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What Certifications are Valuable in Today's IT?
ganjadude asks: "I am a twenty-something who took the CCNA classes back in 2001. College at the time was not an option, so I am mainly self-taught in the field. I was wondering if there were others on Slashdot who took this route, and what certifications they have found will best further their careers. Does college matter in the security field anymore, or are certifications the way to go?"
What certifications would you recommend as the most pertinent in today's IT market?
- Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
- Oracle Certification Program
- Sun's Java Certification Levels
A few things I can tell you to steer clear of is Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer or Microsoft Office Power User. In my workplace, all I hear is people making fun of those certifications over and over and over again. I don't know if they are jokes but from what I hear, it's a stupid idea to pay for them.I think in order to get good answers from people, you need to break down what division IT is. I know the CISSP is very important to my employer due to a lot of our apps requiring major security. If you're a glorified secretary making powerpoints with click-actions then maybe "Microsoft Office Power User" is right down your alley? What job are you looking for? IT is a HUGE and now diverse term. It could mean everything from networks to programming to simply moving hardware.
That's a shame, with a name like 'ganjadude' I think you would have enjoyed college quite a bit.
My work here is dung.
These: http://www.sun.com/training/certification/
A good university degree should help you to learn and reason, and will teach you stuff you don't want to learn but that will later turn out to be useful.
:-)
In some jobs, especially in larger companies, there's a ceiling, you can't be promoted above a certainl level without a degree.
And yes, if you want to be a consultant, the contacts and the prestige of being associated with a well-known university are worth an awful lot, like it or not.
In computer security you need to stay ahead. Certifications use a course curriculum which was set maybe a year, two years, even three or more years ago and updated; with a certification you'll always be behind the curve, ever so slightly. You need to learn how to be on top of reasearch, be comfortable reading research reports and know how to follow and understand citations. So there's a whole cultural thing that you may need to be part of.
Yes, all if this is vague and hazy, and all of it is long term. By the time there's a concrete need for it, by the time you lose out on a contract or are passed over for promotion, and realize you needed a degree, you won't have one
Live barefoot!
free engravings/woodcuts
= 7.50/hr job at Staples and moving back in with my parents. This was back in 2001 when the .com crashed and I had to compete with everyone with years and years of experience who were laid off.
Also I had no job experience in IT at the time and didn't go to college. I figured the certifications would be a way to enter the field yet I was wrong.
I am older now with some college as I continue to go back to school and the labor market is improving. With minimal certifications you can work at geeksquad or some help desk position for as much as $14/hr today to start out. I now repair computers but this came after a few years of taking bad jobs and getting my associates. But get your degree if you want to go anywhere. Colleges today have a record number of students in them compared to the past. Employers are taking note and requiring degrees for everything. The babyboomer generation only had %24 of those with 4 year degrees. Today generation Y has %70+ attending college!
http://saveie6.com/
this is going to be somewhat tangential, and i hope i don't ramble.
:)
as a recent college graduate with a degree in computer engineering, i found it difficult to find a job (i did, eventually, but i had a lot of frustrating interviews). why? because the philosophy of my degree, and i've found its similar among the same program in different schools, is that i'm taught to be an engineer. i'm taught to think well, and to be able to learn easily. i used a lot of languages, did a lot of things (with both hardware and software), and had a very wide base of experience when i was done with college. jack of all trades, master of none, if you will. and the job market didn't like that.
the job market, as it was a few months ago, valued specific skill sets. they wanted me to have X years of experience in C++ or Java or XYZ skill, or they weren't even going to talk to me. they wanted me to have experience doing specific tech work, or to be able to answer some detailed technical questions about their job opening. i found very few jobs that valued my broad skill set and ability to quickly learn and adapt and problem-solve (one of the few ones i found did end up hiring me, and its what i'm doing now).
to wrap up, my point is that the job market currently seems to be, by and large, looking to hire people with specific skills. so, to prove that you have these skills, certifications are a good way to go. i don't really think it matters WHICH certifications, either. you'll find someone who needs expertice in any area, eventually. the point is more that you can prove in a standardized manner that you have a competence and set of experience in a certain area. i'm trying to bulk up on certs while i'm getting them cheap/free. i don't even care which. as long as i can prove i have the competency and experience in the area. they look good on a resume, too.
also, to specify, i'm working on brainbench stuff right now because they're more convenient for me. will eventually get around to compTIA stuff and probably eventually oracle stuff.
(Note and disclaimer: I am not a security pro. I am a system administrator, and hold an RHCE. I also have a college degree, although I took a good long time to finish it up.)
The CISSP is pretty much considered the gold standard of security generalist certifications. CISSPs rarely hurt for jobs for long.
If you're interested in something Linux related, you may want to look at Red Hat's Certified Security Specialist program. To get it, you need to complete the RHCE first (which looks good on a resume in and of itself), followed by an additional three exams covering network security, distributed authentication, and SELinux. Each exam is offered by itself, or on day five following a 4-day intensive course. Not exactly for the faint of heart, though, so if you're focusing on network level security without a lot of system administration, you'll probably want to give it a miss.
I have been programming going on 10 years now, the last 4 or 5 mainly doing .NET C#/VB.NET stuff. I had this exact discussion with some other programmers the other day, and my boss chimed in as well. The general consensus was, if you are programming, certificates are about worthless in the MS world. My boss mentioned that not only does he not really care if someone is certified or not, he has noticed that those with certifications tend to not have the same amount of 'real world' knowledge as someone who is.
In my own personal experience, the only time a certification is worth it is if you are working for a company that pays more based on having one, such as a college or government entity. Sure, they may educate you on how to do things the right way, but a lot of the time the 'wrong' way is not only faster (both performance wise and coding wise), but also allows you to do things that are nigh impossible to do if you follow the conventions that certificates would show you.
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel...
...being certifiably insane helps you reach that coveted IT "prima donna" status.
In my experience, it depends on what your prospective employers are looking for.
Me, I'm a UNIX admin with a MS in Engineering, no certifications and completely self taught. I've never (knock on wood) been out of a job, and right now I'm working with a bunch of people who put more value on what I could do and how I worked with a team than what certifications I (don't) have.
A friend of mine is a great Windows admin. He knows his Active Directory stuff well and all the arcane Exchange best practices like the back of his hand. He has multiple MS certs and works in a shithole. The last place he interviewed at, everybody on the team loved him but when his resume got to the VP he threw it away because he doesn't have a college degree. Threw it away. Over the objections of all the people who actually talked to him.
So, given that, gather a few of the cheaper certifications you can to get your foot in the door with the ignorant. They won't impress people who really know what the story is, but it will get you in the door to talk to them and impress them with what you really know.
The exact certs, all depends on the job itself. But more importantly if you took it more then 6 months ago and don't use the knowledge regularly, IMHO its become almost useless. Unless you have photographic memory.
Day in, day out useage of the area is more important then any class one has taken. Not only because its a use it or lose it thing, but the area may have changed alot since the class you took.
Lists of certs alone means little to your future manager, its what youve done with those certs thats important. They want to know your thought processes. Thats what you should try and convey on your resume. Then reinforce it at the interview.
I, too, am a CCNA (and working on other Cisco certs) which did help me get the position I hold now (similarly my basic peace officer license got me my last job as a security officer for the state forensic hospital). I would say that anything Microsoft or Cisco will definately help you in the job-seeking area; you will more-than-likely run into one or the other. The more you study for exams, the more you're (hopefully) going to learn, and the better you'll be at answering those tehnical interview questions.
:)
I did get a temp job once with a company doing a project in my local area. They were looking for A+ Certified people. I told them I was a CCNA; that was good enough for them.
Of course, the fancy paper doesn't do much good if you can't do the work.
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
That's the degree you need now to get a job in that field. :)
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Unless there's a course these days that specifically covers outsourcing techniques, take a look at the management courses.
A lot of really good certs have been mentioned here, and most of them will help you get a really great job. I just want to point out that there are a lot of people with the "big" certs (like Cisco stuff) that aren't nearly as competent as their certs claim they are. Grabbing a few smaller certs as well can pad out your resume a bit and help you stand out above the guys who just study to the test.
I have a friend who won't hire anyone, not even a database admin, unless they have an A+ cert (or something eqivalent) somewhere in their past. It's not that he'll actually expect them to do any hardware work, he just thinks it's important to have some experience with it. It could be that he and I once saw a guy with a half-dozen certs that couldn't diagnose a very obvious memory problem.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Personally I never had a desire to go to college. I started working at an ISP when I was 15 due to my desire to learn, not to mention Linux experience. I've had my share of crappy IT jobs working at a repair shop, or what have you. However all of that served as a good learning experience. I am 22 and currently hold a CCNA and MCP (I only did MCP because my ex-employer had an MCSE and I bet him I could pass an MCP without studying, and I won) I currently work in an environment where everyone else has a bachelor's or better. I'm a Network Engineer, dealing in a large enterprise Cisco network, I make about 25/hour when you break it all down without ever setting foot in a college. I'm not saying a degree is not the way to go, but it's not the only way to go.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Have any or all of them and $0.75 and you might be able to buy a cup of coffee at 7-Eleven. Seriously, I have a few, didn't pay for them myself, and wouldn't ever pay my own money for them, nor would I pay for one of my employees to go waste time there.
If you missed the Dilbert about, 'I summon the powers of certification'... go find it, it hit this right on the nose.
Hands on, reading the f*ing manual, figuring it out in YOUR network situation, calling tech support, etc. is better, cheaper and more worthwhile than any certification you could pay for. Those classes just digest the manual for you, then give you a few brief labs on basic stuff that you will need to modify, extend, get help to do, back at your office anyway.
-=Marz
Depends on what field in IT you want to specialize... (this would have been helpful if you said more than you took the CCNA).
:) Other networking companies probably have their own certs.
Want to further your DBA career... look to Oracle/IBM
Networking.. CCIE and it's various flavors (R&S, Security, SP, VOIP, SAN). IMHO this is one of the best as it requires you to pass a LAB exam in addition to the written. (BTW, the lab used to be TWO days and if you didn't pass the first day, you couldn't come back. Also, proctors would often 'break' your setup during lunch
Host OS: Look to the vendors.
Some things go together and make you a lot more valuable than any one of those things alone. I was once (a long time ago) told by a recruiter something like the following: "Novell CNEs are a dime a dozen, same for Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers, Unix is good, Lotus Notes is good, on the other hand if you have any three of those you can go to work tomorrow and pretty much name your own price."
That advice was given more than ten years ago and is obviously useless unless you have a time machine. The question you ask needs to be asked on Slashdot at least every year. Conditions do change. The one thing that seems not to change is that being qualified on proprietary software is where the big bucks are. The trick seems to be keeping ahead of the rest of the pack. For a brief time, having a Novell CNE would get you a well paying job. Then world + dog took the courses and the value of a CNE approached zero.
The one thing that has worked over time is to find a niche. It's a fairly small market that doesn't attract a lot of attention so you don't have to worry about the competition. My brother has made a decent career of working with a specialized and not too common database. As a wild guess I would say that there are fewer than twenty job openings nationwide per year. On the other hand, only ninteen people qualify for those jobs. Given the non-competitive nature of the market, the pay is pretty good.
The economics of the situation are pretty simple: if you're trying to do what everyone else is doing, it's a race for the bottom and you won't make much money. What I would suggest is applying the old adage: "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Work on getting to know lots of people in the industry. Remember that most jobs go to people already known by the employer.
Does college matter in the security field anymore, or are certifications the way to go?
Let me put it this way - College won't teach you to think like a geek. It gives someone who already has the right mindset a huge toolbox with which to work. If you need to ask "should I go to college or take a cert", go to college.
That said, you can still graduate college an idiot. Even in the engineering disciplines. Certs demonstrate to a potential employer that a particular group has accepted your proficiency in some fairly specific subject - Netware, Oracle, Windows XP, Redhat ASP, and so on. Although you can pass certs while still not having a clue about the target subject, you'll at least need to memorize most of the testbase, which I suppose counts for something.
So, which will help you more?
The 4-year degree. If you have an MCSE, you have fairly poor overlap of skills with a 'nix shop; vice-versa for an RHCE. If you have a BS in CS, you (most likely) have an understanding of the fundamental principles of programming and, with some learning curve, can write code on any target platform required of you.
The only people I know who get certified are those who feel they need something to prove they can walk the walk. This usually comes out when you ask then to talk the talk. Mainly a certification only helps those who need help; those who know what they are talking about and know what they are doing rarely get certification and generally don't need them. At least this is from all the interviews I have been in. It's usually experience that is the big qualifier and not certifications.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I have no certs but here is what I find:
Certs are a nice bump when the guy looking doesn't know what they need at all. College is useful b/c it shows you can complete a long term project. Good professional projects are their own certification (another reason I like project work). Being able to speak lucidly on working X problems through with Y technology and Z constraints is the most useful point to any employer and many will recognize that.
That said, if you don't know what you want to do, certs show that you know the domain of a technology. MS certs are not as useless as they used to be and are probably the most marketable. Just, never, never, never put your certifications at the top of your resume. As a rule of thumb, if the certs are the thing you are most proud of, I don't need to read the rest.
Here's one problem with certificates: people expect you to know everything about the subject area. A co-worker had some MS certs, everyone (including the co-worker himself) had the expectation that he should be able to figure things out- even when he really should have asked for help.
...[insert project that they really need help on]."
If you use certs to help you get a job. That's it, do not display them, wear the pin, etc. unless you really are an expert beyond what they test you on. Even so, no one on the job will care that you have certs.
One exception, if you are trying to get a better job and you don't need those skills for your current job, go ahead and leave your books around and ask for projects related to your cert. skills. "I can do c# programming and I have a little extra time, do you need any help with
"I am a twenty-something who took the CCNA classes back in 2001. ... Does college matter in the security field anymore ,or are certifications the way to go?"
You got a CCNA 5 years ago and feel that qualifies you to work in the security field?
The short answer is that college does matter. Often, the stuff you learn in college doesn't matter but if you want to work in the corporate world then people like to see that piece of paper. Also, the CISSP is the hot cert to get now. Keep in mind that it has many prerequisites so you can't just pay the $$, sit for a test, and magically become a security expert.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
I'm certless with 2 years of college and no degree, and 4.5 years of IT experience. I've worked in call centers, then moved to a IT role in a hospital, and now i'm in "network support" although most of my work is Citrix related. If I get any certs I think I may actually go the citrix route, just because its a bit more specialized. I make decent money considering the small town I live in, this is a debate that has been around since the inception of certs... and I dont think there is a great answer. If you can get them they definately aren't going to hurt anything, but I wouldn't consider certs an alternative to college, and I wouldn't consider college an alternative to certs.
Get off the certification bandwagon and go get a BS/MS in an engineering field. Chasing the latest certification will always leave you behind in the market. Get a degree and let others stay in the certification rat race while you will have real opptunities...
The ONLY certifications I see required in job ads are for Cisco. Yes, Microsoft certs are occasionally mentioned as well, but only when experience is clearly a preferred qualification.
I have never seen a situation where paying for certification yourself would improve your compensation enough to cover the cost.
Most of these posts are utter nonsense. If you have a college degree, even if it's not in the branch of technology that you're applying for, and even if you didn't go to the best college, it doesn't matter what certifications you have. The only thing that matters is WHO you know.
If you have been friendly to recruiters, to professors, and to peers/colleagues, then one of them will suggest you for a job, and you will get it, no matter how unqualified you are. I speak from experience. Why?
Because a smart person can be trained to do anything, but a jerk will always be a jerk (for the most part). If an employer can find out that you aren't a jerk ahead of time, then you're gravy.
I worked as musician when I came out of a good college with my CS degree. I finally broke into CS because the guy I was interviewing with happened to have been a poker buddy of my father's ... 15 years ago. Major coincidence, but since my father had a good rep, he thought that I would be ok too. In less than 2 years following that, my salary went up by $15k.
So, quit worrying about your certification, nerds. Worry about your people skills.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
Not sure about this, because I've never had a resume come through that did it, but this has been my thinking for some time: Apologize for your certs.
Lower-end certs hurt you with techies. Most of us think that the lower-end certs are goten by people who cannot get jobs, and people who cannot get jobs are people who don't blow away prosspective employers or have working friends who can help them in, or who do have working friends whom they do not impress.
That means, if you have a cert in A+ or Security+ or Network+ or MCSE or Java developing whatever, you're more likely to be a loser than someone who doesn't have them.
But certs are a great way to get past the screeners who see your resume and don't have tech experience. They also make it easier to get found on a Monster search or some similar resume site.
So put the certs on your resume, but APOLOGIZE FOR THEM: Add a few words before the list of certs like "These certificates are much less important than my experience, but some employers value them:"
HR won't read that ANYHOW. They'll do a pattern search to find you, then skim your resume and pass it up to people who'll cringe when they see your certs, but who will sigh with happy comfort when they read right above it that you don't put a lot of stock in certificates and that you have experience in the things they tested on.
The only place this might hurt you is at a company where the techs have low-end certs and value them. That is: a company of losers who you don't want to work with. I know it's not a 100% rule, but it's close enough that you're going to get more out of apologizing than not.
For technical specialization, Cisco owns the network. A CCSP will show knowledge of Cisco firewalls, VPN, AAA services (TACACS+), etc. Probably the best practical security cert you can get.
After this, look at other vendor certs - Checkpoint, etc.
I will give honorable mention to the SANS certs. They are very practically oriented. They deserve much wider credibility than they currently have.
I've been doing desktop support for about 9 years. I took preparation courses for A+, Windoze 95 Support and MCSE (NT 3.51 and 4.0), but never actually took the certification exams. Merely having taken the prep courses and having some documented experience was sufficient for my first few employers. Once I had a few years working with some well skilled co-workers (leeching their knowledge...heh heh heh), there was no longer a need to get those certs . I never really wanted to get into network support, so the MCSE wasn't necessary. I probably could have benefitted from a few MCP certs, though.
Do I think certifications are important? In most cases yes: a lot of human resource departments will blindly ignore anyone without certifications as part their weeding-out process. That happened to me even back in 1999. I guess I was lucky in finding employers who were willing to take my experience in lieu of paper. But in 2006, I think that would be difficult task to repeat.
However, I can give you a handful of names of people who do have certifications, but who should NEVER be allowed to even touch a keyboard, much less provide any kind of technical support. With their certifications, they can apply for jobs that I can't!
Every position requires a degree. No positions even mention certs.
I have no certs, nor am I interested in them. I have 2 degrees, a BSCS and an MBA.
The only guy around here who had a bunch of certs also had a degree, and ended up on Dateline. Now he is waiting for his court case to come up, and he doesn't work here anymore.
So, as far as we are concerned ---> Certs = loser
YMMV.
Is it just me, or what? When I look for positions in the IT field, 9 times out of 10, I find that when employers post job qualifications, they seem to go a little overboard. Example: "Canidate MUST have, CCNA[P], MSCE or equivalent, Oracle DBA, Sun, blah, blah, blah AND 4 year degree in techincal field, at least 3 years experience in some GIS system I have never heard of.... (list goes on.)"
It seems to me, these employers are unrealistic, or do people out there REALLY have all this crap?? For this reason, I find myself slightly 'modifying' my resume/CV to cater to whatever posistion I am applying for. I should put this on my resume: "I can learn and master whatever it is you need to me do with little time, usenet and some O'reilly texts." Although that won't get me past the HR department, so I feel the need to 'fudge' my qualifications a little. In my opinion, if the employer would not be so unrealistic, I would not need to do that!
Thoughts?
Three things are most important in an IT career, in this order:
1. Who you know (this has been mentioned many times in this thread) This gets you in the door. Get out and get to know some people. Join some user groups, make some friends.
2. Interpersonal skills. This is your most important skill. You want to be the kind of person people WANT to work with! People are sick to death of dealing with antisocial geeks who treat them like crap. A nice smile and a patient explanation goes a LONG way. And if you don't know something, ADMIT IT. People like it when they stump the geek. But when you find the answer, share it with them. They'll think you're a genius as well as a nice guy. All of my tech jobs have been acquired not on technical knowledge but on people skills. I'm making over $90K/year now on those people skills. And ALWAYS kiss up to the secretaries/admins. They have the ear of the management. You solve their problems FIRST and always be nice to them. Remembering their birthdays and bringing them chocolate is shameless but it works. (It can also get you laid, but BE CAREFUL with that on the job! Let them get YOU drunk and take advantage of you after work.)
3. Experience. No one cares about your alphabet soup (except for some higher Cisco certs) but a college degree generally puts you on a higher pay scale. It doesn't matter what degree you have, it's just good to have one. My degree is in Marketing, but I work in IT. It's what you have actually done that matters, not what tests you pass. I passed all the MCSEs (required by an old IT dept I worked for) on the first try just by cramming with the TroyTech study guides the day before. Do I remember it? No. Useless. But I've done just about everything, from programmer to server admin to network management to lowly IT tech. My resume knocks people over. If you see an opportunity to work on something different DO IT! It amazes me how some people are designers, some are programmers, some are hardware folks, some are software, some work network, some work servers but they have NO idea what to do when confronted with something from another area of expertise. Learn it all.
So, get some friends, get a good personality and get some experience and the world will be your oyster.
The CISSP is a joke. That said, it's what management wants you to have. Do you know the difference between a rootkit and spyware? You can pass the test.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
The Cert of Hard Knocks.
I graduated two years ago with a BS degree. When first got out of school I worked with .NET and a bunch of proprietary database software. So I have 2 years of experience working with VB.NET and C#, and almost no experience working with database standards like SQL.
Well, now I'm at a new job that's strictly an MS shop, and there's money in my department's budget for training. I thought that studying for MS certifications might help me get a leg up in the areas where I'm lacking, but according to the vast majority of posts, that sounds like it might be a waste. What supplementary training do you guys recommend for someone in my position?
I am a 30 something, who started in the field in '86 while still in high-school. Everything I know is self-taught. Experience is the key. Too many short term memorizations have made certifications not worth the paper they are printed on.
List your experiences, and areas on knowledge.
In most cases that's as good as or better than college / certifications. If someone out there won't even interview you because you don't have a college degree, or certifications, then they are an idiot, and you wouldn't want to work for them anyway.
I've been continuously employed in enjoyable and enriching positions (2 for the entire 20 year period). It took me all of 3 days to find a new position when I tired of the old company.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
When I reached the decision of enrolling in a technical school to get some certs, or go to college and get my degree my wife gave me some good advice:
"Certifications change and some you have to renew. A college education rounds you out and goes with you everywhere, and never expires."
So I am doing both. I am currently in college getting my degree and taking a few certs here and there to polish up the old resume.
"If someone out there won't even interview you because you don't have a college degree, or certifications, then they are an idiot, and you wouldn't want to work for them anyway."
Or perhaps the company/institution is looking for someone with a well-rounded background and a bit more interpersonal skills than your average I-learned-by-locking-myself-in-my-room tech professional. If I'm looking through a stack of 50 resumes and 15 of them have similar work experience, I'm going to interview the 5 who, on paper, demonstrate either some additional realm of knowledge or, as evident by continuing education, the assertiveness to keep learning.
You did want a job, didn't you?
At least the Canadian federal and provincial governments love them
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
I haven't a clue on programming side, but I have:
1> A+ (Mandatory for ANY tech job) 2> Dell Desktop + Laptop Foundation (Can't work on warranty dell parts without it) 3> Dell ESF1 (Same for the servers) 4> Working on CNNA 5> Want Dell ESF2 (also EMC cert)
The EMC cert is where tech money is at. Because of the requirements needed for it, you can get hired at any data center shop if you got it.
I look at CVs by the bucketload and the limiting factor on how many I can interview is without doubt articulacy and literacy. The American's aren't bad at all, at least not on their actual CVs, but the Europeans and developing nations REGARDLESS of first language write something in between 'semi-literate English with random capitalization and punctuation' and 'word salad'.
The average quality of spelling, grammar, and above all intelligibility is actually higher on Slashdot, and I'm not interviewing for McJobs, either -- people come with MBAs from the University of Boiled Potato, Northern England, Europe and they literally can't finish a sentence that they start, ON THEIR RESUME for crying out loud.
And sadly, the limiting factor on their effectiveness when eventually hired will likely be their ability to write a document or email that anyone actually reads.
For any level above pure code monkey / DBA / assistant to the guy who plugs stuff in, communication is all. So WHY is there no basic certification? If one existed, it'd be a big factor for me.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
More knowledge and skills is just about always a good thing, but to most technical managers that have been doing their job long to have lived throught at least one failed project, knows that actually experience is worth more.
The next most important thing is to understand the hiring process. If you are employed, look at the process itself about how you got hired, and how they hire others in the IT department. HR people hire differently than a IT manager, start-ups have different priorities than Fortune 500 companies. For a resume to get past a HR desk on an advertised job, realise it is one of hundreds if not thousands of resumes in the pile. The first cut is a broad quick cut intended to weed out the random and boiler plate submissions. Most IT managers want to look at no more than 20-50 resumes to make their own short list of who to interview. If you get an interview in my experience it tends to come down to making sure you did not lie, and seeing if you would be a good fit with the existing staff and manager. I've seen good candidates not hired because they were more like a hippie and the group had a bunch of ex-military employees already, so the manager wasn't confident that they would gel. A 40 year old security expert with a MBA may be past over by a 32 year old security manage who is self-taught, if he feels his job security threatened.
I prefer (4 year) university degrees for two reasons: a) commited 4 years to learning about one subject, this weeds out a lot of people who just expect to be paid lots of money because they say they are in IT - for a career level job I want someone with a passion for technology. b) They have more general (theorical) knowledge which makes migrating to new technology easier / quicker for because in my experience they have a better understanding of the foundations of what the change is about, and are more experienced at learning as a skill onto itself. The candidate is not as limited to button-ology style learning. Neither of these are exclusive to university education, but in my own experience more frequently found in someone with a four year degree in Computer Science or similar area (Math, Physics, Pre-Law, Philosophy, Music, Engineering).
For a computer security career, I would seriously recommend a degree, because it is a rapidlly changing field, including some programming experience, some business or management knowledge / skills, and you need on-the-job IT experience to form a well tuned BS detector (from vendors, managers, users, and infrequent attackers).
For certificates, look at the SANS' various certs for an idea of what people are looking for, but whether they are worth the cost is another question I can't answer.
We recently hired someone with an AA degree and no certs over someone with a Bachelors degree and several certs. Both had similar experience, but interpersonal skills were the deciding factor. The person we hired has been working out quite well for us.
...seem to prefer certification of residency in India or China. And they're willing to pay accordingly.
We are the 198 proof..
Being certifiable in these areas may assist your career: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statis tical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders :-)
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Yeah, honestly when I'm looking at resumes, certifications count a little, but not for much. Anyone can get a cert, and doesn't really show anything like a degree. A degree shows you can follow through and do something you don't like for 4 years... which really helps when you'll be doing something you don't like (i.e. working for the man) for a lot longer than that.
:-), go to University of Phoenix (get them to pay for that too), and above all else show a positive attitude.
I look for graduation above certification...
But above that, I look for experience. Those that find it difficult to get a job outside of college are not facing a bad job market, they're starting at the bottom of a long climb up the wall of experience... and we've all been there.
However, above all else, I personally (and this is just me) look for good attitude and intelligence. Anyone can be trained or taught anything, as long as they're willing to learn and do what it takes to learn. Getting a good blend of old hand experience combined with raw intellect and drive is the key to successful projects. But you can have the best blend of experience, the most educated and certified people in the world, and if everyone thinks they're too good to work with anyone else, the project will fail.
If you want advice (for whatever it's worth), keep up your reading, get certification as long as someone else is paying
(Disclaimer: I'm not a manager [thank god], but I have done my fair share of interviews over the years)
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Get a cert or two related to whta you want to do. If you have littel or no experience they could help you get in the door for that job. Build up your experience. Your next job will look much more favourably on 5 years experience doing x, then seeing those old certs you have.
If you get 10 certifications, that may raise a red flag to someone who may decide you're just a test taker and not even bother with you.
On the technical side, I tend to agree with you that people pushing their certs are usually the people who can't push something experience. But that isn't necessarily a Bad Thing -- e.g., I had many years of experience as a C developer before migrating to Java. Sun certs showed that I was making a serious effort to transition, not just grabbing a copy of "Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours" and assuming that that was enough.
But businesses are not driven by the techies.
HR? They have no way to prioritize the hundreds of resumes they see. Third party certs, unless the techies tell them explicitly that certain certs are worthless, will move resumes to the top of the pile. In fact that's the main reason why I got my certs.
Sales? It won't matter in many shops, but if you sell your services it can be a selling point to be able to assure the clients that your development team is certified. In fact this process, run amok, is why the Microsoft certs became so disreputable a while back. Many shops started making it a condition of employment, and that made less qualified people get one just to get in the door. Then there's the people who cheated.... That's one of the reasons why many certs now require X years of experience.
Finally, on the technical side STUDYING FOR certs is a good way to ensure you have a good breadth of knowledge. It's far too easy to focus on what we know well and let the rest slip without even realizing it.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Given the rise of open source, I would certainly consider a Linux Certification
i would get an A+ or network+, and try to find an entry level job. No one is going to hire you to be an admin with just a mcse/mcsa/xyz without any experience.
the key is experience and nothing more.
once you get the experience then i would go for a higher level cert., but certainly not before.
The IT field needs more mechanical engineers actively involved in programming and CAD.
Glorified Secretary? I AM A GLORIFIED SECRETARY, YOU PUSILLANIMOUS ASSHOLE! Wait until you get to the bottom of the next cup of coffee I fetch for you! Speaking on behalf of "glorified secretaries" everywhere, go fuck yourself.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
Or buy the manufacturer's 4 year onsite warrantee and let them handle it. Not worth my time to bother with fixing a $6K computer. Just buy a new one and stay productive. I run the UNIX boxes. Takes about 1 day a month to keep them patched. We keep the hardware covered under warrantee until it is time to replace it. The Sun T1000 servers rock! http://store.sun.com/CMTemplate/CEServlet?process= SunStore&cmdViewProduct_CP&catid=153483
When I graduated from college almost 20 years ago, I made about $14/hr to start (I was salaried). After 7 years of very hard work and constant evening college courses, I was worth $50K/yr to my employer. I thought I was worth more, so I left. Three years later, I became a contractor at $125/hr - that's about $250K/yr if you are fully employed. Times changed and my rate had to go down. It is now about $85/hr after 20 years of IT experience. I'm no longer driven by money, time off is more important. I'm very near being able to retire and **never** have to work again.
I have ZERO certifications. When I was in a position to hire folks, I ignored certifications except Oracle and Cisco. Today, I'd also pay attention to Security certifications - more because IT security folks really need to have a network of contacts to stay current and have a real love for learning that the certs demonstrate.
For development talent, I ask questions (that is/was my skill) about their coding style, free time activities, and ask them to draw some UML diags. We've outsourced our UNIX admin overseas and some java, but we'll always need local architects and lead designers in-house.
Being qualified isn't just about knowing the C/C++/Java language (PHP, Python, JavaScript are tools - IMHO), it is about working with a team of other developers, understanding version control, design tools and techniques.
He took some classes. He doesn't say he ever took or passed the tests.
r eer_certifications_and_learning_paths_home.html
Secondly, the CCNA is only good for 3 years, so if he had taken and passed the CCNA test, then he's 2 years expired unless he either renewed it or went on to a Professional level certification (CCNP, CCDP, CCVP, CCSP etc.).
A CCNA would be just the first step, with the Cisco Certified Security Professional as the next logical step if he wants to stick with Cisco gear.
Cisco spells it all out on their site:
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/learning_ca
If you're in the US, young and the military interests you at all, consider going in with a guaranteed crypto MOS (in writing from your recruiter). IF you're worth your salt at all, you'll come out with a ton of experience, Top Secret clearance, and a long list of good references.
I know my employer doesn't want to hire anyone without a CCNP/CCVP, but even with that we find folks that are booksmart and little real experience. We still require one of those certs within the probation period, but we provide a full-blown CCIE Voice lab for new hires to study and practice in.
I have worked at employers that had partner obligations that required us to have certs. From my A+ that I had to have within 6 months for our site to continue to be an "All A+ certified" shop in 1998, my CNA (Novell) that got me into the "Network Engineering" department (vs. the desktop tech service department), my MCSE (NT) that actually got me to full-blown Network Engineer status, followed a few months later with my CCNA, and 8 months later with my CCNP, CCDA, CCDP (each a week apart), and a month later the CCNP:Security (no longer offered), and then all the Cisco voice tests that my employers relationship with Cisco required (right after they bought the Selsius CallManager and ActiveVoice's Unity), I've pretty much always had to take tests. What does that give me personally? The tests mean little, as you can memorize a bunch of Q&As, but they do filter out some folks. But between myself and my co-workers, it just kept my employer on the top of Cisco's list and the customer referals keep coming in.
I just passed the Gateway/Gatekeeper (GWGK) test for my CCVP two days ago after basically two days of study. I studied the first time the morning of the test two weeks ago and failed by 7 points. Having seen the test and knowing exactly what I needed to fill in, I spent last Thursday morning researching the stuff I needed, wrote out a 3x5 card of the exact lab-sim commands I needed, memorized them, and passed the test with 80 more points than the first time and with 30 minutes to spare. There aren't too many folks who could pass the GWGK test with basically 8 hours of study time, but anyone with enough time and drive can do it.
Our CEO is a CCIE (#14888), and I'd said that cert has the most pull of any I know about. But you don't just go and pass the CCIE. It took him 5 or 6 times.
I know a number of people who have been wanting to get their CCNA for years... the fact that they can't buckle down and study for a month and pass the test tells me they're not worth hiring. I've even given a few guys I knew that were interested in moving past the desktop tech to network engineer access to full-blown CCNP/CCVP online lab courses via Thomson NETg (each course worth $1,000+), and none of them even completed the courses.
A cert doesn't get your foot in the door, but a lack of it can keep you locked out. That's my two cents from my point of view and 8 years of Networking experience.
If you want to be a programmer in the United States, the most important certification by far is an H1B visa. It will get you access to jobs that most job candidates with mere M.S. degrees and CISCO certs cannot even hope for.
For the past 8 years I have been a contractor working for a large company who farms me out, focusing on database admin and developement(primarily web) and switch jobs a few times. Based on job descriptions you saw the following requests: pre-98 no cert needed. 99-2001 large amount of certs being asked for primarily mcse few in database and development. 2003 wide spread for databasse some developement; primary system admin needing it. 2006 far fewer requests for certification or very generic.
That said I have an MCP, an old Oracle dba cert, a Rational RUP cert, a security cert and 2 in computer languages I never want to see again. Most paid for by employeer. I do plan to get a current Oracle admin and the new basic microsoft one in the next few months.
The reason is very simple I am hired by people who are not techies. I spell out most of the certification and advoid the initials so they see microsoft certified professional, Oracle DBA Certified Associate, etc and that stops alot of them right there and for alot of non-techies makes it alot easier for them to approve me. They don't understand all the various ones, most of them have just heard of mcse and if they ask I have to explain how that is for system administration and does not deal with databases.
As for which certs are actually worth it I would say the high end Cisco and high end Oracle ones. Thoses actually require you to know your stuff and provide it. For instance the Oracle one is a 2 day test where you have to sit a computer with Oracle database and documentation installed. They then go and break something(s), based on actual operational problems, and you are required to fix it and bring your database upto a fully operational and open database. The cisco one is similar. The other certs are just resume stuffers.
Security used to lack quality academic training for it, with some exceptions.
Certifications filled a gap then.
Now though, that is no longer the case.
Many universities, including my own, have partnered with the NSA.
http://www.nsa.gov/ia/academia/caeiae.cfm
My professors have included the head of the NSA's red team, another senior IA guru at the NSA, and senior network defense people from DoD branches. I've met professors from other schools at conferences with the NSA partnership, and I was similarly pleased with their backgrounds and experience levels.
Does passing one CISSP test equal a solid 4-5 year curriculum in software, security, and coding mixing both the theoretical and practical? Of course not! Unfortunately though, employers sometimes use it as a yardstick of skill. This is also why in my day job I am constantly having to tutor/mentor/train CISSPs that should not even be in security in the first place. I am of the opinion that the CISSP boondoggle will be seen through rather quickly.
If you want to get a certification, get a vendor specific one, like a CCNA. However, I implore you to get into a formal degree program. I really think the best these days, is mixing a Computer Science degree with a security degree, one at the masters and one at the undergraduate. Another good choice would be an undergraduate degree, along with one of the newer certificate programs that includes 6 - 9 good courses.
Certifications* are much easier to obtain than a degree, and they cannot hope to compare in the overall knowledge & skills acquisition departments.
* - Not counting the CCIE
When I'm looking for someone to hire, certifications don't even enter into it. All it means is you can take a test. Degree's are helpful, but really only to get HR to adjust salaries upwards. The main thing that most people miss are experience. I've had people who just graduated from college with an IT degree but their work history includes Papa John's and bartending - but they assure me they really like working with computers.
My favorite is an applicant for a position we had - a student applied, very little experience, but he was proud to let me know when he had just passed his CCNA. I think I broke his heart when I told him we don't use Cisco here.
Most folks I know who have bachelor's degrees don't really get a lot of useful skills from the experience. I don't know why that is (other folks going through the same programs come out vastly ahead), maybe it's just them. But it's not what you learn when you go to college, it's the fact that you have a piece of paper in your hand.
Now, it's true that not having a bachelor's isn't going to be terribly important in entry-level and some medium-level jobs - but think 15 years down the road at where you'd like to be, and look at ads for that type of job. Notice how many of them will probably say "bachelor's required". In fact, I see a good number of jobs which require a bachelors just for the sake of the paper - they don't even care what field the bachelors is in, they just want someone who has shown that they can stick with the course of education for four years.
There are companies that promote from within, and where you can make advancements through merits alone, but you can't always count on staying with a company for that long. By far, the safest bet is a college degree combined with your experience.
steve
I have no certs whatsoever. However, when I was job hunting, I put on any online resume sites that I was A+ qualified or MCP qualified or whatever qualified. I wasn't lying about being certified and the number of resume hits went through the roof the day after I did it. Once I started gettings calls, I would answer their tech questions and get to the next stage of the interview process. The only downside was all the contract and temp calls I got even though I'd plainly state on the form that I wasn't looking for those kinds of jobs. It's been almost a year and I still get the periodic email or phone call about some temp job and I tell them, no thanks I have a real job! :P
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I like this question, because I went down the same path. When you are fresh to IT, you wonder what is going to help you get ahead. Certifications? Degrees? Work experience?
I think you need to realize that degrees and certifications are only there to validate what you know. They are really only useful for beginners. After you have been in the field for a few years, it all comes down to what you know. A rookie right out of college with CS degree will lose out on jobs to guys with no degrees, but 3 to 5 years of working knowledge in the skills that the job requires.
What I am trying to say, is that it is what you know that counts ultimately. Yeah, you will need a degree if you ever hope to move into a nice desk job one day. In the mean time, just worry about learning. I finally figured out that if I just list what I know on my resume, instead of degrees, certifications and work experience, I got much better responses. If you don't know all that much then learn. A certification just gives you an incentive to learn; a goal to reach for. Try putting your SKILLS section at the top of your resume and put a sentence for each skill you know. Such as: I know how to program in Python using (various Python terms). If you can fill up at least half a page with that, then you will be ahead of most other people.
Being certified in MS, i feel that certifications are a good self assessment method. Although Cv's definitely stand out with certifications, it is not necessarily a measure for a candidates knowledge and capability. With hands-on experience, certifications are definitely useful. Certification alone is NOT equivalent to possessing a university degree/experience.
Certifications are in a way a "manager's game". But if that is what they are looking for, what's the harm in getting them. It should at least get you noticed in the resume game. I've NEVER seen a resume thrown out just because someone has a certification. I know that all they really tell you is the person was able to pass the test, it doesn't guarantee knowledge or even knowhow. I do have a certification, and it hasn't hurt me in the least, even better is that I didn't have to pay a dime to get them other than time spent studying.