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..."

Comments

slashdot summary is just plain wrong

[yagu]

There is nothing in the article stating IT certifications are hurting careers. To summarize the real article:

• some certifications have lost value in the market (MCDST, CISA, NCDE, MCNE, CNA)
• some certifications have gained value (SCNP, CISM, MCT)
• companies are also beginning to pay closer attention to skills rather than certifications.
• 14 certifications have grown in value, showing an 11 percent or higher growth over the last year (directly contradicting the slashdot article thesis)

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.

Re:slashdot summary is just plain wrong

[zerocool^]

Not to mention, MCDST is brand new. It's the like easy-cheezy Microsoft cert. The consulting place I used to work wanted me to get a cert every year, but they didn't care which one, and they paid... so... whatever.

The Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician cert is exactly that. It's what you'd want the kid behind the counter at the local pee-cee store to have before he works on your next door neighbor's computer. Like, how Windows XP Home works; how email works; how Office works. That stuff.

The bonus to the MCDST is that if you're going for your MCSA (refresher: MCP -> MCSA -> MCSE, in order of knowledge and number of tests), you can substitute the Desktop Cert (which is 2 tests) for the "elective" test. The MCSA is Windows XP Pro, Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2003 Server Network Infrastructure, and an elective. The 2 Desktop tests are easier than the options you're given for electives (SUS Server, etc).

And yes, an MCSA / MCSE is still worth something. People say you can just glance at a book and pass it, but the thing takes 9 tests, some of which are so anal that you do actually have to study, and it helps to have seen it in practice. How many people do you actually know with an up to date MCSE? I know 1. I'm sure on slashdot a lot of people actually have one, or work with a lot of people that have one, but when someone says "Oh, MCSE is a breeze, 10 minutes of studying and I could take it", take them up on it, offer to pay the $100 if they can pass "Exam 70-294: Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure" or "Exam 70-285: Implementing and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2003". I bet you 95 out of 100 can't do it without studying.

On the other hand, I am glad I'm back to being a Linux admin, where things make sense.

~W

Re:slashdot summary is just plain wrong

[SatanicPuppy]

A bachelor degree means 4 years of a wide variety of courses and grades from a variety of professors.

Considering the number of deadweight lab partners I had, who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag, but were quite excellent at reading the book and regurgitating for the test the sort of knowledge that is only useful in the context of the actual application which they were incapable of, I myself have little or no faith in a simple degree. A lot of people graduated higher in their class than I did, but most people didn't do four years in two.

In short, the ability to pass a practical skills test trumps any and all pieces of paper, short of the doctoral level. I'd much rather an excellent programmer with no formal education (not the kind with weird ass logic loops and utterly non-standard syntax...a good one), than someone with a bs BS who can't do anything but wave his diploma around.

Opinions, all of them

[blunte]

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).

Someone tell this to HR.

[Quince alPillan]

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".

Great...

[BumpyCarrot]

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?

Re:Great...

[Serapth]

... or maybe the problem is you type your resume in that font.

Re:write on your resume

[Penguinisto]

"UNIX and all will be fine."

...at least up until the point where they put you at a bash prompt and ask you to perform some tasks :)

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.

/P

Let's not even have

[psykocrime]

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.

Re:write on your resume

[zerocool^]

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