What's the Point of IT Certifications? 1100
erica_ann asks: "Fact: You can have the knowledge without having to pay to be Certified when it
comes to computers. Another fact: Just because you have the certification does not mean you actually
know the material as well as someone who is not certified. You might just be good at taking tests.
So what is the point of getting IT Certifications? To have a piece of paper?"
"I have had this conversation with many friends and co workers. One thing I like
out of all the conversations is getting more than just one point of view. I know
my standpoint on it. I
rambled on it for quite a while. But, what I would like to ask of everyone on Slashdot, is what is your opinion? Do you have certifications? Was it worth getting certified? How do employers, employees and management feel about them? Do you pay for them? Does the company pay for them? Is it worth being certified if you do not get a pay raise for it? What certifications bring more
than others? Are specialized more employable than general certifications?
I think many people would benefit from hearing more than one side of the controversy. Maybe it will encourage more employers to reward for certifications. Maybe it will help the next person attain the career he or she wants. Is there such thing as being TOO certified for a job?
Or is the whole idea of getting alphabet soup behind your name just certifiably insane?"
Interviews (Score:3, Insightful)
That's all, really.
-Peter
The Point is Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes - it is possible to do some quick testing in some cases. In other cases, certs are the only tool.
I saved this from a previous slashdot article. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. You will have a pointy haired boss. This person will be a "manager", and have little technical skill. He/She will not be able to actually evaluate your work at a technical level. He/She will use "industry standard" metrics to evaluate your performance. The fact that you have a $CERTIFICATE makes you a safe bet for them to hire, since they probably can't tell the difference between someone walking in off the street and lying their ass off, and a seasoned 10 year IT vet.
2. You will make roughly "industry standard" wage, since your boss will really have no idea what you may or may not be worth.
3. Your chances of getting promoted to management are close to nil. After all, you can't go promoting the people that do all the work. They're too hard to find!
4. Your shop will get dragged, kicking and screaming into new technologies, since these likely have no certifications, and therefore no way for management to evaluate their worth. Your positive opinion towards new technologies will be considered an attempt to fill your resume in a vain attempt at escape or promotion.
Get certified... Work for the clueless.
No Cert and No CS degree == ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Students with the 4.0GPAs with CS degrees might come out of school and not know jack about shit, while the self-taught guy with a 2.8 in Liberal Arts might code rings around the former. That's a fact.
I am in the process of getting certified and I would relish the opportunity to go back to school and get a CS degree. But the cert is a notch on my resume and a clear win in the short term. Once I'm in the door I know I can do well.
It's all about getting the toe in the door. Get the "piece of paper".
Taking the Java programmer certification test... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've probably forgotten most of that stuff, but I thought it was worthwhile to have studied up on it once.
it does help but mostly with PHB's (Score:1, Insightful)
What it does help with is getting your foot in the door with managers, it helps your resume and it makes you dig deeper the subject than you normally would go.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's forget for a a minute that that is illegal.
This is a stupid way to think. Having a Cert doesn't make a candidate any worse than having a Cert makes them good.
A Cert, if nothing else, tells you the person WANTS to be in IT.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:3, Insightful)
Money (Score:3, Insightful)
Next!
Re:Degree Vs DropOut (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:3, Insightful)
Finally, as a person in a hiring position, I do not consider them at all, and am definitely prejudiced against someone who puts them on their resume.
See, this is one comment I've never really understood. Yes, there are lots of clueless certification monkeys out there. No, in most cases, certifications say absolutely nothing useful. But prejudice against those who may have gotten them for other reasons?
For instance, I am a MCP. I'm not particularly proud of it, being a Unix person, but work paid for it. Yeah, it's a Windows job; I'm living in a place with a weak Unix market and can't move for a couple years, and I choose to be able to pay rent. But I am a MCP, and I do put that on my resume... at the bottom, under "certifications/awards/professional organizations", in the same place I put my ACM membership and my black belt.
So why would that matter to you? Seriously. I'm curious.
Re:No Cert and No CS degree == ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just paper (Score:5, Insightful)
College degrees are just paper and don't guarantee any knowledge or skill.
The trouble is that experience on a resume is just paper too, and doesn't guarantee any knowledge of skill either.
If you're hiring, how do you tell the difference between paper knowledge/skill and real knowledge/skill?
Until everyone's completely honest (and probably after too) hiring will always be a lot of guess-and-check.
Re:depends on expereince (Score:3, Insightful)
When you hire someone with a certification, they had to go through certain steps to get that. It doesn't make them smart, and it doesn't make them a hard worker, but from the perspective of someone doing the hiring, it makes it more likely that they're smart or hard working. After all, they had to have the tenacity and patience to jump through a certain number of hoops to get the certification. Maybe they'll have the tenacity and the patience to jump through our set of hoops.
People get hired based on past experience, since that's the best predictor we have of their future behavior. (I didn't say it was a good predictor, I said it was the best we have) People who have certifications have demonstrated academic ability in a very specific area of applicability. It's no wonder at all people hire them, since the alternative is even more of a crapshoot.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Up until I read that one comment, I was thinking 'Hey this guy is right. What's the point of certs?'
And then you made yourself look like a fool in my eyes.
Re:The Point is Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of a college degree is not to demonstrate to anyone that you possess a certain skillset; it simply demonstrates that you have a certain amount of dedication. That's why "true" 4 year degrees from accredited institutions are worth more than condensed "equivalents" from places like University of Phoenix or some correspondence courses. I know plenty of people without a college degree that posess all the skills they need to do their highly technical jobs, and I also know plenty of college grads that don't know jack. The college degree proves that you:
- Have dedicated yourself to something for an extended period of time (and are therefore somewhat dependable).
- Can handle being tested on knowledge that you were supposed to learn during the time you dedicated yourself to something (NOT that you know it, but are comfortable being tested on it).
Both of those would hold true whether your degree is from Yale or Heald, but in this example, the Yale one would hold more weight because their workload is considered to be harder, and it's a four year undertaking (at least) compared to a two year one. Thus a certification isn't worth as much as a college degree(obviously), but has value nonetheless because if you have one, a potential employer knows that you are at least qualified enough to pass a test on the subject matter. It should not prove to anyone that you are dedicated or that you actually know the material (with a few possible exceptions, like the CCIE), because all you really did was pass a test.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
You've never applied for a job that had a bachelors, associates or masters degree in the requirements?
That's what a degree is - a certification.
Certifications are entirely useful if they are configured properly. For example, lets assume that I am out of town with all of my geek friends and my wife's laptop breaks. She needs it fixed immediately. Who do I trust to fix it?
Right now, there really isn't a certification that I trust. I took the A+ and passed it in all of 20 minutes - it is a joke, although you do have to memorize some arcane knowledge (which doesn't prove useful in the real world). The MCDST [microsoft.com] is looking better, in this respect. But even this one doesn't throw a tech into a room full of parts (some of them non-functional) and ask him/her to build a product to specification (or repair an existing one).
When the certs require real-world knowledge, we'll have real-world use for them. In a pinch, however, if I were running a business, the cert is a good way of filtering out those who can't even pass a simple test. This Ask Slashdot should have read:
Dear Slashdot, I can't seem to pass the [insert any cert here] tests, why do we need them anyway?
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:4, Insightful)
Barrier removed.
--JEDIDIAH OCP,SCSA
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
HR does not write the screening requirements for a job posting, I do. And I can guarantee you that I have never put "A Random certificate from a body that has no credibility" as a requirement, so that shoots your to be interviewed pile argument all to hell. Especially since step two of the screening process is discard all resumes with the letters MCSE on them
I call bullshit on you. Certificates are really helpful when you get your employment through headhunters. They love them some certificates. Having said that, I thought I knew it all, or enough of it all anyways, until I got myself into some cert courses. Low and behold, I learned a whole bunch of helpful stuff that I didn't know before the courses. Worth the money? Probably not but the certs I got definitly got me my present job. Nothing wrong with being qualified AND certified.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's what you make of it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Other people can't define how useful a certification will be for you. If you earn one with the expectation of gaining employment based on the certification alone, then you are probably not getting as much from it as you potentially could. Some people learn better having a well-defined objective such as passing a certification exam. And some certifications, like CCIE, are certainly not trivial and require signficant discipline and effort to obtain. Accordingly, they will provide a greater degree of recognition.
If you find certifications personally helpful in skill and career development, then go for it. Just don't walk in to a job interview expecting the piece of paper to talk for you. Point out that you earned it, and in what ways it has or hasn't helped your growth. If you are dealing with competent interviewers, they will recognize and value your focus on real-world skills.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, the answer to the original question, then, would be that having a certification helps avoid getting a job under a stupid boss.
Re:The Point is Simple (Score:2, Insightful)
8k+ tables? 3 TB+? How big does a "huge" SQL server DB go?
You are a MSCDBA so obviously you are qualified to speak to this, and I am just a midrange/big iron DB guy so I don't know and would like to find out.
-WS
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:3, Insightful)
The most obvious thing I can think of is experience. But that begs the question of how one gains experience.
I'm not going to completely disagree with you in general, because I come from the perspective that if I were hiring I would not want anyone without a CS degree (where certifications are pretty much irrelevant). And even then I would thoroughly test them, because bad students can get through.
ENOENT (Score:3, Insightful)
And, most important at all, you have to get noticed by the company in the first place. The key here is networking: bring yourself and your skills to the attention of people in hiring positions, make friends with them, and you'll be one of the first people they ask for a new job.
It doesn't matter if you have any certificates, it doesn't even matter if you're really good at the work that they need done; if they know you and they like you, you'll get the job no matter how many other people are more qualified.
Most people I know got their carreers started because they either knew the person who was hiring, or they were recommended by a friend. I, myself, usually get offered jobs because of my website. Few of us have any relevant certificates.
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, that's pretty much how they do it anyway, except you'll find that there are many levels of certification, so you can get 4 or 5 different
The whole idea of certifications is flawed, because the testing companies have a stake in putting as many people through their classes as possible. Theoretically they get paid the same if someone bombs the test, but that person goes back and tells all his friends that he just dropped 3000 on a whole lotta nothing, and they all cancel their classes with that company.
I had a guy ask me once if I was A+ certified, and I replied, "No, but I've taught A+ certification classes." It blew his mind. How could I ever have learned enough to teach such a mind-stretching class without actually getting certified? Whereas I was still reeling from the fact that someone would ask that question to an applicant for a mid-level solaris administration job.
The bottom line is, HR loves because it gives them an easy metric to measure candidates. And the testing companies love it because its a big business. And IT professionals buy into it because its a hell of a lot easier than trying to convey a complex skillset to someone who doesn't understand, doesn't want to understand, and couldn't really give a damn on top of it all.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have the same attitude for those with college degrees? Are they also "opportunists" with a "meaningless validation?"
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:4, Insightful)
few vendor supplied multiple guess exams.
There's the problem in a nutshell - the certification is a way for competing authorities to milk money out of people, and worse, if the model takes off amongst employers, then it will become a compulsory way to milk money out of people because independent learning will not be recognized.
The Open Source community should start a project to establish a set of knowledge that must be demonstrated in order to acquire certain levels and areas of certification. There's no better way to make sure that the knowledge is up to date and comprehensive.
That way, the accrediting bodies are little more than employed examiners who confirm that the applicant does indeed possess the knowledge on the checklist. This pulls the rug out from under any "educational" bodies that want to establish their own de facto certification scheme that they have a monopoly on.
I'd be happy to help with organizing / co-ordinating such an effort, though I lack the skills to deal with the knowledge itself in most areas.
Maybe we should look at beginning something like this. There is enough documentation out there for all this - it just has to be turned into a exam-style and gradeable format
Open Sourced certifications? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps we should start thinking on OPEN SOURCED CERTIFICATIONS (This is, certifications which are copylefted, open to the public, etc.)
Obviously certification companies are becoming a bad monopoly, just like Microsoft. I think it's time we start doing something about it, don't you think?
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not nearly as dissociated as the OP suggested. You can't pass an XML web services exam unless you know something about XML web services. A passing score doesn't guarantee expertise, but it does indicate a minimum level of competence.
Generally: Certifications are hoops. They have the same purpose as any other career hoop: jumping through them demonstrates that you're more motivated than your competitors who don't jump through them. As a job candidate, you can consider it a safety measure: you might get rejected for not having it, but you probably won't get rejected for having it.
IT has become too broad to be evaluated in a single test.
It's rarely a single test. Exams are pretty specific to a particular topic: web services, domain administration, configuring BizTalk server, etc. Even the A+ cert, which is pretty superficial, has one part for "hardware" and one for "software."
- David Stein
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:2, Insightful)
you can start learning, show demonstrable skill
Isn't that pretty much a description of certification?
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:3, Insightful)
When you look at a resume, what is on the paper is all you know about the person, and I have to screen dozens of resumes for every person who gets face time. I get resume's all the time that have line after line of alphabet soup certifications, those go right in the trash.
overload of certs tells me one thing about a person right off the bat, they spend TOO MUCH TIME on certifications and not enough time working.
Re:it does help but mostly with PHB's (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless I was looking for an entry-level person, I would probably not consider a person with lots of certs but no experience, nor would I consider the person with lots of experience but no certs. I would look for a well-rounded professional.
You say the certs themselves don't help you with the day-to-day work, but the fact that you were able to obtain them says worlds about your capabilities and potential.
The point of Certification (Score:3, Insightful)
The solution is an internship program, or an apprenticeship program, where a person gains the experience to become trustworthy.
Note to BHO types, this might not install morals, but that is another situation entirely.
Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
2. For the HR folks who are often ill-equipped to evaluate competency levels.
3. For prospective applicants to improve on or dress up their resume. This applies especially to Americans who traditionally have had no opportunity to see abbreviations after their names.
4. For anyone involved in teaching (or selling teach materials) to establish graduation status.
5. For anyone who needs to determine or otherwise establish they know their stuff.
The explosion in the use of certifications is admittedly fair game for fun, but when the tech field reinvents itself every few years, it should be understandable that everyone can be left wondering how well anyone knows anything.
If you've been involved in hiring, or worked in management, you know that references can't always be trusted, and experience is not always a measure of competency. How many secretaries who have been using Word for more than 10 years really know the program? Similarly, I think it's a legitimate question how many regular
Personally, I hate tests of any sort, and even tend to be suspicious of people that do well on them, but I'd be the last to dismiss their purpose or useful, irrespective of the test or who administered it. All the established professions have their legitimacy established using a test, and most have some form of continuing education that requires futher testing and certification. It would therefore seem fair, therefore, for anyone in the tech field be required (as needed) to do the same.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I think I know what this guy means. It's one thing if someone has some small note in this resume listing some certifications, but I've seen people who'll put an insignia right at the top, bigger than anything else: A+ certified, MCSE. In my experience, good techs rarely value their MCSE very much (even if they have it).
HERE'S WHY - Compliance (Score:3, Insightful)
Aside from the HR tards and the PHBs, compliance is actually something important.
The last two places I've worked for have been pharma companies. If the FDA comes in to inspect, they ask who runs the servers, I say I do. They ask if I am qualified to operate the servers, I show them Solaris cert, questions end.
It's a check the box for the validation paperwork. Required? No. Handy? You bet your ass.
Certs are worthless. (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as my personal opinion, they are mostly worthless. The certs test you on so much minutia that's not worth learning, and in the end you have people who don't know a damn thing more than those without them. I think some of the certs (CISSP and maybe some cisco ones) are worthwhile, but especially with the MS ones, that cert tells you exactly 0 about the knowledge of the person in question. If I had a dime for every question an MCSE has asked me about windows I would be chillin on an island somewhere and not worrying about this bullshit.
You want to know what a meaningful cert would be? Have someone who has never done it before set up an SSH server and client and tunnel windows remote desktop over it. Have someone install and configure a linux box who has never done it. Tell someone to get OpenBSD up and running by using only information available on the web. Have someone write a program to check if a file exists and copy over the file if it doesn't in a scripting language they've never used before given only the web for research. You get people who can learn as they go and certs are irrelevant.
Personally I'd rather have 10 guys who are *real* computer people...not just people in it because it's the new middle management...than 100 paper MCSE's who can tell you some worthless bullshit about printing protocols but can't solve a problem they didn't learn about in class without 10 grand worth of training and a $300 book. Problem solving skills and knowledge of how to find stuff online is ALL you need. I tell people to seach Google groups and they look at me like my head is glowing purple. Do you know how many problems I've solved with that? People have no ability to evaluate sources, cross reference, and learn quickly. 99% of the information you need to do any project is out there, you just have to find it and know how to process it. There are people who "get" computers and those who don't. Certs were invented for all the people who don't. I don't need to memorize this, that, and the other thing about Windows because I'll just learn it when I need to know it. The more critical the project is the more care you take in learning it. Simple.
hmm (Score:1, Insightful)
if it says on your resume that your certified, then you'll obviously get the job over someone who isn't certified..
companies are not entirely stupid though.. I think most educated HR personell, will look at a resume, and choose someone who has more experience as opposed to someone who has been recently certified.. I personally have 2 certifications from Brainbench.com.. its not the best place to get certified, but most of their tests are FREE, if you want the physical cert its like 7 bucks to get the nice shiney piece of paper with your name on it.. Its not much, but it looks good on my resume being that I'm a linux administrator.. there aren't many certs for Linux guys to begin with, so ANYTHING looks good on your resume..
HOWEVER, if you're obviously shooting for a job thats Cisco admin related, or you're a programmer, or a Windows Admin, then you will need that Cert in order to get the job you desire.. its that simple.. its much harder finding or even getting a job regarding the fields I listed above, without a cert..
bottom line, its all a matter of what you specialize in..
But, certs help with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:2, Insightful)
The point of certification is cheaper labor (Score:5, Insightful)
Certification programs exist largely to commoditize platform-specific labor. They benefit vendors, such as Sun and Microsoft, that sell infrastructure technologies ("platforms") to large corporate clients. These vendors want to assure potential clients that their platforms are supported by legions of inexpensive, largely interchangeable laborers.
The certification programs are the means by which these assurances are made real. They define the minimal skill sets necessary to be considered competent in a particular platform. What makes the programs effective tools for driving down the cost of programming labor is that most certifications are easier for unskilled and offshore laborers to obtain than more traditional means of qualification, such as four-year degrees and on-the-job experience.
Whether certifications are good or bad depends on where you stand. If you don't have technical skills or experience and want to get into a market where certifications are prominent, go for the certification. On the other hand, if you have excellent skills and a track record that sets you apart, avoid markets where certification programs are rife because your abilities probably won't be appreciated. You should realize, however, that much of the work in the industry is going the way of commoditization, and it will be increasingly difficult to find corporate clients willing to pay much more than what the typical certification-holding employee is paid. For this reason, if you have the ability, you might want to start your own business or join a startup.
Re:The RHCE is different... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I'd think anyone who could pass RHCE would be a competent junior admin.. I don't think I'd want one in charge of a big network based on that certificate alone, but you can be pretty sure they know how to install, configure, and repair a single Linux box. I'd be perfectly content to send an RHCE off to fix a mysteriously broken Linux machine in another building... chances are pretty good that they'll be able to fix it. If they can't, I'd probably have trouble with it too.
If they can get that good, they can probably get better still. RHCE most emphatically doesn't mean world class, but I think it's a good foundation... it means someone has at least a clue. They won't be a complete chowderhead.
I took the class about four years ago, so exactly what's covered has probably changed. I'm sure it hasn't gotten any worse, though.
Re:DUH! (Score:5, Insightful)
Damned if you do, damned if you don't... I wonder if it's permissible to say "Certs: I have passed relevant certification tests, but I prefer to stand on my own qualifications instead, as listed elsewhere in this resume. Contact me if you would like to see my certificates."
Image? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:DUH! (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would you want to work at such a place?
The way I look at it, if a company is so hung up on credentialism [amadorbooks.com], I don't want to work for them anyway.
Works out great. They are doing me a service, filtering themselves out of prospective places to work that don't share at least values in the same ballpark as mine.
The point? To get an interview. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:2, Insightful)
My Badge of Honor (Score:2, Insightful)
In the early 90's, certs were all the rage. Companies thought that if someone had a cert, they were automatically qualified. Oh, how they were burned.
Then in the late 90's, certs weren't worth the paper they were printed on, so regardless of how much you really knew or how much experience you had, if you had numerous certs the knee-jerk reaction was to pass you by.
Then and now the single path that has proven the most worthwhile for employees and employers is the combination of both: certification supported by experience, or experience confirmed by certifications. I'm of the latter crowd. I've been working on PCs and networks professionally since 1984. In 1997 I earned the CompTIA A+ (I took it on a whim while working towards MCSE NT 4.0) In June 2004 I attended a boot camp for two weeks and came away with four certs (MCP, MCSA, MCSE, Security +), then in December I earned my CCNA after a 5 day course. I'm not much smarter than I was before the courses, but people seem to think I am. :-)
My certs had no impact on my position or my salary, but if I decide to depart this company, I know I'll be greeted more warmly at the next one.
Certifications are good... (Score:2, Insightful)
The best way to ensure job security is to make friends and get to know people in higher positions than yourself (that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to kiss some ass, but it probably wouldn't hurt).
I don't have any certifications yet I work for a multi-national firm simply because I have friends who know me and have seen my skills. Often times people with lesser qualifying skills get a job over others simply because someone in the firm recommends them, regardless of their certifications.
So all you fresh grands and no-grads out there start networking!
Getting an interview (Score:3, Insightful)
I was in the situation where I know a lot about computers, but don't have a good way to show that on a resume. I was a college student, who excelled at my computer science courses (but you don't usually put that on your resume - although I suppose you could), and had a few years of lower-level computer support/helpdesk work experience.
My current job listed Linux/Unix experience as a desired skillset. I have been using Linux at home as a geek, and as a computer science student, for about oh, 6 years all together, but had never had a Linux/Unix job. There would otherwise be nothing on my resume to indicate that I actually knew how to use and configure Linux. So, I got the Linux Professional Instituge level 1 Certification. Sure, that doesn't necessarily prove that I'm ready to be a Linux administrator, but it at least shows I was serious enough about learning and using Linux to go out and pass a test about it. (In this particular case, I'm not a Linux administrator, but have a higher-level helpdesk job than I have had in the past, and supporting Linux is a part of this position - and to tell the truth, I know a lot more about Linux than some of the 'administrators' I support pretty frequently).
It got me an interview, and in the interview I had the chance to explain my background and experience with Linux, and demonstrate my proficiency to the department manage, who was satisfied, and hired me.
For people who already have years of experience and a degree under their belt, they can probably skip getting certs. For people just starting out, it's a great way to get your foot in the door.
Re:There is no point unless... (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me guess, you've never worked with an idiot that had a degree before. Degree's are potentially just as meaningless (or valuable, depending) as certs. I know some of my classmates were absolutely awful coders, yet they still received their CS degree and found programmer positions.
My point is this: if you can't figure out if a candidate can do the job during the interview, perhaps there's a bigger problem here than having a cert on your resume.
Re:DUH! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the value lies in the HR department (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:2, Insightful)
Aren't worth the paper they are printed on (Score:2, Insightful)
Certifications were developed by a marketer.
Someone in marketing thought to themselves, "Hmmmm, how can I make more money for the company?". Then a light-bulb went off - let's create "Certifications", but let's not bother verifying identities of those taking the tests, or whether or not they *reallY* know the materials. As long as they pay us, we'll throw some bullshit material at them, and as long as they memorize what we wrote (regardless of accuracy or applicability to real world configurations), we'll pass them.
Thus the certifcation craze was born.
I have yet to meet a single individual who has been certified in anything who actually knew the actual workings of the material they were certified for.
Don't even get me started into the arguments that I've had when it came to installing systems.
I finally had to get 2 identical systems, with identical software products, and told the individual to do their install their way, and that I'd do mine, my way.
Not only was i done with mine in a fraction of the time it took the *CERTIFIED* individual to set it up, mine was the only one that worked. Our network security group wouldn't even allow the other box onto our network because it was full of security holes.
I personally am 100% self taught, over a 20 year period. Information that I haven't used in years, still sits ready, and available for use. Mostly because I learned it (and most everything else) the hard way. Once you've learned something that way, it doesn't just go away.
*standing down*
It's only a third of what you need... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, you need some relevant certifications. You also need a college degree. Hey, and work experience, a couple of years at least. Having all three of those things on your resume is the only way you can reasonably assume it'll have a chance.
None of these are perfect, all are fallible, and there is no magic bullet. Really, the closet thing to a magic bullet here is knowing someone who knows someone who is looking for someone to fill a position. It's networking. A list of IT professionals with whom you have worked in the past that have a good opinion of your skills is priceless when it comes time to look for jobs.
The only way you can shortcut this process is if you can somehow land an interview with the team you'll be working with. This is hard to do at large companies, but often possible at smaller ones.
There are bullshit certifications, degrees, work experiences, references, etc. If your boss can't tell the difference during an interview, frankly, there's no excuse for that and you shouldn't want to work for him in the first place.
Typically it's the face to face with the new boss that sells him. Of course, if he's an idiot, that's another story. If he's an idiot, and you still take the job, well... you made your own bed on that one. Don't get to thinking interviews are one-sided.
Work to live. Don't live to work.
Re:No Cert and No CS degree == ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Students with the 4.0GPAs with CS degrees might come out of school and not know jack about shit, while the self-taught guy with a 2.8 in Liberal Arts might code rings around the former. That's a fact.
Mights are not usuals. I would also expect a self-taught guy to code in rings, as a good CS program will stress that spaghetti should only be served on a plate.
My experience: Self-taught guys do not have a good grasp of algorithmic efficiency, code documentation, and generally code with poor style. They also have a tougher time grasping new concepts, and tend to not understand how the underlying parts work. You may be able to code a pop-up window in VB from reading in a book, but that is not all that impressive.
A Cert Test cant replicate a complex Program (Score:1, Insightful)
anyway some of these tests just quiz you on the syntax of the language. Its like testing a mechanic by asking him to identify every part of an engine but then never seeing if he can rebuild a carbirator or diagnose a bad timeing belt..
solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Interview them, and if they pass, re-write their application and resume so that HR will hire.
Its more work than you should have to do, but it gets the results you want.
Sam
Useful for... promotions! (Score:2, Insightful)
When I spoke to a friend of mine who was on the panel that decided who got the job, he told me: "He had certifications and you didn't."
I'll never doubt the usefulness of certifications again.
Re:College records are just as bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Employers ask for transcripts? Is that true of anyone other than new entries in the field? I have never been asked for my transcripts. Heck, I've never been asked for my degree. And if a company asked me for either my transcript or my degree at this point, I'd probably laugh and leave unless the offer was really good.
What counts is experience and the ability to demonstrate you know what you know. Ancient transcripts that include mostly information on how I did in sociology or accounting have nothing to do with the jobs I look for now. Any company that is going to dwell on such a trivial issue rather than look at my experience and work accomplishments is a company I probably don't want to work for...
Again, unless the offer is really good. Yes, for the right amount of money I'd be willing to play their game. :)
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have it perfectly backwards. Certifications are a lot easier to get than degrees. This creates less of a barrier and allows more people into the field much more quickly. It serves to reduce wages. I think the quality of the exams seems to also display this point.
studying = good, certification = bad (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What would the little kid say? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that's to be expected. Engineers can be held personally liable in the event of death or injury. I.E. if I spec a W8x24 beam instead of a W24x94 because I miscalculated the minimum section modulus by an order of magnitude, I'm going to hurt people. Due to this, the licensing is made difficult to ensure you're not just book smart but have experience and such before being able to work on your own and legally say "this is good."
Too bad no one will read this (Score:2, Insightful)
Hardly any school in the country teaches system administration in a structured, disciplined way which means you learn it piecemeal and miss quite a few important things (thus inspiring people to reinvent the wheel). Network administration doesn't teach you specific operating systems except Windows and some uberpopular brand of Linux. If the OS game changes on you, like say you're put into a network run by Macs? Crispy toasty city, you're more lost than Goldilocks.
Corporate America has destroyed the entry level base from which more experienced workers are made. You can't get an entry level job to get the experience required for a "real" sysadmin job.
So now you have a tiny handful of old guard admins who are probably employed for life, and the rest of your applicants are newbies trying to break into the industry.
This is Catch-22 at its finest. But Corporate America brought this upon themselves.
Re:Easy weedout (Score:3, Insightful)
If it was an RHCE, it means he sat down on a machine that had 10 problems created on it, and was able to fix it with no other documentation other than that which comes with the distro.
It also meant he took a machine from bare metal to running a bunch of network services, with a particular RAID/LVM configuration, LDAP/NIS accounts, disk quotas, etc. to meet 70% around 40 requirements. In 3 hours.
Most Linux admins can't do that. Those that attempt to, on the RHCE exam, fail 32% of the time.
It's a hard exam. It's a realistic one too. Your machine breaks, you fix it, Sometimes peoples fixes screw up their machines even more. Too bad. Many people fail it.
I think the people that would fail it include both Cliff and you. Lots of people might know how to set up Apache HTTPD on BIND or whatever off the top of their head. Their knowledge though is focused: they have no idea how disk quotas, PAM, or LDAP, or the LVM works. A hard, realistic certification like the RHCE is proof the holder has passed a realitic test of a well rounded set of skills.
Disclaimer: I teach RHCEs, but I'm not speaking on Red Hat's behalf here. And I paid for my RHCE becfore I worked for Red Hat.