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IT Certification Less Important Now?
lpq writes "IT certifications, popular after the dot-com bust, seem to be hurting careers now according to this article in the current Eweek.com issue. Guess employers are getting hip to the idea that those who don't have experience or can't "do", get certified..."
There is nothing in the article stating IT certifications are hurting careers. To summarize the real article:
I personally think certification is bullhockey, but I don't necessarily hold that someone has a certification against them. Doing so (subtracting value for certification) would be akin to disrespecting someone for having a college degree, and that doesn't make sense.
So, if you have certs, it isn't going to hurt you. What will hurt you is not having skills companies are looking for (unfortunately, the article is really a little thin on what those skills are. The article does list some very broad categories that are "growing" (whatever that means): Applications Development/Programming Languages, Project Management, Training, Webmaster and Security).
Bottom line, as it probably should be, you're going to get evaluated and paid for performance, not pieces of paper.
Some companies like people with certs. Some don't.
Some companies like people with advanced degrees. Some don't.
Some companies like people in suits. Some don't.
Do what you want, be how you want, and network. That's how you get a job (and more likely how you get one that you'll fit into).
.sigs are for post^Hers.
I don't know about the rest of the Slashdotters here, but I still see lots of job postings that ask for the alphabet soup of certifications. Now though, as opposed to around the time of the Dot Com boom, I see lots of "certifications requested" or "certifications a plus" rather than "certification required".
So now what? All the new bloods have to wait until all the experienced folk die off before they can get a shot at the industry?
Do you see what I did there?
That could indicate that certifications are less important to these companies... if they were all getting paid the same salary at the beginning of the six month period. But since we don't have that information, this study is pretty much worthless...
"This is a clear indication that employers are not placing the same emphasis on certification that they once did.
I wish I got paid to make ridiculous statements...
It depends what you're looking for. If you're hiring based primarily on COST, go for the cert. If you're hiring based on PERFORMANCE- go for the degree holder. He'll cost you more per year- but less per project.
In other words, this is the cheap labor debate all over again. Those who are short sighted (looking only at the money-per-unit-of-time number) will go for the cert still.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
About ten years ago, I got my assorted MS certifications, taking 10 different tests at a cost of $1,000 total. I was new to my current job and found that while it didn't immediately raise my salary, it did get my foot in the door.
Within six months, I was our company's first SQL Server admin. A year after that, I was the sole developer on the newly formed Web Services team. Long-term, the certifications were a very wise investment.
Still, the bottom-line is that people were most impressed by my performance. Being able to study and pass ten different tests probably reflects on my sometimes insane degree of focus, rather than full comprehension. I barely passed my NT certification and only now fully understand the wacky security model.
No, and if you read the article it doesn't really say that certification is hurting anyone, just that they're not worth as much as they once were.
I suppose if you factor in the opportunity cost of getting a certification (versus doing something else with that time that's more "real world" experience) maybe it could be thought of as 'hurting' you, but I didn't see any indication that people are paying less for certified employees than uncertified ones. They're just not paying more.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
...the value depends on the credibility of the certifying authority. Microsoft Certifications have become almost worthless because MS was printing money with the MCP program in the 1990's. Now the tests are (a little) harder, but the barrier to getting certified is still really low in the MS world. Result? MCSE is basically worthless to have these days.
On the other hand, TFA points out the going-rate for certain Cisco certifications is on the rise. Not coincidentally, some of the Cisco certs they refer to are among the hardest to get. MCPs are easy to get, are more common, and thus do not denote any exceptional level of expertise.
Of course, I'd rather hire somebody with a mile-long list of successful projects they've accomplished than an alphabet-soup of certifications. In every hiring scenario I've been involved in so-far, I have always put the people who have DONE something ahead of the certification monkeys. Of crouse, if somebody with experience and "hard" certifications comes along, it doesn't hurt matters.
Who did what now?
When I was in high school, working at a computer store, I though maybe an A+ certification could help me get paid more and maybe look 'more experienced' to potential clients.
Then I looked at the requirements.. It's a joke. To be certified in A+, you're basically acting like the sole set of computing solutions is the Windows platform. The example tests had questions that seem to attempt to lock you into the idea that only Microsoft products exist and all computer hardware is used to run Microsoft software. So, I decided not to waste my money to get certified.
It looks to me that if someone is willing to waste their time to get A+, the lowliest of certifications, that they probably are not worth much for their time. I think about 80% of the average Slashdot readers could pass the A+ exam no problem just by taking the exam. So, imo, the certification doesn't say much other than you waste your time.
I mean.. if someone put 'passed driver's license test' on his resume, wouldn't that maybe make you think he was 'special?' A+ is the 'special' persons' computer certification. It says, 'even though Bob doesn't look like he can function like a normal Internet user, he actually can because he's A+ certified.'
--- We need more Ron Paul!
My current position as a *nix SysAdmin required that I take a long written (as in - paper and pencil) test on some rather complex questions involving Solaris, BSD, and Linux (e.g. - "write a script that will cancel all mail messages in a courier queue that is more than X days old and report/mail the results to all current admins"). Once I was hired, I discovered that most other people who wanted the job and wrote "UNIX" in their resumes would apparently come up against a brick wall rather hard if they didn't have the experience behind the ink.
But then, you can find out in five minutes at a shell prompt whether or not someone really knows *nix, as opposed to a GUI environment where a candidate can guess-and-click their way to success.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Skills and expirence always trump paper.
But paper often gets you in the door for the interview.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
this discussion... EVERY time this comes up on slashdot, people make the same stupid assumptions and generalizations and trot out the same tired lines.
".. those who don't' have experience or can't "do", get certified...""
Yes, I'm sure they do... but SO DO plenty of people who CAN "do." This is not an "either / or" situation people, where you either have experience, are smart/talented/whatever, OR you get certified. Some very smart, talented people realize that *some* employers do put significant weight on paper credentials, and choose to get certified as just one more part of the overall picture.
Evaluating job candidates is, at best, very difficult... any tool that give an employer any visibility into a candidates abilities is a Good Thing, IMO. No, just being certified by itself doesn't mean you get the job... but if you have to weigh two otherwise equally qualified candidates, and one has passed a difficult certification exam and one hasn't, maybe that tips the balance. Or maybe you have a guy with 2 associate degrees, two relevant certifications, and 4 years of experience, vs. a guy with a bachelors degree who's just out of school... it's not an obvious choice... again, you have to look at the *whole* picture.
Are certifications a panachea; for employers or employees? No, but to suggest that they have no value is just ignorant.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Real UNIX typically doesn't include BASH ;)
In college psych there are 3 things I still reference on a daily basis. One of the biggies was, correlation isn't causation. You are right, just because the average person with a cert might make less than those without does not mean certs cause you to make less.
During the last few years there have been many diploma mills out there. What these numbers lead me to believe are those with real skills didn't have any need to prove it with a 6 week class and a cert. However, this isn't always true. We get up to 5% a year bonus for certs at my job. So most people assume to take one or two a year for that reason.
Certs aren't inherently bad. They are just a symbol of aquired knowledge. By that line of reasoning they are no more fundamentally evil than a degree from a state university. However, in practice, these short term training programs became about who paid most for questions closest to the real test.
I could throw in a antecdotal story of someone having cert x and being dumb as a rock, but I don't really need to. We all know one. And if you don't know one, you probably are that person. 2-8 week cert programs were a fad that HR depts ate up like so much confection spread upon my naked body. It couldn't last forever. PHB's are starting to realize Microsoft certs are a dime a dozen, Novell certs are losing steam (they are changing markets too quick and their customers aren't keeping up with their training), and Cisco certs are still somewhat valueable. But what is valueable now (and will probably always be valueable in the long term) is experiance.
Just a side note... Has anyone seen those Vonage ads on slashdot pwning the fad technologies of the week? It's nice to see sed and awk are still in style 8-)
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Rule of thumb: Anything that allows you to "level up" is out to fuck you, take your money, or both. Examples: School, military, corporate hierarchy, catholic church, world of warcraft, scientology, etc.
I've been on the hiring end of the stick a few times, just enough to decide that it's in my best interest to toss away any resumes that have nothing but certifications listed in the education section.
I think most people who've done a few rounds of hiring will easily note that people in that category simply don't have the required knowledge. Nor do they have the work ethic. A university degree certainly doesn't guarantee intelligence, but it does guarantee you that a person can make it through four continuous years of hard work.
Another point of note is that I once worked at a testing center where they administered many of the popular IT certification exams. It became obvious very quickly that those certifications are designed merely as a money making tool for the companies that produce them. They give you an idea that the person you're hiring can memorize screens and their uses, along with a few technical concepts, and their applications, but that's all they do. (It's also fairly common to find bootleg copies of the exams on the internet).
In the future if I see a long list of certs I'll probably just toss the resume away without going any further. There's no shortage of people out there, but there aren't that many good people, just more and more people with certifications and educations from silly little diploma farm colleges.
I know that I'm not the only who thinks this way too... so yeah I'd say it could hurt.
That is a little silly, man. I mean, I don't know how to do that, but I do know where to look. Knowing where to find answers is the most vital part of being a sysadmin in the linux/unix world, because you can never know everything, and every company has their own special way of doing things.
It's the same thing about programming. Learning to program, and learning how to program in XYZ are two different things. T
sig?
When I first decided to get certs, I was a college dropout. I had reached mid-junior level in a CompSci track, and taken a local developer job. I was working at a local company doing web application development. This was in the same small town (50k pop) in which I went to school, and was looking to be a well paid fish in a bigger pond. My route was the MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer) track. In 1999, that meant doing a track with 5 tests, two of which would be VB or C++ centric, a couple of electives, and the two hour "solutions architecture" test. Since I had done of ton of C++ in college but no MS C++, and had a lot of VB and ASP experience, I went the VB route. After passing all of the tests (self study), I soon found a well paying job out of state and took it. I was told that my certs got my foot in the door, and my interview and technical skills I demonstrated got me the job.
Now it is 2006, and I have almost 9 years of professional software development experience under my belt. I take pride in the fact that I have continued my self education sans BS CompSci. Recently, things got craptacular at work and I decided I needed to look for new employment. I pulled the old .doc resume files out, and seriously thought about removing all of the old MCSD crap. However, I left it in. And it worked really well for me. I found that recruiters still look for this stuff. I cannot believe how many interviews started with questions or comments on my certs. It got my foot in the door, again.
In the end, I am more than certain that it was my experience and my answers to some tough technical questions that got me my new job. However, I would recommend certs to anyone looking to prove their technical merit.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
I remember when I got my first web development job. I had the skills but no experience, and a piece of paper from a closed school in another country. The interview consisted of 10 minutes of chatting, after which they asked me to implement a simple web app that did reads, inserts, updates and deletes on a database. I asked if they minded me using the reference bookshelf in the process, as I was a little rusty, and it wasn't a problem. I skimmed through the books, refreshed my memory, and had the thing built in about twenty minutes... it wasn't particularly challenging, particularly when I had the books on hand.
I was the last of seven applicants, and the only one without a university degree in computer science. I was also the only one to complete the project. From what I was told, it took all the other applicants with their certifications at least 6 hours to not succeed in a simple task that they weren't familiar with. I got hired on the spot.
Certifications don't mean shit. If I was hiring someone, I'd be looking at their project experience. What I'd be looking for is a series of successful projects that were NOT all the same. THAT is what demonstrates your capacity to fix problems.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I read somewhere the following about being a Systems Admin:
....or something like that.
Systems Administation is about knowing what you know, knowing what you don't know and figuring out how to know what you don't know.
Ideally, what you want is for the basic pay of the lowest paid to be comparable to the cost of living at an acceptable standard. (By that, I mean you can get an apartment that shouldn't be condemned, you can afford to meet your nutritional requirements, you can meet reasonable medical expenses, that sort of thing.) At present, there are many below "minimum wage" workers in the US who probably earn half to a third of what I consider an acceptable minimum.
True, there will always be a bottom of the pyramid. That is why you want automation. Machines don't need much, so put them at the bottom and raise humans to a more human level. It's not a perfect solution. I don't have any perfect solutions. But as a temporary fix, whilst society figures out what a perfect solution would look like, it sounds a lot better than what we have now.
When it comes to degrees and certifications, I do understand why rarity affects value. Again, it is supply and demand. On the other hand, breadth and depth of knowledge defines understanding. Merely knowing a formula by rote is nothing more than alchemy or religious indoctrination. It doesn't tell you anything of substance and the moment you fall outside of the straight and narrow, your knowledge becomes worthless.
(This is true of ANY educational program. I am definitely much more in favour of "Classical" or "Renaissance" thinking there, where context and diversity of knowledge was of the utmost importance. "Modern" education does better on the depth, which is important too. Knowing everything about nothing is just as useless as knowing nothing about everything.)
I'd prefer a system that provided continuous education and rolling tests throughout a person's life, or at least provide sabbaticals to approximate that. That way, you can dispense with a lot of the redundancies in the degree program and you can link certifications to a significant quality and quantity of knowledge.
I believe Britain has something like 60% of the population go through the University system now. That's not a bad start, provided the diversity is great enough that the degree has no value. It seems to work OK, but there are still more areas that need work than don't.
(By comparison, there are States in America which barely manage to get 54% of their population to even graduate High School. And, no, that's not because American standards are higher, when something like a third of those can't even find America on a map!)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"But I never understood the need for certification"
:) Then, not only can your skills do the talking, but you can claim certification, on top of that, too, which can only be a plus for you.
:)
Sometimes, certification isn't for you - it's for your employer, and their customers. Unfair as it may appear to you, it establishes a baseline, one which I'm sure you far surpass.
"I preferred (and still prefer) to let my skills do the talking instead of jacking around taking some prefab test that any monkey could study for and pass."
No offense, but, if you're as good as you think, then certainly you should be able to pass some "prefab tests that any monkey could study for and pass"? And, I'm sure your company would be pleased not to have to pay to send you for training, but simply pay for those tests you can pass simply because you're so good?
If you're self-employed, then, not only do you get a certification, but, the costs are a tax write-off, too.
Just a thought: Why not try? Certainly, if some monkey can pass them, you should be able to as well.
There's only one way to find out
You graduated in 2000, yet you're so uber skilled that you don't think you need to be certified?
Hell, I've been doing computer service for over 20 years, I GREW UP with the PC industry [1], learned it as I went as did many others of my generation, and I STILL take tests, mostly to re-certify, and am often surprised by what I don't know, as I tend to take them cold since I rarely have time now to study (and, I like to see what I've learned, by experience, and compare that to what I don't know, against what they're testing for.. and many times, I learn new things that way, which I always enjoy).
Regards,
dj
[1] Started as a technician, in 1986, doing field service for a local PC sales and service company. Installed my first PC-based LAN in 1987. Server was an IBM PC-AT, 8 Mhz (the "fast" one, *grin*). Had a Seagate ST-4096 80 MB MFM drive, and we had to replace the BIOS on the motherboard, with EPROMS whose drive table we'd altered to support the drive natively, as IBM didn't support it... there wasn't such a thing as user-settable hard drive parameters back then.
Oh, and the NOS was NetWare 286, v2.0a. Compiled it myself, from copies of the masters... and does anyone besides me remember COMPSURF? *grin*
Ethernet was 'way too expensive back back then for our customers (small-medium sized companies)... we used ARCNET, running on coax... and while it was "only" 2.5 Mbps, it was token-based, and scaled well as node population per segment increased... unlike Ethernet, at that time, which didn't have switches available to mitigate collisions.
Now, of course, everyone calls Ethernet switches "hubs", even though they aren't... and we all ignore the performance loss that results from a collision-based topology, 'cause the hardware handles it, pretty much transparently now... except when it doesn't.
But, I'd be willing to bet, that as network speeds scale, eventually, collision-based Ethernet will be replaced with something that is non-collision based - probably token-passing based... but, it'll probably still be called "Ethernet", so as to placate the masses.
However, I'm wandering now.
Guess the last thing I'd say is this: If you're so good, go get certified... costs you nothing to do so, really.
And, it proves that you're at least as good as those that just passed
Me, I had the EXACT same attitude as you, back in 1992... I'd already been doing NetWare network installs for over 5 years by that point... why should I get certified?
Well, my boss wanted to become a Novell Reseller... and, that meant that someone had to get certified.
So, I did: He was cheap, and wouldn't pay for training... so, I just went and took the tests. They weren't offered in our city, so, I had to drive an hour and a half to where they were available... and, since I was the head tech, I couldn't stay away l
A number of years ago I was placed on a MCSE boot camp, the company was thoughtful enough to negotiate a cut price with the training company as a result of not including the actual certification but just sticking me on the course. At the time I was the Systems Administrator, 6 months prior I had migrated the Netware data centre to Windows 2000 as a result of political pressure. I wasn't too keen on attending the courses as I had numerous other projects running at the time but thought that it would be an opportunity. On my arrival I was greeted by three members of middle (non-tech) management from my organisation and a large group of Helpdesk operatives from an outsourcing company. The course bored me to tears and fortunately or unfortunately I was removed after 3 days to oversee an impromptu acquisition back at the ranch.
Two weeks later the middle management returned, all having been certified. Upon questioning the certification I was told "It is not in the companies benefit to invest in your certification, you can do the job without the certification. Why should we invest in something you can already do?" The individuals who recieved the certification shot up the management chain and after a number of months left the organisation. I wouldn't have employed them to defrag a disk, yet their CV's were certainly much rosier than mine. From that point on I have always questioned certification, not one member of my current team is certified but they all have a proven track record and a degree...