did all I was supposed to.

At least that's how I hear it from friends. Personally, I'd rather throw out oddball questions that most people won't expect from a manager and see if they actually know how to do what they claim they can -- or can at least think through the process. I'd rather have a competent tech or programmer than a certified one, but if you're not a the top, it can be different. Then it's better to prove you checked credentials and certifications than that the person actually be able to do the job.

Re:There is no point unless...

[cprice]

Most IT managers are dimwitted when it comes to qualifications. Keep in mind that HR recruiters, who are usually even more retarded than IT managers, screen resumes before the IT manager sees them. Certs are a good way to back up what your resume says and get yourself into the 'to be interviewed' pile.

I just left a site where the guy with the most certs was probably the worst technical person in a team of ~10. I wouldnt trust him to swap tapes in the library, nevermind have root...

No Cert and No CS degree == ?

[MarkEst1973]

I have neither a certification from a major vendor nor a CS degree. And I'm asked time and again how/why I got my computer skills. I'm knowledgeable and well read, but the lack of the "piece of paper" is glaring to employers.

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".

Re:No Cert and No CS degree == ?

[killmenow]

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.

It's a fact that Alice might be better than Bob at knife-throwing, too.

Re:No Cert and No CS degree == ?

[mandreko]

I don't even think i'd worry about getting the certs.

I am a 21 year old kid, who went to 3 years of college for computer science, and by the time the 3rd year came around, I was sick of it. The moment that made me realize it, was when I was in a 400 level class, about networking, and we were going over subnetting. The professor mentioned "binary". A kid in the class says "how do we count in binary?". Then everyone else started in saying they didn't know either.

This was a 400 level class, designed for the people who were almost out of school going to get jobs in the computer field. I dropped all my classes, and said goodbye to all my profs.

I haven't got any certs, because they seem worthless.

I got a job at a local ISP. I'm not rich, but for being 21, out on my own, I'm doing pretty good. I own a house, just bought a new 2005 mustang gt, and live happily. My job doesn't require me to take BS tests that show I know what they already know I know. They just let me do my thing.

Re:No Cert and No CS degree == ?

[Slime-dogg]

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.

Mights are not usuals. I would also expect a self-taught guy to code in rings, as a good CS program will stress that spaghetti should only be served on a plate.

My experience: Self-taught guys do not have a good grasp of algorithmic efficiency, code documentation, and generally code with poor style. They also have a tougher time grasping new concepts, and tend to not understand how the underlying parts work. You may be able to code a pop-up window in VB from reading in a book, but that is not all that impressive.

Taking the Java programmer certification test...

[tcopeland]

...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.

Most "Certified Techs"

[Dugsmyname]

Most heavily certified techs I've met have read the books, and taken the tests without any practical knowledge... They are surrounded by papers with their names Embossed between either a Microsoft or A+ Logo, and usually can't troubleshoot their way out of a paper bag. When hiring I pay no attention to certifications, but ask open-ended questions that give me insight to how the applicant would react... I never knew that the certification process spent so much time covering System Restore and System Recoveries....

My experince

[mlheur]

My Opinion (oversimplified):
Certification is for those who need to be told they're smart because they don't beleive it themselves

My department's opinion:
Get certified and we'll give you a one time bonus, plus *some* reimbursment of expenses. This way our sales guys can buy contracts with "we have this many MCSE, we have that many CCNA and overall we have all these certifications ready and waiting to support you.

more certs == more contracts == more income == bigger bonuses and pay raises.

So although I don't personally think it's that benefitial, I can see how overall your employer wants you certified.

Re:There is no point unless...

[VoidWraith]

I agree about the last statement. As part of a class I was taking in high school, we took the A+ certification, and CompTIA (the company behind it) screwed up my name, and treated me like NStar (an abysmal power company) does when I tried to fix it: poorly written demands for additional verification that I couldn't provide ("please fax a copy of your driver's license" but I had neither a driver's license nor a fax machine) and not even sending me the certification with the right name on it (that would cost me another $15, so I didn't bother).

Now, for a high school student, I think that the certification makes sense, because most people will just disregard any teenager as uneducated and inexperienced. The inexperience is, of course, still an issue, but with a certification, a teenager can prove that he's actually got the know-how to do the job, and there's a lot less of a risk in hiring him.

Re:There is no point unless...

[ellem]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[rovingeyes]

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.

Money

[Cally]

The 'point' of any for-profit certification is to make money for those administering or awarding it. There are other effects, too, but that's the 'point'.

Next!

Re:Degree Vs DropOut

[winkydink]

The point is so you don't have to work so hard that you succeed in spite of the lack of a degree.

Is Money Worthless Paper Too?

[Saxerman]

You might think you can code 10x better than the average code jockey, but that doesn't mean squat unless you can convince the people who count. The entire point of certifications is almost exactly the same as getting a degree. A potential employer needs some way of knowing what you know. Certifications are one way of attempting to demonstrate that knowledge when comparing you to other candidates. If you're already employed, the certs/degrees help your salary, as they influence what a competitor might pay if you decide to walk. You may have already convinced your boss that you know your stuff, but how well can you convince someone you've never worked for?

Getting a degree might not mean you know anything, but it can demonstrate that you're dedicated and dependable, which are important qualifications in the work place. A certification is typically a lot easier to get, so they don't hold the same weight, but that makes them a good way of showing potential employers that you're staying current with changing technologies.

Obviously there are other methods of demonstrating your worth to a potential employer, certs are just part of the 'ol resume toolkit.

Re:There is no point unless...

[Telent]

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.

The truth?

[deviantphil]

What truth?

There are FOUR lights

Re:The truth?

[deviantphil]

From Wikipedia.

"Chain of Command", a famous episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Jean-Luc Picard is tortured in a fashion similar to that of Winston Smith. Just as Smith is repeatedly shown a hand with four fingers and tortured until he will agree that he actually sees five, Picard is tortured by a Cardassian sadist and is asked to see five lights when there are only four.

Just paper

[QMO]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[jersey_emt]

I agree 100%. It's one thing to not bother with obtaining certifications, or not requiring certifications when you hire someone. But to not give someone an interview, or not hire someone just on the basis that they *have* a certification in the field is asinine.

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[dsginter]

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?
 

Well, they don't *all* suck...

[JakiChan]

I will say this - the harder a cert is to get, the more it is worth. The CCIE still gets a lot of respect. When looking for a contractor I specify it just to save time. The first few times I tried to hire a network contractor I got "qualified" applicants who couldn't answer simple questions. So call me lazy, but just knowing someone has a CCIE (and verifying it) tells me a lot. And judging by the rates they command, I'd say it's worth it to them too.

Re:There is no point unless...

[tha_mink]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[Evil W1zard]

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?

Yes, it is about the paper

[jayhawk88]

Others have already mentioned it, but yes certs are useful for:

- getting past HR filters
- impressing bosses, or more importantly sometimes, giving your boss ammo to impress others higher up the food chain
- survivability? If the axe is threatening to come down, all other factors being relatively equal, who do you think will get hit: You with all your undocumented knowledge, or your buddy whom the company invested $5k in for an MCSE or whatever?

Yes, it's unfair and it sucks. Yes, we all know people who go drop $5k with Global Knowledge or someone like that, get locked in a room for 5 days in Dallas, and come out with an MCSE and a bunch of crib notes about MMC. It's the way of the business world, and not likely to change anytime soon, even if Redmond were to drop into the Pacific tomorrow. If anything this sort of thing will only get worse, as IT departments continue to become more integrated and ubiquitous into companies.

It's worth it to bite the bullet in this case.

Re:There is no point unless...

[KilobyteKnight]

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.

Illegal? I can't tell from your email address if you are outside the US, but it certainly is not illegal in the US.

You can decide to not hire a person for any number of reasons. There are some laws preventing hiring discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, and the like.... but certification is certainly not on that list.

Having said that though, I agree with you that it is foolish to prejudice youself against someone with a certification. I personally would treat them as a non-issue.

Money

[clesters]

I contract to the DOD, which means that some non-technical person 30 steps up decides if my company gets the contract based off of the worker's resume. Something on your resume that has Microsoft and Cisco in the title is easy for a contract officer to cross reference with the required duties of the contract.

By having 4 certs that I keep current I pull down 6 grand more than the person next to me who has a masters in comp sci.
With much less investment from me to boot.

The only time I've seen(where I work) that a degree pays more than multiple high level certs, is when that degree is an MBA with an info tech option.

certificates, not the same as degrees

[yagu]

I know a lot of people think certification falls along the same lines as having a college degree. I disagree. Many if not most certificates are easily obtained. I've attended classes where others in the class barely attended but instead used the "trip" to vacation in the locale. Others clearly got through the week of training on sheer stamina but came away none-the-wiser.

I suppose (as I've seen in some of these posts) I could claim I'd done my due diligence by ensuring my candidates/employees were certified and point my fingers at them, or the certification bodies if they turned out to be duds.

A better way I think is the old fashioned way -- an in depth interview along subject lines germaine to the position being considered. Where I worked we used random questions from a set of questions collectively gathered from our team -- these questions were representative of the technology we used, the situations we encountered, and plans for future work. The only time we ended up with an employee of no use to ourselves was when after our screening process our selection was overridden by a PHB who felt he knew better. He didn't.

Re:There is no point unless...

[TheKubrix]

and am definitely prejudiced against someone who puts them on their resume.

A bit extreme, no? I hope I never run into someone as arrogant as you in the work field,.....

Sucks when people like you thumb their noses at things that are so damn trivial....

A telling point

[Wingchild]

I recall a job interview I attended in 1999. The job itself was a pseudo-network-engineer position with heavy client interaction; I would have worked out of a co-location facility and managed equipment for a tiny list of clients. The position was quite junior. This particular job required an MCSE, which I possessed.

My interview was multi-stage, including a technical process. The questions they asked were laughable; "What is TCP/IP" and "What is DNS" and so forth. I pointed out that I was, in fact, an MCSE. They replied "We know - that's why we're asking."

Re:A telling point

[gclef]

Actually, I've found that asking basic questions like that, even of the very skilled, can be very telling.

If a network guy (or, in my case, network security guy) can't tell me the difference between TCP and UDP, this will be a very short interview. (Yes, I have had people fail that question.)

People lie on resumes, and really "obvious" questions are a good first-level filter for the liers.

It's what you make of it.

[sled]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[Dr. Evil]

I don't think I would want to work for a company which makes such sweeping generalizations.

I throw my certifications on a one-liner under my education and training. You know, something like:

• Astral Basket Weaving B.Sc.
• CCNA, MCSE, CLS, A+
• 4 day training course in demolitions

The RHCE is different...

[FyRE666]

I took the RHCE (one week fast-track course) as the company were paying, and it was a week off at their expense as far as I was concerned. I found it pretty easy to pass, but since it's a performance based exam (ie, you actually have to solve real problems with the machine in front of you, or configure things to spec to a pretty tight schedule) you do have to know your stuff to have any chance in passine. This is unlike most "certifications" where at most you need to simply parrot what you've been trained, or just tick boxes.

I can't say I actually learned anything during the course, (maybe had my memory refreshed though!) but I'd consider it at least an indication of a person's ability to configure a system, have some idea of the general system layout and how to troubleshoot common problems.

Re:The RHCE is different...

[Malor]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[harlows_monkeys]

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

So, the answer to the original question, then, would be that having a certification helps avoid getting a job under a stupid boss.

My New Cert

[E 99]

I've gone 16 years in my career without ever getting or feeling the need for a cert, but I'm about to get the Java Programmer cert because 1) My boss offered to pay for it. 2) It will have a positive effect on my resume. 3) It will benefit both me and the company, insofar as the higher-ups will see it and say, "oh, he must really know what he's doing."

Its simple realy.

[Kenja]

Two people apply for a position. Both claim to know what they are doing. Both have the same amount of real world experiance. One has a cert/degree one dosn't. Which one do you hire?

Re:There is no point unless...

[sedyn]

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.

Think of it this way

[Troll'N]

I.T. Certification is just like getting a drivers license. As you have all probably noticed about 75% of people that have a license have no driving skills whatsoever! It is the Same for your MCSE, CISSP, CCNA, or whatever other certification of the moment that is hot. chances are they are certified but have no clue what to do when they get behind a keyboard.

ENOENT

[RAMMS EIN]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Let's forget for a a minute that that is illegal.

Illegal? I think not. I don't toss resumes if they have certs, but it is not illegal to judge and reject resumes on their face. If I get a resume that comes across as arogant, I toss it. Is that illegal? No. Hell, I tossed a resume because someone listed their hobby as pinball. It just irated me that they would put that on their resume.

Re:There is no point unless...

[Nodar]

so... you are in a hiring posotion... Hey, buddy, i'm looking for a job, great news too, I don't have any certs. Hell, I don't even have a degree, I figure, why do I need one? I'm sure by this point, I'm pretty much a sure bet for getting this job, but if you want to actually do an interview as a free write off lunch or something, I would understand. We'll be in touch, nice doing buisness with you. ass

Treat it as you would treat a college degree

[zoomba]

A bunch of people here have complained that certs mean nothing, that they don't guarantee knowledge, and a few of you have even say listing a cert on a resume makes you LESS inclined to consider someone.

Look at it as a college degree is looked at. It doesn't guarantee knowledge necessarily. What it does is demonstrate some sort of commitment to taking a class and passing an exam, at that takes at least some work, time and money.

A cert does not make you an expert, and the experts have no need of the certifications anyway, so what they really are, are baseline tools. If you pass the RHCE exams, you know the person has a certain set of knowledge at a minimum. It may not be expert level, but you know to some extent what they have proven (in a test at least) what they know.

Also, look at the cert as a tool to the early professional. A training course and a few exams is a good way to quickly spin up into an area of IT you may not be well-versed in. Especially when it's an area dominated by older professionals who are well established. These guys tend to take up all the work and often don't want to delegate any to some know-nothing kid. The result is it's difficult for a new guy to build up his experience.

Over time, the certs do mean less and less as their work experience section grows larger. The cert is not for the guy in the mid/late phase of their careers unless they're trying to shift to a new IT area. Certs are like college degrees... they're of the most value to someone trying to get their foot in the door and build up some basic skills quickly.

Re:There is no point unless...

[Metzli]

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?"

Open Sourced certifications?

[Spy der Mann]

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?

Re:Open Sourced certifications?

[SatanicPuppy]

So who administers the tests? Sounds like you're saying we need Free-As-In-Beer tests, but if there's no central reputable authority doing the testing, then the tests are worthless, and if the tests are free(as in beer), then how would that central authority be funded?

Re:Open Sourced certifications?

[shawb]

Hmm... certifications is one area where I think security by obscurity is perfectly valid... otherwise people will just study the test before they go in.

Re:Open Sourced certifications?

[einhverfr]

take a look at bsdcertification.org (or whatever they are calling themelves). They are working on something very much like this.

Re:Open Sourced certifications?

[uberdave]

It doesn't matter who backs the test. What does matter is that the test is recognized by the industy. As an example, people know that MCSE is from Microsoft, CCNA is from Cisco, but who governs A+? Who knows? Who cares? The industry has somehow perceives these tests as valuable. If we develop a test (say, PVTAT: Peer Verified Technical Aptitude Test) that the industry perceives as valuable, then it will not matter that there is no central authority. The industry itself is the authority.

Re:Open Sourced certifications?

[budgenator]

Think it's hard getting dev's to write documentation, try getting them to write cert test questions

Re:There is no point unless...

[Jeff Hornby]

you can start learning, show demonstrable skill

Isn't that pretty much a description of certification?

Re:There is no point unless...

[Harodotus]

Not the only shining light, I too find my CISSP certification useful.

I am a highly qualified consultant of 15+ years experience. I live and die by recruiters deciding whether or not to pass my resume on to my actual customers.

Before my certification, I had to go into great length about how my semi-directly related experience matched what the job requirements. Now I can say "oh I'm certified in that specifically and have done similar things in the past".

Admittedly it doesn't speak to whether I'm really qualified, but if it gets me past a semi-clueless recruiter to actually speak with the hiring customer/manager, then it was worth but the time and money to get it.

Just be careful that you don't have too many certifications or list any lame/negative ones and it'll help you find work.

For those already employed, it looks great on a performance review and can help the justification for position or pay rate increases.

Re:There is no point unless...

[RapmasterT]

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.

I'll overlook the fact that you clearly have no idea what is or isn't legal in hiring practices, but certs can certainly be a detriment.

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.

Re:it does help but mostly with PHB's

[KendyForTheState]

If I was hiring, the fact that you have those 5 certs would show me that you were serious about your jobs, and were willing and capable of learning new things.
Unless I was looking for an entry-level person, I would probably not consider a person with lots of certs but no experience, nor would I consider the person with lots of experience but no certs. I would look for a well-rounded professional.
You say the certs themselves don't help you with the day-to-day work, but the fact that you were able to obtain them says worlds about your capabilities and potential.

The point of Certification

[Alien54]

Certification is an attempt to solve the problem of incompetent techs. Heck this past couple of weeks, I heard of a tech at Freak Squad wiping a drive to fix the virus or whatever problem, rather than

1. actually fixing the system, or
2. offering the service of backing up the drive first for the customer
3. 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.

Re:The point of Certification

[Doctor O]

I'm with you that certification is bullshit. It's just something to make HR work easy, because otherwise they'd have to really find out whether someone can do a job, the horror. *gasp* Yes, I am being a bit sarcastic on this one.

However, the "Freak Squad" simply is correct. Simply restoring the standard installation from the disk image on the central server is the only way to go.

1. Most spyware opens back doors. Even if you uninstall the spyware, there can always be other malware on the machine already.
2. Hunting for spyware takes a lot of time if done properly. It takes especially long if you consider point 1 and check every nook and cranny of the system, and you have a high probability of you overlooking something tiny and obscure.
3. Restoring the system image usually is a netboot away. It takes about 5 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of your standard installation.

You cannot do a proper spyware hunt in 5 to 20 minutes and even if you could, there would still be some good chance you are left with a zombied machine. The image, on the other hand, is well known to be clean. So it's quicker and it's safe to restore from the clean image, while hunting stuff down basically is a waste of productive time.

Re:There is no point unless...

[ellem]

My wife (an HR Troll... until recently) says:

If the job requires a degree then a Cert can be considered not enough. By disqualifying a candidate over the successful completetion of a Certification you are basically discriminating. While it is unusual to discriminate someone for a redeeming quality it is not unheard of. A recent discrimination case was brought against Merill Lynch for refusing to hire Yale graduates, as the hiring manager was a Harvard graduate. Those discriminated against were ultimately settled with by Merill Lynch who also fired the hiring manger. These are not exactly the same but paralels can easily be drawn.

Summary

[value_added]

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.

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 /. 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.

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[nine-times]

Notice he didn't say that he's prejudiced against someone who has certifications? He says he's prejudiced against people who put them on their resume. Certainly it's fair in business to judge someone by what they choose to put on their resume.

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).

HERE'S WHY - Compliance

[TheLinuxWarrior]

That's one reason why I have certifications.

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

While not directly illegal, choosing to disqualify someone based on the most readily understandable part of their resume is asking for a lawsuit. It comes off as an obvious attempt to mask hiring discrimination that follows under the letter of the law.

It's long been regarded as good practice, at least among employers I've encountered here in the UK, to have a simple written statement of what the company looks for during a recruitment process, including anything that will be used to automatically disqualify candidates. This is sensible anyway, since it avoids one particular interviewer's prejudices artificially affecting the process. However, it also guarantees that everyone's singing from the same hymn sheet, so if someone is rejected on grounds like this, there's a clear policy to justify it and it can't be turned around into some sort of discrimination case because the unwanted candidate also happened to be black, female, or whatever.

When contemplating notions of "legality" one must first contemplate what sort of jurors you may ultimately be forced to justify your actions to.

Screw that. If a company can't even apply its own tests of technical merit in the hiring process, and then can't fire someone crap for the same reason, your economy is doomed by your own legal system. I support, with reservations, legislation that prevents discrimination against groups who are clearly the victims of widescale prejudice that should be irrelevant to their ability to do a job. However, that is the absolute limit of how a company's hands should be tied when it comes to staff selection; requiring a company to employ someone they really don't want is unlikely to be good for either party.

(BTW, the "with reservations" above is only because I have personally encountered several cases where this legislation was abused by the supposedly disadvantaged party to force a win-win proposition at an employer's expense, and very few where it was used to seek redress after genuinely inappropriate discrimination. I certainly do not condone inappropriate discrimination where a decision is not justified on other, more objective grounds.)

Real World example

[sxmjmae]

While working at one place the PHB went on and on about a new IT person they hired. All sorts of academic awards, top in the class, etc.

The first day they sat in front of the computer and they said - "How do you turn on the computer?"

Apparently they never had a home computer and the computer's in the school's labs where always on.

Nice enough person but very limited in the IT knowledge area. Anything outside the text book knowledge base and they where lost. Small little issues would require them days of research to find the solution as it was something they had not just covered in a text book. Innovation and creative ideas where not there strong point.

I find that in computer programming you are almost an artist; creating a logical flow of information. It is impossible for a text book to teach this sort creativity.

The best way for a PHB to see you not only have the technical knowledge but the passion for the field is to look at the job experiences, hobbies or clubs you belong to.

Certs are worthless.

[endus]

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.

The Big Picture

[kofox]

The point of certification is that people who are certified will more likely be qualified than people who are not certified, period. Of course there are specific problems like the ones you mentioned above, but that is no reason at all to scrape the entire system. Without statistical evidence that these situations occur very frequently or infrequently (which neither you nor I have) it's almost pointless to argue about it. You can make the same argument about a number of things including diplomas, degrees and medication just to name a few.

This situation was essentially inevitable

[Maskull]

Originally, of course, the idea was that certs would help non-IT folks weed out the losers when hiring. If you run a small office, how would you hire your first IT person? By definition, you don't already have someone competent (who could judge the qualifications of an applicant), thus, you would have no way of determining who was good and who was bad. If only the good IT people had some kind of certification, given by an independent body, to prove their skillfulness.

Unfortunately, there are two problems with this idea:

• Since the people hiring don't know IT, they need certs to tell them who is good before they hire. But since they don't know IT they will also have a hard time judging who is good after they hire. It is relatively easy for someone who knows nothing to survive in IT for long periods.
• The people giving the certifications make money by doing so. This include the direct funds made by people paying to take the certification tests, as well as by the indirect advertising companies like Microsoft and Cisco receive.

Taken together, these two factors almost ensure that certs will be worthless. Their correspondence to their recipients' actual skills cannot be verified, and there is money to be made by having lots of people get them. Thus, certs are easy to get, even for people who shouldn't have them.

Fact

[caudron]

You interviewer doesn't care whether you respect it or not. He only cares that you have it.

But, certs help with that

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[ShieldW0lf]

It's a question of priorities. As in, this guy had the time to waste on these certifications, he must be desparate for a job. Why is he desparate?

Personally, I'm prejudiced against people with college degrees too... the way I see it, if you're spending years in college, you're not a self-motivated go-getter who can learn independantly, you're just another drone who paid a fortune to be spoonfed and can't be trusted to do anything more than go through the motions like he's been taught.

IT is not the profession for those who need a teacher, it is a profession for those who prefer to teach themselves, because that's what you'll spend the rest of your career doing if you're successful.

The point of certification is cheaper labor

[tmoertel]

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.

Re:What about CISCO?

[jmilne]

It depends on which Cisco certification you're talking about. They have quite a few now. See http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/learning_car eer_certifications_and_learning_paths_home.html for details.

Your CCNA is going to be a very basic written test. If you've got a basic knowledge of networking (can you subnet?), you can probably read some documentation and pass without a problem. The CCNP is going to be harder. You've got four exams to pass, each getting pretty detailed in a specific area of routing or switching. You can still pass it through books only, but it's going to really help if you've got experience with the equipment.

The CCIE, on the other hand, is a written exam as well as a lab exam. And the pass rate for successfully completing the lab on your first attempt is pretty low. Most people who pass the lab require two or three attempts. There's fewer than 7000 active CCIEs around the world right now.

As for access to Cisco documentation, just hit http://www.cisco.com/ and look around. They have a lot available for free.

Re:There is no point unless...

[ivan256]

Taking the time you spend getting certs and using it to schmooze and socialize with the higher-ups at your place of employment will get you contacts that are worth 1000x what any certification you can ever get. The old saying that it's not what you know, but who you know is true. If the people you know also know that you can get your job done there's nothing better to have in your arsenal of job finding tools.

When it comes time for a hiring manager to make a decision between the guy with the certs on his resume and the guy his golfing buddy (or whatever) says does a great job and is fun to hang out with, the golfing buddy recommendation will get the job every time. It's a lot more fun than paying to take some stupid test too.

Image?

[AaronBale]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[leonexis]

As someone who graduated from high school two years ago, I can tell you that certifications are not everything. Although I have taken two years of Cisco Networking at Carson High School, I did not take the CCNA test at the end.

Because I really wanted to with computers and I wanted to help people, I worked for a non-profit organization that recycles and refurbishes computers for the community. I did not get paid much, but I had a place to live and I was happy. A year later, a local company made a presentation to us (ComputerCorps) and wanted to use us to beta test their products.

After they made their presentation, they saw the utilities I wrote and the projects I've. They offered me a job as a programmer on the spot before even asking me what certifications I have. After six months, I became that company's lead programmer and network administrator. I am also a part-owner of that company.

Although certifications are nice, they do not get you the job. They may get you in the door at some places, but determination and experience are the real factors that get you the job.

-steve

Re:There is no point unless...

[qwijibo]

Why do you list the MCSE on the second AND third lines?

My Badge of Honor

[Avatar8]

I think of certifications (and degrees) as little badges to get past the shallow people who do not understand what I've been doing for the past 21 years.

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.

Re:Taking the Java programmer certification test..

[ezweave]

Word.

I did the SCJP and it taught me alot about some nooks and crannies I never used. That may be different from an MCSE or MCSD in some regards. The SCJP has you learn a bunch about garbage collection, some nitty gritty JVM details, etc. Nothing you could not learn on your own. It is also the gateway test to the other Java exams. Some of those actually do indicate if you are a decent developer: the Sun Certified Java Developer exam requires you to develop a business type app NEARLY FROM SCRATCH (no J2EE, etc) and then they review your design as part of that process. That is alot different than just memorizing details.

But for the most part, certifications for a language do not mean you are a good developer, but if you really are good they should be like icing on the cake.

Now if you hate all people who have certifications (and ignore their resumes... like an earlier posts states), I think you might have some personal issues...

Certifications are good...

[borawjm]

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!

Re:Certifications...

[rbochan]

Ok, guess it's time to pull out my "certs don't mean jack" story here once again...

Since my sister lives several hundred miles away, I'm saved from most "family tech support issues". Her Win98 computer wasn't running so fast a couple of years back, so she decided to add more ram to it to speed things up. Her husband took it to his "MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" to get the job done.
"MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" proceeded to drop a screwdriver onto the mobo when it was powered and fried it. He also had the nerve to charge them for a new motherboard, but at least the ram got installed.
I was visiting a couple of months later when my sister mentioned that she couldn't get any sound when she tried to play a CD. As I was already almost seething when she'd told me about the motherboard, I figured I knew exactly what the deal was. I peered in through the back to, sure enough, see that "MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" hadn't reconnected the CD audio cable and it was just dangling there. I then grabbed a screwdriver to open the case to connect the cable.
Seems "MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" lost the case screws, so "MCSE & A+ Certified buddy at work(TM)" POP-RIVETED THE GOD DAMN CASE SHUT.
Another half hour, a drill, and migraine later, she once again had CD audio working.

So, yes... certs might look good on paper, but they don't mean jack when it comes to knowledge.

Getting an interview

[JSBiff]

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.

Re:There is no point unless...

[gamlidek]

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.

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.

/gam/

Database hiring

[Eminence]

It's an effect of what I call "database hiring". As a human resource you are being chosen more or less like any other commodity using IT systems. In these a HR droid choses the parameters he desires the resource to have and runs a query on the resume database. You are more likely to be in the output the HR droid gets if you can click more fields while submitting your resume. More certs -> more fields -> more chances of getting through.

Thank god networking stil works and even sites like LinkedIn exist, especially for those of us who have the rare ability of being able to learn practically anything without a need for institutionalized tuition.

Certs required by vendors

[ZorroIII]

5. The shop is a partner of a vendor who requires a certain amount of certified people. Cisco Gold Partner, for example.

Easy weedout

[Spazmania]

When I hire for an Open Source guy, certifications are a red-flag for me. Unless you're very junior, the fact that you wasted space in your resume to tell me that you're certified in a dozen meaningless things tells me you're the wrong guy for the job.

I just recently saw a resume with a bunch of certifications on page 1. He had a college degree... listed all the way on page 5. Roundfile. Goodbye.

Re:Easy weedout

[Nailer]

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.

More certs or a Masters degree?

[modi123]

I am not so sure about certs - I never saw the point, but as it sits right now I am wondering if my four year university degree was worth the student loans!

I graduated with a Comp. Sci. BS from a Nebraska university two years ago, and I am barely at where I want to go. At the time: excelled at the classes I took (mainly programming c++, java, cobol, and perl), went out and obtained a side minor of Native American studies, and was planning on going to grad school for AI and complex adaptive agents. Due to financing I opted to not go massively in debt for my masters or PhD, and started to move up in the company I worked for. I worked up to a managerial level in a call center, then hopped the wall to our software testing team. Another guy and myself are the only two in the department of 40ish people that have IT degrees. I took the job in hopes of bouncing to the programming department, but I still had to stop and meekly say "Ouch!" at the prospects. I wonder if it was worth the four years of university to be where I am or could I have just gone and snatched up a bunch of certs and a two year technical degree. Would I be in a different boat or just the same situation two years earlier?

The new dilemma is to peruse a masters degree or get another BS through a technical college in a year or so in "computer information systems technology" (read: programming specific). Would anyone care to comment on the use of a masters' degree over another BS or a barrel full of certs?

Re:the value lies in the HR department

[sguine]

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.

Aren't worth the paper they are printed on

[GuyverDH]

*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*

It's only a third of what you need...

[EvilNight]

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.

Re:MS *DOES* intend for MSCE to find a job!

[Schnapple]

Good point, but MCSE is not aimed at programmers. There is a cert, the MCSD I think, that's aimed at developers. It's difficult and it's rare, so it's still somewhat valuable.

But the sorts of people who tend to go for MCSE also tend to be the "piece of paper entitles me" types. The glut of these types is why MCSE is a joke nowadays. But MS made their money off of the test and the "sanctioned" materials they sell.

Once during an interview I was asked "why don't you have any certs?" I responded that, perhaps it was coincidence but most of the programmers I knew with certs weren't any good and most developers who were good didn't bother with certs. The interviewer grinned and responded "oh, it's no coincidence..."

solution

[samjam]

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

Re:solution

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

I took option B -- switching to a job where I didn't have to hire people. On other words, I exchanged one set of frustrations with another, but at least now when I refer to one of my co-workers as a flaming moron, I can do so with a clean conscience knowing I wasn't the one that hired him :)

Useful for... promotions!

[samureiser]

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.

Re:College records are just as bad...

[letxa2000]

Of course, the fact they had sent me a diploma didn't seem to be a factor, but lots of employers want a transcript, and it didn't show up there.

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. :)

We don't need no stinking...oh, those!

[who's got my nicknam]

My story is thus: Over 10 years in the IT industry, 9 of those as a self-employed, broke, Geek. How broke? Well, let's just say I never bothered to bookmark ThinkGeek.com, okay? Number of times asked for Certs = zero. Conclusion? If you're a consultant, nobody cares if you're Cert'd, since failure to perform doesn't result in you getting paid. Then when I finally did apply for a job (with one of my former clients) they never even asked, since obviously I was competent. My suggestion, for what it's worth, is to set yourself up as a consultant to establish credentials. I'm not saying that's a total substitute for writing certs, but if your resume can show business experience, and if you have even a few satisfied clients for your prospective employer to call, you are far ahead of the rest of the college monkeys who come out with a lovely framed Cert and hours of lab experience. The posting about the certs being strictly for HR departments is pretty true - the only other people who care are the little old ladies bringing their spyware-infested Compaq to Best Buy for servicing. "Ooh, look, Mildred. All their boys are A++! We can trust them to do a good job!"

Certs as Propaganda?

[nurbles]

I don't know if this is still true, but when I first saw an MSCE taining module for Windows NT TCP/IP, it contained a number of WRONG answers. By wrong, I mean that Windows NT did not work the way the MSECE module required one to answer -- however -- the MSCE matched MS's [incorrect] documentation. I gained my knowledge of those things (I don't recall specifics, so don't ask) by developing Windows NT software that used TCP/IP for a number of years (since NT 3.1 went gold, in fact), yet I'd nearly fail the sample test if I answered all of the questions as NT actually worked.

If any of the existing tests exhibit this same bias, then the certs are less than useless. They would, in fact, be harmful by teaching the way things should be instead of the way things are.

Perception carried from other industries

[fishbowl]

The perception of certification carries from other industries where certification is required -- 'required', meaning, it would actually be illegal for you do do your job without the certification.
Certification == licensing.

There's nothing like licensing in most of the IT field.

When I'm involved in hiring decisions (rare these days), I don't look at the big picture of education. I have a few categories of questions that you will have good answers to if you're experienced, period. As for education, if there's time, I'll try to determine if you had a passion for subjects like advanced calculus and if you did anything interesting in physics.

I'd be far less interested in "where" you went to school, and far more interested in how seriously you took certain subjects, since the wrong answers here can make you a dangerous person.

higher bill rate

[hobrah]

my employer can bill a federal/military contact at a higher bill rate if i have certs.