Probably depends a lot on where you are.

Around here, certifications mean very little. Employers are generally more concerned about the kind of work you've done at previous jobs. A few good references who will tell people how awesome you are and an impressive list of "my duties included" does you more good than a sheet full of "ABC+ Pro Certified" here.

That said, I've talked to friends elsewhere that have related the exact opposite.

I'd say ask around your local area. No point in getting a plate full of certifications if they mean nothing to the employers in your area.

Some people look for experience and hands-on expertise and HR people look for words in a search list. I don't think I have ever been hired easily by going through HR filters but begged to work for companies who know what my resume actually means. Techs know other techs. And, frankly, I am equally skeptical of people who go out chasing every certification they can until their resume looks like a NASCAR racer.

Actually, my wide range of experience leads people to ask me the same question(s) asked of people with a multitude of certs: "do you REALLY know all that stuff?" My answer is "I've been doing this a very long time and I don't put anything down there I can't prove. There's still LOTS I don't know, but I doubt there's much I can't pick up in a very short time." And that's the reality of it. Can you do it all? Is it "easy" for you? If it's not easy for you, then specialize and at least get really good in your speciality. But don't just go getting some labels if it's not in your nature to actually be able to do what you claim -- if you're not truly inclined in that area, you're not just disappointing your employer, you're harming the whole of IT out here by lowering everyone's expectations.

Heh... someone above says "degree... seriously... degree!" Really? If you want to get into management, yes... get a degree... a BUSINESS DEGREE. Getting a degree in computer science or programming is... uh... a huge waste of time and money. I have been through some of that and I know what people come out of those mills. They can teach and test a lot of things, but they never seem to be able to insert that "spark" every good programmer has. That spark comes from somewhere else. And if we are talking about a degree in anything else computer and networking related? Take courses in various technologies, not a whole degree. Degrees in IT are useless.

The issue with certifications from IT companies is that there are very few standards which regulate them. Essentially, all they mean is that you turned up and probably passed a test. If you have not used this knowledge since then the certificate is as good a useless. If you have that degree from a reputable school then that already speaks to your ability. Now you have to be convincing of the specific skills.

Generalizations are impossible. There are so many areas of IT which require skills that you will never acquire in a classroom that the only way to see if a candidate is worth their salt is an interview. Here we come to your point of actually reaching the interview stage. The US is a country which largely works on a "who you know" basis. Networking is very important here. This differs in other countries. As someone who regularly reviews resumes for candidates I am shocked by the poor quality of the literacy in the resume and also the incorrect use of technical names, abbreviations and acronyms (and people who have no idea what this last word actually means). You can judge a great deal about the candidate from their resume. Do not try to use terms with which you are not 100% familiar. It is incredible the number of resumes from candidates who will incorrectly use terms because they are not proficient and try to over fill the skill section.

Hopefully, if you are looking to move to an organization worth moving to, they will have good staff at the interview. If the position is looking for a particular proficiency and you don't have it then of course you are at a disadvantage. But an employer will consider paying less for someone who is bright, hard working and thinks the right way.

Specific skill sets can be easily acquired in most circumstances. General skills can take a lifetime to acquire.

Have your resume edited by someone else. Please. Then find someone who can deliver it to the right person. This is your best chance of getting an interview.

You are filtering out good people.

I put them on my resume. Mainly because it wont hurt and it keeps HR and the headhunters happy. Does that mean I am a jackass that doesn't know anything because I got them, regardless if I owned my own I.T. business as a contractor? That is like saying you do not need a computer science degree to write simple scripting code, therefore every Unix admin who has a CS degree must somehow be incompetent.

Most competent I.T. folks put them on their resume. If they do not then I assume they do not love their job or their previously employer did not give them the tools they needed to succeed. I view it as incompetence. Not because they need that MCSE or CISCO cert but because they agreed that it was not needed and ok to be under certified or the candidate refuses to better themselves.

You can learn a lot with certain certifications that you never know about. Windows 2008 for example has many new features that I had no clue about, explained by a MCSE trainer. It can help if you are already competent.

The parent here is perhaps meant to be funny, but there is a nugget of truth in what he says.

Actually creating a certification takes a lot of work - I spent the past 5 years working as part of the team that worked on IT certification programs and exams at Novell. But to understand what certifications hold value in the industry, it does help to understand the process by which a program is created, because if a program isn't built around sound principles, then the certification will be worthless as anything other than a wall decoration.

First, you have to certify based on something people actually do. Certifications that have real value start with a job task analysis (JTA) and the program is built around what people actually do for a living. It doesn't do you any good to certify based on criteria that don't map to a specific job function.

Second, the testing methodology needs to be sound. People laugh about paper certifications, but paper certs are a real problem in the industry. This can happen because a question pool is leaked and a 'braindump' is created. Dealing with braindump sites is like playing whack-a-mole. So the testing methodology should resist braindumps, either through adaptive testing or through the use of performance based testing (sometimes called 'practical testing' or some variation of that). Practical testing tends to be more resistant to braindumps because that type of resource gives you the answer - but in a practical exam, you have to demonstrate the application of the answer. So if the braindump tells you "do x, y, and z", those are the steps you need to do to complete the tasks.

If a certification is ISO 17024 compliant, then it has increased value as well. That ISO standard specifies a number of things (which are adopted by other organisations, like ANSI) about how a certification is built. Vendor-specific certifications tend to not be ISO 17024 compliant (there are a few exceptions) sometimes because of cost or resource requirements. As I understand it, there are pieces of the standard that specify, for example, that the people who create the exam and the people who create the course materials cannot talk with each other about the content. The JTA information can (I think, it might be required or recommended) be shared between the two groups, but they must derive their own information from the pool of information about the topic. The purpose for this is that it's the knowledge that's needed, rather than the specific course materials created by the certifying body. In some cases, the certifying body just publishes the objectives and leaves it to others to create the courses around those objectives.

I'm also of the opinion that the value is higher if rather than relying on recall for answers, the exam requires cognitive skills. Exams like this tend to be much more labor intensive to create and evaluate properly to ensure they're fair, but that value is significant as well because then the certification shows that the candidate knows more than just the answer to the questions on the exam, but how to apply their knowledge in a useful way. Performance-based tests are really the best way to do this in my opinion.

The exams also must have gone through some form of psychometric analysis in order to be legally defensible. If a program uses multiple exam forms (which is generally the case), then the psychometric analysis is used to ensure the forms are fairly balanced and if a candidate can pass the exam on form 1, that they would most likely pass it on the other forms as well.

Thirdly, a properly built certification program is going to have continuing certification requirements. Some organizations (like CompTIA) used to certify "once and forever", but certifications like that really don't have that much value over the long term. I hold an LPIC-1 certification that I got in 2003, but that doesn't really tell anyone what I know about modern Linux distributions.

Certifications are helpful if you're going through the 'front door' trying t

Reason is I think many tech types misunderstand who and what certifications are for. They aren't for you, or your peers. I don't go showing off my certs, I don't sign my e-mails with them, or that kind of shit. They are for the managers that hire people.

While it is popular, particularly among Linux people, to hate on the MCSE, in my experience many jobs want one, and some require it. Managers like it, that is what it is for.

So that you think it is a joke may not be all that relevant.

Also I fail to see how it would be a joke and a CCNA would not. The CCNA is not a difficult cert to get. Hardest thing I had on the test was that the router simulation they use is Boson NetSim and it doesn't implement all the commands of real IOS (and I should add I still passed easily on the first try).

If you want to get a cert for yourself, just as a guided learning experience, then get whatever interests you. Hell you don't even have to take the test, you can just study the materials and learn it if you like.

However if you are getting a cert for professional advancement or to get a job, the consideration then is what management likes, in particular the management in the area you are interested in. It doesn't matter how much of a "joke" it is. The idea isn't to advance your skills, it is to have something to help your career.

What that is could change over time too. For example I have my A+. I doubt anyone would care anymore, I've been doing IT for about 12 years now and do higher level stuff. However when I got it, in 1999, I was looking to be able to get lower level tech type jobs and it mattered. In particular, going for student computer support jobs on campus, it put me ahead of most students that had no certification. It was worth getting.

These days were I to get something, I would actually probably look at the MCITP, the MCSE replacement, since Windows support is a major part of what I do. I wouldn't get it because I think it would help me be better at my job, I'd get it because it would make managers more likely to hire me for that sort of job.