Do you believe in certification?

[Slaine]

I did my CCNA & CCDA in early 99 and still havent got round to getting them recertified yet, i have bought updated books to read at my leisure and then they go and change the damn exams!

Cert exams are a good way to evaluate your own technical theory knowledge and if you can buy books and have your own kit to pllay with or if you work with the kit then why waste money on a course.

Allthough if it is a spe############t subject then you may well have to go on a course

Many people in the IT world say that certifications are just crap on paper and that it isn't worth anything if you don't have any decent experience. However, get used to it, for big companies certifications are important and if you don't have them you won't have so much change of setting up a decent career. Companies spend alot of money on getting their employees ceritified (courses, exames, etc).

The irony about this all is that alot of people who say that certifications aren't worth anything, don't even have any and don't have a clue on how hard those courses can be (especially Cisco when you go into the direction of CCNA, CCNP, CCDA, CCDP or even CCIE).

So what I'm trying to say is: If you don't have any certifications but you have ALOT of experience and knowledge, but your boss has a CCNP and can't even make a decent UTP cable, your boss drives in a BMW and you don't. That's how the IT world works, or atleast when you aim at big companies.

[Keith]

I know that this thread is pretty old, however just wanted to add my 2 cents worth anyways.

I believe that certifications are good for people who actualy have a base knowledge of what they are taking the test on. It gets frustrating when you see these people who take the test prep books, get their cert, and just answer the questions on the test based on what they read in the book. They are not studying to learn the information they are studying so that they know how to answer the questions on the test.

For example, I was working at a software company, my entire team of 12 people left all at the same time. It was just me left all alone...We hired a temp/contractor to come in and help us out. She interviewed well and seemed fairly knowledgable. My position was when I was doing desktop support btw. Anyways, I had a call from a user that needed her IP on her NT4.0 laptop to get refreshed...since NT 4.0 dhcp did not release the IP fully, it would not pickup an IP on that subnet...Windows talk blah blah blah... This lady was MCSE certified as well as CNA certified... I took her up to meet the user and have her fix the problem. She looked at it for about 10 minutes and proceeded to ask me how to release the IP and renew it...

Because of examples like this, I am somewhat on the fence about certifications. Hands on experience says a lot for me...But on the other side, the certification track shows me the ability to follow through on something...

I am Microsoft certified to this day...I've done my time as a systems admin...and I can surely release and renew an IP.

--Keith

When I started out in IT I scoffed at certification. I thought they were worthless and didn't prove that you knew anything about the subject matter. But there are certs that are extremely difficult to pass without an in-depth knowledge of the subject matter, at least academically. CISSP and PMP certs come to mind right away. And the CISCO architect stuff takes some learning.

So... It all depends. MCP is pretty easy to get. Cisco CCIE Security, not so easy. You can't pass that without knowing your stuff. And when it's on your resume, hiring managers for a relevant position will care that you have it.

Certification appears to be half the battle of finding good quality staff. As we all learned back in the early Windows Cert days we found a lot of certified systems admins and "engineers" but they had little to no hands-on experience. Who cares who can pass a test if they haven't seen enough problems to have a goodie bag of solutions to bring to your team or organization.

The challeng is in the hiring. Unless you get your team certified (where they usually leave you to find work with their new badge) you have to find someone in another company and move them to your organization. We did this with the help of NetCareers, a staffing firm focused on telecom wizz kids.

My only advice is to make sure you have time to challenge new hires before you have to dish out a finders fee (we were give 30 days for sales guys and 90 for engineers).

They have the certs - now make them earn your faith in that piece of paper.


Joseph

[descorpio]

I think only hands on experience will help us know better. But for others and the company those who are going to recruit us, can only believe our certificates. We will not have enough time to prove them that we have got the potential. So it works most of the times in helping us to prove it to the outside world.

[tomandrew]

It should be belived because the certifications are bringing jobs for many and it is also a benefit which adds a great weight to our carrier professionally.

[attagirl]

It appears to me that many people think the way I do. I think that certifcations are pointless unless you have the experience to back them up. I also think that there are people out there with the experience that can blow the certifications out of the water and it is unfair for someone to say that you need to have the certification when you can prove that you have the experience to perform the tasks needed to be completed.

[Neoeclectic]

I got started in the IT industry before the ".com boom". Those were the days where companys were offering me jobs because I was part of a rare few that even used a computer during their life time. You could walk into an interview and the only question they would ask is "Do you know how to use Windows?", and if you answered yes you're in! And I mean that quite literally. I refer to that as the Golden Age of Internet related jobs.

During those days there were no such things as certifications and universities weren't even offering courses for the kind of technology that was emerging. It had taken schools a very long time to catch up to the fact that maybe they should start teaching Linux administration and courses for extraction language programming to keep up with the industry. Around the 90's certification programs started popping up in part to make money, also in part to get people up to speed about the new technology.

I initially scoffed at certs because I didn't see the value in someone being able to read a book, take a test, and become certified without ever having seen the stuff talked about. The average certified person was about 75% dumber than the person that actually had hands on experience without the cert. Very early on certifications were worthless by my estimation not because of the individual, but because of the lack of organization, implementation, and established standards of the industry.

I think things are vastly different these days. 15 years ago I would have prefered a kid that played with computers as a hobby and had a gleem in his eye for what lay ahead over someone that was a book cert. Today I would more likely consider someone with a cert over someone without one. The reason is because we're finding less and less people with OJT that possess the level of knowledge needed that is now being taught in schools. Also, because with larger corporations we simply don't have time to train. We need someone that can walk through the door and just do the job.

Schools are now offering training and the hands on experience that someone would need to really get started. Also there is some assurance that if they have a degree or is certified that they actually do know what's going on. That's not necessarily the rule, but it's the thing a lot of companys look for. Now if it came down to choosing between someone that has 20 years experience in the field with no certs or degrees versus a kid straight out of college I would likely choose the veteran.

[prabir]

Originally Posted by resellernow

There are many certification program now. Do you beleive in all the courses. I don't really beelive all the things. I like only hands on experience which is very useful compare to those courses. How many of you study by your self without going to any classes.

I dont believe in certification.
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