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Are Certifications Worth the Time and Money?
Nerval's Lobster writes: Having one or more certifications sounds pretty sensible in today's world, doesn't it? Many jobs demand proof that you've mastered a particular technology. But is the argument for spending lots of time and money to earn a certification as ironclad as it seems? In a new column, developer David Bolton argues 'no.' Most certifications just prove you can pass tests, he argues, not mastery of a particular language or platform; and given the speed at which technology evolves, most are at risk of becoming quickly outdated. Plus they aren't the sole determiner of whether you can actually land a job: 'Recruiters sometimes have trouble determining a developer's degree of technical experience, and so insist upon certificates or tests to judge abilities. If you manage to get past them to the job interview, the interviewer (provided they're also a developer) can usually get a good feel for your actual programming ability and whether you'll fit well with the group.' Are certifications mostly a rip-off, or are some (especially the advanced ones) actually useful, as many people insist?
I would never ever hire a programmer because of their certifications. I hire because of expertise, period. Certifications are a rip-off.
no, I don't have a sig
You are always selling yourself, your plans, and your ideas, no matter what business environment you are in - self-employed or corporate. Certifications can be a tool for that - and even a vital tool if you're dealing with HR drones that don't understand anything else.
That being said, I have no formal certs and have done extremely well for myself - but I also have very good sales skills. It's the one thing I encourage to everyone that asks me for career advice - learn to sell. It doesn't matter what you do in life, but you will always be selling something (assuming your work is of any sort of significance).
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I'd only trust a certified certifications expert to answer that question.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
At least certs on a resume get you past the automated discard-o-tron.
your H-1B certificate is all you really need.
I have a couple listed on my resume. I'm sure it helped get my foot in the door past the recruiting / HR shrews to get to an actual interview.
Was it worth the cost? Hard to say in the long run, but I think in the beginning it helped just a tiny bit to stand out from competition. They weren't all that costly to begin with, but at that time in my life, sure seemed like it.
As for further certs, push for the employer to pay for you getting them. Plenty of certs I never bothered to get, but studied for anyway just to stay ahead of the curve and keep my skills sharp.
they're your admission "ticket" to get the interview.
On the job experience is everything.
There is this myth in America of "retraining". It does not work. Employers demand experience.
As compared to experience DOING the things you are certified to do, I'd say no.
As compared to a college degree, maybe, maybe not. I think it depends on the degree, the certification, and the job(s) you're going for.
As compared to no experience, and no degree, I'd say yes.
For sysadmin / devops / network admin / desktop support and maybe a little into the infosec side, certs are probably a good idea.
For programmers (etc), certs really don't make any sense.
Like making copywriters hit the obstacle course for time before hiring them.
I'll still look at a candidate, but I generally assume the person is covering incompetency in skill with a paid for affirmation.
Having gone through the hiring process a couple of times in the last couple of years, HR and recruiters are the biggest hinderance to companies hiring talented individuals. For a tech position, HR has become a gatekeeper to the hiring manager. Unfortunately they have no knowledge of the position or the technologies.
Certificates get you past this gatekeeper. They are fairly useless otherwise, but since HR has wedged themselves between the candidate and the hiring manager, they become a bit of a necessary evil.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
If you want a job anywhere near project management, you need the PMP certification. Do a job search for "project management" and check the first ten results. Every one of them will say PMP required or preferred.
This is the kind of question that is subject to experimentation. Create a set of similar resumes except one includes some relevant certifications. Then apply to the same job and see if the number of callbacks varies.
No. Now fuck off Dice.
Yes if you learn from them, absolutely.
Yes if you are in IT
Yes if you are a programmer, and choose a cert carefully (J2EE Architect, and you want to do that kind of thing).
Yes if you can spend a weekend in the library and pass the test with no problem, and someone wants you to have it
Yes if your employer will pay for it, and you can study at work
No if you are a programmer (with some exceptions, see above).
No if you don't understand the subject, even after getting the cert
No if you take months and months to get the cert, and still don't understand it
No if you can spend the time better working on an open source project
No if you don't learn anything from it.
This might be the most-asked question on Slashdot.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
...than a dice "insights" spam.
Having conducted probably 500 software developer interviews, I can tell you that seeing Certificates listed on a candidate's Resume is typically a red flag that indicates they will not be a good candidate. It doesn't mean they will absolutely be bad, just an indication that they probably aren't right for the sorts of positions I hire for. Kind of like seeing "Microsoft Office" listed prominently under their "Skills" section.
If you are an engeener in service providing company your certification level is essential for HR of this company. Be it Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Citrix, VMware or whatever - the company providing services (like implementation) usually needs to have certified employers to reach certain partner level (like Gold, Platinium and what-the-fuck-they-had-invented-recently). It is just a business for these companies to sell certifications for their products.
Is it important to have certifications? Well just look at the policies FOR EMPLOYERS that the vendors in your area of interest are providing.
The higher your level of experience and completed education, the less useful certifications become.
If you're just starting out, a certification is useful, especially if it's in an area you have no formal or only limited experience in.
If you have extensive experience and/or advanced completed education (BSc, MSc, PhD) then I wouldn't recommend it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They're worse than useless.
People with dozens of certifications on their resume actually look bad. Why? They are meaningless and without substance. They show that a person is more a politician/marketing person than an actual worker. Few things are more annoying than people who don't do any real work but play politics and suck up to non-technical managers - and that is _exactly_ the kind of attitude which having too many certifications signals.
I've found certs very helpful but mostly because I like the clear training path they provide. I read the books, do practice labs, and take the exam - no boot camps except the required one for my VCP (employer paid). That being said I've also never renewed a certification. It opens doors with recruiters even though I list them as expired on my resume. I've been a network engineer for 15+ years and can definitely say a cert every 1-2 years helps maintain and grow my salary.
i have over 20yrs and 15 certs from MS, redhat, Cisco, F5, and security industry related certs so take what i have to say with a grain of salt.
i feel i would not be where i am without working towards certs. i exhaustively read everything i can find on a cert before taking the exam. it is very time consuming, maybe 2-3 months of weekends and on top of work. The fees are minimal..so cost shouldn't even be part of the equation and likely your company will cover the exam fee. i paid for several out of pocket though when companies didn't, cause i knew it was worth it in the long run when i leave that company.
the industry is flooded with paper tigers, ie. test dumpers which have invalidated the cert world. mostly in the msft arena because of how easy it is to dump a ms exam. i bet 75% or higher of the people holding MS certs are dumped.
any real engineer can spot a paper tiger within a quick 5 min convo, however, in my time, i've seen many people fake it til they make it and fly under corporate radar for several years before getting fired.
however, on the other side of the coin is those who actually read the 1500 page manuals and training materials associated with a cert and actually obtain the skill set of the objective domains on those exams from RTFMing. this is crucial imo and infinitely worth it- you learn a lot between manuals/labs along the cert process.
I'm a PE in electrical engineering and I've been out of work since December 2013.
You tell me if it was worth the time and money.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
If you need someone to babysit you through reading a few overheads and taking a trivial "exam" each day, then yes, certificates are worth the investment.
But if you need that kind of hand holding to learn something, you're not worth hiring. I always shuffled certificate-braggers to the *bottom* of the resume pile as a result.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Early in your career, yes.
8-10 years in, your experience should be your certification.
(do well and try to move to different projects for a wide variety of experience, do interesting side projects or contribute to open source)
BlameBillCosby.com
Aside from Betteredges' Law of Headlines vibrating to be right on this, the answer is unfortunately, maybe.
The only way I can certifications being worthwhile, is if they are up to date, and on the 'cusp', of the specific subject they deal with. A certification from 2 years ago is out of date. Sure, underlying theory might be relevant, but active application, assessment, and development? If it isn't more recent, you're behind. Wether it be Security, $Admin, Networking, etc... the foundations will always be there. I'm sure some certifications prop that up, but most that are relevant, beyond Tier1 or Tier2, are specialization. And those cert's have to be on the now, and deal with the cusp of todays tech. implementations.
As someone with no cert's, no degree, with 15 years in IT, I'm making very decent money despite those facts.
2 resumes, both have equal work time in IT, one has several certs one doesn't.
Which would you hire?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
This is a tough question, and maybe that's why it's being posted on Slashdot. As someone struggling to find a job in the tech sector, who also has no degrees nor certifications, I've seen the whole "cert" thing as a double edged sword. First and foremost, it seems like every vendor in the known universe now offers a certification for their product. Now, who's getting a cut of the money that goes into testing and certifying people for product X? The vendor. That's who. I've gotten the impression that it's just a ploy on behalf of the vendors to make a quick buck. However, with that being said, you can look at the positives like this: Bob is certified in Product X. Company C uses Product X. To HR common folk, the fact that Bob is certified by the vendor in Product X makes him instantly more qualified than me, who lacks any kind of certification whatsoever. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. Maybe I know the product much better than Bob, but never hunkered down the $1100 to take the exam and get certified. Maybe I've never used the program before, and Bob really is the better man for the job. Maybe Bob spent a few all nighters cramming for an exam in which he regurgitated his text book back onto the bubble-in form during the test (think standardized testing). It's entirely situational though. To be fair, a lot of certification exams these days also include a hands-on portion which may require you to actually think. And to avoid making any more sweeping generalizations, some certifications are much harder to obtain than others. My biggest prohibiting factor in becoming certified in anything is the cost, followed by whether or not I'll actually net any kind of immediate benefit from becoming certified in anything. That, coupled with the fact that you need to re-certify every few years, and the constant changing landscape of the tech world (here today, gone tomorrow), makes me really question the relevance and long term benefits of a certification. Now a CS degree... that's a different story. Or is it?
Yes they are, if your company is paying for them! Hah! Otherwise I think if you can prove your skill set with a portfolio or you can BS well enough in an interview you can be just as successful. The certs are more for consulting firms that want to maintain Microsoft Partner status.
I have conducted probably 100 interviews and reviewed hundreds more resumes. Over time, I have developed a point scoring system based on various items I see on people's resumes: +1 for each job in the same tech stack we need, -1 for leaving a job in less than 6 months, etc.
I actually give -2 for certification. That's right, certification will, in my book, nullify the positive impact of an engineering degree *and* one relevant job. Why? Because it is, more often than not, a means of hiding shortcomings behind the veneer of something that seems official.
I am mostly a startup guy, but I have also worked at Google. Google actually conducted a large survey of all their applicants' resumes and cross-referenced the words they contain with how "successful" those people were at the company (I do not know how they defined that). There were no sure-fire words indicating success. But there was one that predicted the opposite: that's right, "certification."
Unfortunately real-world evidence suggests that all being able to pass tests proves is that you are able to pass tests (and that's what the certifications are; studying to specific tests and passing them.) I work in the IT industry, and by far the least useful people tend to be the ones with "advanced" certifications (and all-too-often blinders to anything outside those). I have zero tech certifications and have successfully and worked in IT since my college days (30 years now). Only once did an organization decide not to do business with me because I was not "certified" (Technically, they were a competing enterprise, but most of us in my area actually work together, passing clients back and forth to the most appropriate person/business. These jokers didn't want anything to do with me because I lacked the certifications they had. But they have been out of business for over 10 years now, and I'm still going strong. Why? Because they sucked, and I don't). Ultimately this https://kiranshenvikerker.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ed4.jpg says everything anyone needs to know about any type of education which teaches to specific tests.
Getting a college degree, you actually learn something.
I've run into more than a few people who have made it through college quite uncontaminated by knowledge.
...on the job. A colleague of mine with 30+ years of experience was recently turned down for a job because he didn't have a 4-year University certification. Many of the Program Management jobs I've seen require a PMP certification. Same with some IT jobs who want a CCNE or something along those lines.
Certifications are like grade points. They are precisely as important as the interviewer thinks they are. And that's it.
Depends very much on your field. If you have ambitions to be an accountant you WILL need an accounting certification. CPA, CMA, CFA, etc. If you want to be a civil engineer odds are very good you will need a PE certification to go very far. Want to work as a specialty physician? You'll need to be certified in your sub-specialty before anyone will hire you. Heck if you want to work in a professional kitchen you'll likely need some certificates for sanitation and safe food handling at minimum. Lots of professions require certification to work.
Other fields it doesn't matter at all for. My branch of engineering has some certificates but you can have a very productive career without one. Certificates can be helpful for getting you in for interviews but they won't get you or help you keep the job. Nobody (sane) is going to hire you just because you have a certificate. But they might overlook you in some cases if you don't.
2 resumes, both have equal work time in IT, one has several certs one doesn't.
Which would you hire?
The one that interviews better most likely.
... Google-fu and recognizing the right info is way more important than memorizing it. Find a way to certify that skill and we might be talking.
If power or the net goes out, I can't work on anything anyway. Code and databases rock, but they don't run on papyrus.
I like certification exams for my annual review with my current job. In January I will commit to obtaining/upgrading a certification. It is then recorded on my development plan. Then after completing the certification it is documented and my manager is happy. I completed my goal and showed some initiative towards expanding my technical skills. It is all documented in black in white with my certificate.
I actually give -2 for certification. That's right, certification will, in my book, nullify the positive impact of an engineering degree *and* one relevant job. Why? Because it is, more often than not, a means of hiding shortcomings behind the veneer of something that seems official.
That's a load of crap. I have a graduate degrees in both business and engineering plus I hold an accounting certification. You would discount my entire education because I hold an accounting certification? NOBODY would even interview me for an accounting job if I didn't have that certification.
Certificates are sometimes a helpful way to signal that the person has some talent. Taking the accounting certification didn't mean I knew more accounting than before the test but it did give me a way to provide evidence to potential clients/employers that I do actually know what I am doing.
I am mostly a startup guy, but I have also worked at Google. Google actually conducted a large survey of all their applicants' resumes and cross-referenced the words they contain with how "successful" those people were at the company (I do not know how they defined that). There were no sure-fire words indicating success. But there was one that predicted the opposite: that's right, "certification."
What works at Google is not necessarily applicable in the rest of the world. Perhaps people with certifications tend not to succeed at Google. That does not mean that they don't succeed elsewhere. It only means they didn't succeed at Google - nothing more. In fact there are many professions where you won't even get considered for an interview without a certification.
The problem with certifications is that brain dumps are a big business.
Alot of folks believe that Certifications will enhance their chances of getting a job.
Hence, they brain dump the exam and pass.
For the folks who actually take the time and learn the material the certification is testing for, and pass the exam honestly, the certification process is a boon.
Unfortunately, we live in an on-demand society, so interviewers often see many more of the former than the latter.
I'm on the interview panel for my team. And I see an awful lot of paper tigers. Given that I also have an alphabet soup of certs, I know the skill levels those exams test for, and I tailor my interview questions to things that they should be able to answer, as well as any other technology they put on their resume. If it's on the resume, the candidate should be able to speak to it
Within 5 questions, I can almost always determine the persons actual skill level and whether or not they dumped the exam. And unfortunately, there are *alot*. To add to that, there are also some recruiters who actually encourage the candidates to add certain keywords to their resumes. I actually got one guy to admit during the interview that he'd just added it, after I started asking questions on it.
We have gotten a few folks with a good amount of certs that actually knew their stuff. We even hired a few of them. The ones we didn't hire, I knew we weren't going to be able to pay them what they'd be looking for, so they turned down the job.
In my opinion though, it's worth it to wade through the dross and take the time to make sure you get the right person. If you're careless in your hiring practices, you'll just be right back on the merry-go-round
if it's some young hr person then certs might well impress. if it's an old fart like myself, practical experience or good answers to selective questions will always out trump a piece of paper.
When hiring, I usually send the resumes with a list of certifications to the bottom of the stack. They're those things that the untalented usually do to try to look better. Listed experience gets you the phone screen. Sounding competent and passionate on the phone screen gets you the interview.
unless it's the guy you know, friend of the bosses son, whatever. Who you know > *
lookup DOD 8570
I walked out of my last certification exam. The question had some code and it was asking what kind of exception would be thrown. What they didn't tell you is that the code wouldn't compile because it was missing some curly braces. The correct answer was D) None of the above.
The question was only there to see if your a good test taker.
What a unique question. This has never been asked before on slashdot or anywhere else, and yet so many people need to know. My hat is off to you -- you must have done a lot of research and exhausted many google searches before having to post this to /. for the first time.
Maybe we should get rid of *all* formal credentials? Get rid of all licenses, and degrees, along with certs.
A drivers license does not prove you know how to drive. A teaching credential does not prove you are a competent teacher. Does a college degree prove you even know how to read?
And so on, right down the line.
Or, maybe a more intelligent way to look at is: a credential is what it is. It prove you know enough about something to pass the test. No test is ever perfect.
Tech credentials leave a lot to be desired. But, from my experience they are far superior to interview test questions. I have had interview tests from interviewers who were dead wrong. I have had interviewers ask questions that were insane. Besides, what if the interviewing does not like you? Maybe the interviewer does not like your race, gender, nationality, or age - in that case you would be sure to fail. At least certs have a certain objectivity.
Do programming certs expire like their networking bretheren do ?
With the exception of the CCIE, all Cisco certs require renewals every three years to make sure you're keeping current with technology. ( CCIE is every two )
I would be surprised if any cert was a lifetime one.
I've seen more than my fair share of job offers where a current certification in X was a mandatory requirement. Some employers see them as a way of measuring how motivated a potential employee is.
So not totally useless and, unlike a degree, usually must be kept current to be worth the paper it's printed on.
certifications just prove you can pass tests,
Isn't that what the entire education system, pretty much everywhere follows (passing tests).
HR and CTOs need to face reality:
Manage the people and you'll likely get the results you're looking for. Sometimes a genius does make things easier for YOU, but most of the time geniuses (mind that the rest of us) will not get the job done without good management. It a cornerstone of the military.. and even NASA... which is why teamwork is important in those organizations.
no.
"Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!"
...omphaloskepsis often...
If you want to own a Lambourghini and a Ferrari, and have bookshelves in your garage, forget about certs... drop out of school.
How does Billy know he wants to be a programmer if he has no experience or knowledge of what programming is? Give him a book to read and a computer (even a raspberry pi) - if he applies what he reads, then he should consider doing something with it. Elance contract work for hire would be a decent start - if he's any good he makes money while getting experience without needing to shell out money for formal training or certs - unless he wants to get more.
Most Jobs that have Certificates down on the application are done by HR that knows Shit about what they are talking about. I have yet seen a cert that has helped anyone get a job personally. Its always funny when you see a Systems Manger position looking for someone with a A+ certification.
Looks like someone decided we were overdue for the annual certifications debate. This question will still be popping up ten years from now and they will not be going away any time soon, simply because there is no cut and dry yes or no answer. It all depends on the person, the cert, the situation, and your perspective.
Personally? I still have them and I'm currently studying for others. I'm not even job searching right now; I'm perfectly happy where I'm at. Certifications simply give me a template of what I need to study for the skills I want to learn, and give me goals/benchmarks to aim for. They're like achievements in a game, only more tangible. The vanity of having another cert to post on my Linkedin profile adds more incentive to push myself further. I'm not worried about the material becoming outdated because most of them expire; and if I haven't pushed myself to the next level up by the time they do, it means I'm dragging my ass. I plan on getting CCNP before my CCNA expires, for instance.
The "certs just prove you can pass tests" argument doesn't really apply in my case, because I suck at tests. I suck at academics in general. I barely made it through high school because I am all but incapable of learning things 'theoretically'. So why bother with the certs, you ask? Because I cannot pass an exam unless I actually know the material. Plenty of guys with less than half of my experience could probably finish the exams I am working on in a fraction of the time, but it wouldn't mean as much in their case.
Lastly, certifications do help open doors, especially for those who get stuck in the catch-22 hell that is trying to get experience when everyone expects you to pop out of a cabbage patch with at least 5 years of it under your belt. I'm sure certifications are very easy to disparage from the perspective of someone who is FAR removed from such a scenario with decades of experience and countless connections. I suppose the better discussion would be: How valuable are certifications compared to degrees?
SYSADMIN HIRING TRAIL
You enter your candidate search portal with 4 HOURS RESUME REVIEW, 0/12 PHONE SCREENS, and 0/4 IN-PERSON INTERVIEWS.
>HELP
You've got half a day to screen resumes. You're willing to call 12 people to weed out the ones who claim "3 years of VMWare experience" but will read you the wikipedia entry for "virtual memory" when you ask them about their VMWare experience (true story) in order to get down to the three or four you'll bring onsite.
>GET RESUMES
You receive 600 resumes, because the IT worker shortage is a myth as anyone who's spent 6 months between contracts can attest. Fortunately, your company requires all applicants to apply online, so you're saved the recruiter spam out of India and China that you might get otherwise.
You have 600 resumes.
>FILTER KEYWORDS
100 lack any of the previous-position filter keywords (including but not limited to "engineer" "administrator" "systems" "sysadmin" or the always interesting "member of technical staff") Several of those are from people who clearly apply to literally every job posting they can find, regardless of what it's for. Fortunately you don't see those, because they're really depressing to read.
You still have 500 resumes. You have 3 HOURS 45 MINUTES RESUME REVIEW.
>FILTER EXPERIENCE
100 lack necessary years of experience (can substitute a 4-year degree for 2 years of experience) Fortunately, you don't have to personally decide whether a degree from Duke is really only worth 1 year of experience.
You still have 400 resumes. However, your boss just booked over half the time you had blocked out for resume review. You have 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES RESUME REVIEW.
>FILTER FEMALES
2 of them are women. You have 2/12 CANDIDATES
You still have 398 resumes. You have 1 HOUR 15 MINUTES RESUME REVIEW.
>FILTER LOSERS
100 are currently unemployed. There's probably a reason. Sorry, guys. Fortunately, you're not one of them.
You still have 298 resumes. You have 1 HOUR RESUME REVIEW.
>FILTER CERTS
100 have "MCSE" "RHCE" or "VCP". Fortunately, 30 have two or more of those. You get 6 or 7 decent possibilities out of that stack, and start skimming the other 70 to fill out your call list.
You have 11/12 CANDIDATES.
You have no resumes left. You have 15 MINUTES RESUME REVIEW. Your boss wants to discuss TPS reports in 15 minutes, and you don't have time to check out too many people who apparently can't pass simple tests on things they claim to be experts on.
Search the slush pile (Y/N)?
> Y
As it turns out, 20 of the remaining 198 wrote cover letters that linked to their explanation in this thread as to why certs are useless. Unfortunately, you didn't read them, which is just as well considering they're egotistical idiots on the wrong slope of the Dunning-Kruger effect. You pull one out at random and disgustedly toss it when you see a background in desktop support, with a misapplied "Systems Administrator" title. Your boss is standing in your door with "that look" on her face.
YOU'VE REACHED PHONE SCREEN CANYON WITH 11/12 CANDIDATES. Resupply (Y/N)?
>
Certfication ara presently commercial tools, no enough design to show one's understanding of the course....
In the late 90's I heard about the CCIE RS cert and I wanted to gain it ever since. Picked up my CCNP/DP/IP along the way and eventually landed in a position surrounded with colleagues who already have their CCIE. Before I always thought I must have my CCIE to get work in the complex environments I wanted to work in. Still have to pass the lab, but for myself I can say that my certs have definitely helped me to get interviews and the knowledge picked up during my studies - specially for the CCIE - have made me a better engineer.
But at the same time: These days I would point aspiring engineers with an interest in routing and switching to have a look at Software Defined Networking before dedicating the time and money necessary for the CCIE RS cert.
Dirk W.
Instead of having an hour-long conversation with an applicant, chat for 15 minutes and then have them do 45 minutes of relevant work. Solve a programming problem, write a short article or draw a few diagrams and explain - depending on the job. Certification and degrees are useless (which is not to say that education is) and companies worth working for will recognize that.
As always, it depends. I understand why this topic receives so much snark, since most certifications can easily be dismissed as useless.
I personally hold a number of Microsoft and a few more third party certifications specific to products that I work with, and they've been a real benefit:
For one, they boost my ego, since some of those were not as easy to obtain as some would think. Think what you will of me, but I need that.
Second, the Microsoft certifications stacked up to grant me a title which was crucial in getting hired for my current job, because it signalled to the industry that I really did invest all that time.
Third, there are often benefits tied to having a number of certified people in your organization. Our collective certification level makes us a gold partner with Microsoft, and that's a huge selling argument. Likewise, by holding a certain third party certificate for a specific product I've been allowed to resell their product with a 30% discount. My customers get the actual product and the knowledge needed to implement it from me now - another up-sell made easy, and I don't even have to feel like I sold my soul about it.
Most certs do indeed prove only that you can answer multiple choice questions. However, there are certs that truly matter, but not from skills perspective (although that helps).
CCIE is a good example, since it requires the lab part (I know some folks actually try to do the lab part by rota, with several attempts, but it's still rare). Some others might be the architect-level certs from Microsoft or Oracle. CISSP is a bit in the gray area, it's not a vendor-specific cert, but many customers actually appreciate it.
Anyway, while the highest certs may "prove" something about your skills, the biggest benefit is actually in something completely different. If working for a vendor partner (Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft, whatever), they typically give you status levels based on the number of cert-holders in the company. So basically, if you have a good enough cert, you can waltz in and say "even if I come here to watch porn every day, you can still pay me and save money". What it really means that even if you are a slob who has just gotten the cert by rota, the company can afford to pay you due to the vendor discounts. If you actually know what you are doing, even better.
I mentioned the CISSP, it's an example of a cert where having you on the payroll does not mean discounts from vendors - but it might give the company a possibility to enter higher-paying projects. Many RFQs usually hand out points based on what certs the people involved actually have.
Yes, but only for the people selling them, especially if you have to pay for a yearly renewall.
Get certs... they're not time consuming.
Oh, wait... You actually study for those? Most people don't. There's braindumps for that.
Any company who tries to judge my skill by my certs will turn me off the very instant I notice the behavior. Certs are there to get your company partner status. Nothing more.
It may be different in the states, but in my country, there aren't even many companies large enough to warrant even using the technology some of these cert tests are asking about. So that leaves you learning from the books... which are huge. On top of that, in the course they will always tell you about certain functions and that on the test you should answer wrongly, because that's what the manufacturer wants to hear.
Also, in my case I am the storage and virtualization guy. That means I oversee installation, maintenance and troubleshooting of four different SAN environments of two different vendors, at times three different hypervisors with multiple clusters and all the surrounding systems AND thus far two different backup solutions.
Do you think I have the time to study for a silly cert exam? Perhaps my attitude sucks, quite possibly, but I have yet to find an employer loyal enough to me to warrant doing these things in my free time. I am an above average employee as it is.
Also, when you get offered free Q&A sheets along your exam so you'll definitely pass, you know the system's rigged.
In my experience the big three are ones that demonstrate that you not only "know your stuff", but can actually apply it - and they are well thought of in the relevant areas of industry.
In no particular order:-
All are fairly cheap if you only sit the examinations (less than a weeks wages for the entry level positions they qualify people for)
There may be others (that are good value and in high-demand) - I just can't think of any off-hand.
Are Certifications Worth the Time and Money?
Answer: Yes. If someone else is paying for them, and paying your wage while you do them.
Some companies do actually pay for their staff to get certified. If you can get into one of them, then do it. You've got nothing to lose.
Trust me, I'm a certified doctor of philosophy.
The question is not whether certs are worth the time and money (I tend to believe that they're not) but if you're putting them on your resume, who is actually going to check...
Another answer for are they worth the time and money - most definitely for the certification centres.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
HR Departments love them like HR Pam loves cocaine.This is because, quite simply, many HR departments think that teaching yourself a language would be like teaching yourself to be a doctor. It is inconceivable that an intelligent person could actually end up being able to perform, on their own, as well as some guy who has a certification from the IT collage run out of the nearby failed mall.
This is generally the opposite of what most CS people know which is that the majority of drones popping out of the local IT mall "collage" are strangely incompetent.
But even worse I know people who have become certified in one of the major programming languages (I won't say which one because the people who use that language will not tolerate criticism) and the techniques that you had to use to pass were terrible.
But if you are trying to impress the HR drones in some mega-corp a certification will be just the thing. I am not joking when I say that if a guy named Mr. Stroustrup applied to work at my local power company that he would be better off if he had a totally bogus certification for C++, instead of the "self-proclaimed" title of "inventor of C++"
If you've been on Slashdot for any length of time, you'll see this type of question comes up a few times a year. The general gist of it is, are there any certifications worth anything? The flurry of replies will be to say things like
In my case, I have years of experience, an MS in computer science and an MBA from Duke and a SCJP. What I've seen from Java related positions is they ask the same questions, usually in a much less sophisticated way, than what was asked on the SCJP. You can't just read a book on Java in a day, then pass the test.
I say, pass the certification exam, *then* tell people it's a stupid useless test. If all or most Java related positions asked for a cert, then interviewers could spend more time asking more in depth questions rather than, "What's the difference between an abstract class and an interface?" (Yes, regardless of the position, I get asked this all the time). This insistence that nothing taught can be ascertained by a certification or a degree in this field only increases the time to acquire a developer. It also forces companies to hire based on the unproven, unscientific whims of interviewers.
Certs are great for breaking into a new area and/or expanding your knowledge. They provide a logical progression of topics that help you learn in a meaningful way. Then once you finish the course/book/video series, whatever. You can test your knowledge against the expected norm. The cert itself will not get you a job. You take a cert for the knowledge. The piece of paper is just a perk.
Experience vs Cert? Experience wins.
I have a few certifications myself (Agile, CEH, DoD Acquisition...strangely, I don't have a PMP, but I've seriously considered it), and while I could tell you that those are bare-minimum and not worth nearly as much as I paid for them, I'm not going to say they don't have their uses.
Some companies, particularly ones aligned with the Government, DO require them rather strictly. It's not fair, and frankly, I think a lot of those bare-minimum ones shouldn't be considered worthwhile as "resume" material because they're so basic (they're really like saying you went to high school when you're presenting yourself as the holder of a Bachelor's Degree...the implication of learning the basics is pretty much built-in).
That said, there are intangible things that they do offer, like networking or getting you out of the office for a week or two, maybe teaching you something new or something you didn't consider before. If the cert isn't something that you were necessarily inclined to do in the first place, it may give you a new perspective on how to deal with people (as stated, I considered taking the PMP because I'm not a strong communicator when it comes to management; spending time around more "managerial" types may actually help me).
That also said, a lot of these companies know for a fact that it's a bare-minimum requirement, so organizations like PMI, DAU and EC-Council that have a foot in the door with the Government have curricula that basically writes them a blank check. It's obscene, in some respects, since a lot of the learning should really be on-the-job training as part of orientation to the internal culture of a place. I get the idea of an across-the-board minimum standard, and that's fine, but it shouldn't be used as a substitute for internal training.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
I hold only my A+ certification. I've worked in the IT field for roughly 15 years. I've gone from basic tech support, imaging and deployment through advanced technical support for voice networking systems and am currently moving to a Systems Analyst position within a major university.
Certifications for the most part are meaningless. These are typically used more for hiring purposes than actual skill rating. What matters is your ability and experience. If you can relay this in an interview (provided you GET that far) it will outweigh the lack of certifications.
I've seen both ends of the spectrum, people with little to no certs like me who are amazing and talented, and very knowledgeable. On the flip side I've seen people who hold various certifications and degrees to be functionally useless on the job.
Being able to commit and entire test king to memory does not make you smart. Being able to "pick the least wrong answer" is not a skill. And lets be clear, a heck of a lot of certifications merely demand you study their specific book.
Certs that matter IMO are certs like Cisco certifications that are mostly real world scenarios and simulations, and require you to continue renew the cert as it expires.
As stated I hold only an A+ certification, back when you got it for life. My skills and knowledge A+ wise are now roughly 10 years out of date, but I can still gleefully put CompTIA A+ on my resume.
Certs are no good if you can't have a real discussion about the subject and backup the piece of paper
I remember being new; I was in a class for Unix administration where the instructor pulled me aside and asked "why are you in this class when you know this stuff already?", well, two reasons... one of them was the reason I gave him then, I had no way to prove I knew anything and to get my foot in the door.... I was self taught from running my own boxes.
Now I realize there was a second reason, I had no idea what I knew, or where that would put me in the ranks of newbie admins. Turns out I was ahead of the game compared to many, but how did I know that? (and how did I know 15 years later I would still occasionally come across a tool thats been around longer than I have been alive that could have saved me time in the past, like...I just last year learned about the disown command.... do you know how many times I wanted that? )
Sometimes you need the boost in confidence and a little help past the keyword searchs to the interview. Its all about the interview, which makes it a good bit about being confident in the chair. Hell, I have seen some pretty incompetent people interview well and get jobs....because it turns out, its not just about confidence and knowledge but about problem solving.
Hell the best group I ever worked for would ask interview questions looking for answers like "I would google it" because, they didn't care what you knew, but whether you could solve problems that come your way.
I think once you are in the industry, or if you want to change your focus, certs/classes etc can be good for getting in the door, but once you have the experience, unless your jobs will be requiring it (and willing to pay to maintain it) then, I doubt they are worth it...especially some of them.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Are certifications mostly a rip-off, or are some (especially the advanced ones) actually useful, as many people insist?
Not a rip off. Although, IMO many of the people who insist they are worth something are actually people who already hold or are pursuing certs as their way to "get a job". Therefore, there is already a "sunk" investment in certifications, and they would likely be biased / in denial / upset, if it were a fact that their work on certifications were actually for nothing. I am just suggesting most of the people who care about the subject and insist certs are good are likely to have a vested interest.
Earning a CCNA, for example, gives many folks an ego trip; "I'm an expert now!". If all a person has to their name is that certification, and they don't actually have any experience to back it up ----- they're likely to be really upset if someone claims the cert is just a piece of paper. This in spite of it being well known in the industry that cheating with "braindumps" is rampant, and many, perhaps most holders of the cert. are not qualified pros, probably just paper certs, since over half the candidates took the "easy way".
I can think of two major uses for most certs:
1. Your prospective employer requires it.
2. You are a consultant and you need to show more letters as part of your sales pitch to compete against the other guy who has letters. Sometimes, whoever has the most letters wins the business, because the consultant is often a pro. helping clueless folks who have no real ability to judge expertise on their own -- so they are reliant on vendor certs.
In the programming arena specifically, I have no idea what the answer is. In Networking, though, you bet your ass. I probably applied for 30-40 jobs before I got my CCNA. 4 days after I passed the test, I applied for the job that I have now. Hiring manager said CCNA was the only reason I got a phone interview. Military experience didn't hurt, either, since he was in the Navy back in the day.
I haven't talked to HR first for any job that I've gotten in the last 20 years. While I have applied for positions without knowing someone in the company first, the jobs I got were a direct result of my knowing someone that knew someone and getting me in front of the right people.
So .. if you are young and inexperienced and haven't developed a deep network of friends in the right places ... maybe certification helps.
Once you get an established network, they are of limited value. Studying and passing a certification often exposes holes in one's knowledge. So, other than for self-enrichment, I'd say they are useless. As others have noted, I pay little attention to them when reading resumes. Same with degrees.
I received Linux certification many years ago as part of a teaching gig, and was quite disenchanted when I discovered one other person in the class had never used Linux before studying and taking the certification. That's when I knew they were useless for determining whether or not to hire someone.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
My anecdotal $0.02: After already having a Bachelor's in CS, I got an A+ and a CCNA and moved to a large city with lots of tech companies (Boston).
Both certs were absolutely useless for finding employment, because every employer also wants 3+ years of experience in the field.
Both certifications have now expired without even getting me so much as an interview; instead I have spent the last few years working as a programmer, so I will not be renewing them.
It's possibly reasonable to think that certs don't add any value or are definitely less valuable than experience, but saying that you sh*tcan resumes just because they have certs on them is utter BS.
"How dare someone take a test trying to prove competency in this subject matter and then apply for a job here!"
LOL
Is there some shit-realm of development where you need these things?
It depends... is the certification exam like MCSE or A+, where it's multiple-guess? If it is a multiple guess exam where focus is more on definitions and "what does PCMCIA stand for" than actual configuration and troubleshooting, then yes, the certs are utterly worthless. There are plenty of MCSE-wielding clueless voids out there... ...or is the cert like the RHCE exam where there are no multiple guess questions, but configuring several actual servers (as VMs) in a (virtual) network, configure various services, troubleshoot others, where you must possess real, tangible skills? You may not know what PCIe or PCMCIA stands for but if you can pass that exam, you can be trusted with configuring a server.
Whether certs are useless or not depends on the exam style. One method shows you're very good at rote memorization but doesn't show the ability to actually DO anything tangible with that knowledge. Others allow you to not know the definitions of terms but prove you have actual skills and experience required to get the job done.
(I always use PCMCIA as an example in such discussions because the joke translation is "People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms")
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
they're only potentially useful for someone with no degree(or a worthless one) to demonstrate a structured knowledge of at least a portion of the subject.
How do most people view colleges such as Western Governors University (the only one I can think of actually) that have aligned their degree programs along certification tracks? They award a degree after the basic college courses (math, composition, etc) are accomplished and the student accomplishes so many certifications related to the degree. I thought it was a novel approach to a blended cert-based experience and school degree showing ability to finish a school program. So a graduate walks away with a B.S. in IT Security and CCNA, CCNA Sec, A+, Net+, Sec+, Project+, Linux+ and a few others. That may be the most 'vanilla' of the degree programs there.
OMG facts!
While it's nice to get confirmation for the umpteenth time that certs (and formal education) don't mean jack in the realm of programming, it would be nice to have a more streamlined path available to juniors with little to no experience. I've done scripting and SQL for my GIS work and would like to branch off into development, though without hard experience in Javascript or .NET my resume wouldn't get a glance. I find it hard to believe that building my own superfluous toy website for its own sake at my leisure is the ticket to a job of following orders as part of a large team, but that seems to be the advice given time after time.
Would be nice if employers were forced to train like the old days rather than searching for a combination of qualifications that seldom exists and using that excuse to hire temp visas or something.
We have an HR policy (intelligent or not) not to accept IT staff without Certs. I own my own company as well and while I don't require certs for my personal business I see the merits in it. At least someone took the time to pass the exam. I see 100 resumes a week claiming server expertise etc when the person has never touched a load balancer or whatever the case may be. I hire based on people skills and tech skills but If had to chose someone with both and a cert or not the guy with the cert wins.
I started out doing four years in the U.S. Military. I used my G.I Bill plus a few other State and Federal incentives to put myself through a very well respected (but expensive) Tech school. I left there 4 credit hours shy of a degree (IDIOT!!).
I joined a startup making $100k right away. When they went under, it was the beginning of the economic downturn, and I was in the South West, near the top, if not at the top, of the housing bubble. No one would hire me.
I desperately reached out to a military buddy and got work in the D.C. area. I worked for him while I got my security clearance back together, and then went off to work as a government contractor. Got a few certs (still no actual diploma) and was able to get back up to $100k.
I finally finished my degree two years ago, and currently I have my dream job, working for my dream company, making about $150k. What has helped me along the way, in order of importance:
1) College experience / knowledge
2) Security Clearance
3) Military Experience
4) Professional Relationships
5) Certifications
6) College Diploma
I wouldn't say that any one of those things were useless, but some have been far more helpful to me than others. Especially at certain times in my life, or in certain situations. To bring it back to the original questions, "Are certifications worth the time and money" I would respond, it depends on what other feathers you have in your cap and what it is you're trying to achieve.
My 25+ years of computer experience starting with a ti-99/4A puts me way above any A+ holder I've gone against 90% of them and thoroughly owned them. Of the remaining 10%, maybe 3% rank within my knowledge.
Certifications are bullshit and as always, only show how well you do on a multiple-guess question (which most IT is, now days.)
Put them in front of REAL hardware and more than half of that self-ranked top 3% will fail miserably.
It's that bad. America is seriously lacking in any real education since religion took over.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Certifications are little more than an easy HR screening tool and a way for large companies like Cisco to twist the arms of their resellers to get their staff certified because it looks good on paper. When I was an IT manager, I would get resumes from recent college grads with lots of certs, but no experience. Wasn't impressed. At minimum, all a cert did was tell me that the job applicant passed a test (and likely did so with the help of a braindump). Experience is what matters the most.
If you want to touch any systems with any kind of privileged access in the DoD, you're going to need some certifications in order to be approved.
It started back in Team Fortress Classic
It depends on the industry and type of job and type of certification. Example: When you apply as a medical assistant your A+ cert might not play a role. If you apply for a QA position at a medical manufacturing company your QA specific certs matter a lot.Some certs stick around for life, others expire in a year or so...like the Microsoft certs which cost a lot of money. I work in software QA on non-critical systems, any QA cert would not advance me in my position / company. I benefit more from studying new technologies and attending QA specific meetups.
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Certifications don't mean anything, but when you're charging clients an arm and a leg, they like to see some credentials.
My buddy has Cisco certs and it gets him in the door to many, many opportunities that rely specifically on the expertise that he gained through his Cisco certifications. And, considering how much he charges per hour, and considering he never used to get those types of gigs in the past, I will assert that technical skills like Network Engineering have a strong gating process driven solely by the certification process.