Well, I applied for a computer hardware repair/networking job and during the interview, they asked me if I was A+ certified or anything like that. I kind of nervously said “no” and we continued with the questioning. He asked alot of tech questions like the difference between FAT 16 and FAT 32, IRQ’s, and if I’ve ever installed things like RAM and harddrives. I was able to answer about 85% of the questions so they know I know what I’m talking about. I’ve yet to hear from them, but I don’t think I got the job (although, it’s only 1.5 months till I start school again, so that maybe why).
Anyways, I went home and started reading up on certifications. I have books and online tutorials and the whole bit. I figured I could pass A+ on my own. And then…
…I went to and itech convention today. I talked with alot of the biz. people their about what the norm was for the entry level guys. Most of them said that they didn’t have certification, and some don’t even have a college degree! “You just have to know your stuff and work your way up.” Well, regradless, I’m getting a Computer Science degree and maybe an MBA or Masters in CS, but my question is…
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Is computer certifications worth it? Are they a thing of the past already? I’ve heard if you have the top CISCO certification can get you no less than $100,000, sounds good to me, but is there a better way to reach the top?
Well, this is just my opinion, but when I am interviewing people for IT positions, I could care less if they have any certifications like MCSE or A+. I base my opinion on the places that offer this certification, they mostly look like LQ places anyway. The one in Raleigh, NC actually shared a building with a flea market.
The only thing I look for is someone who can answer my technical questions with confidence and in more than 1 word answers.
If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t waste the money on a certification. It shows you can pass a test, but not that you have the practical experience necessary to do the job IRL.
Last year when I was going through a career crisis (I was waaay bored with my job and trying to think of what else I’d like to do), I took a couple of community college classes in both hardware and software troubleshooting and repair, and the general consensus of the instructors and the students who were already working in IT is that a certification won’t get you anywhere without the practical experience. Once you get yourself in position to get that experience, though, a certification can be a nice little “add-on” to your resume. The trick is to get yourself a job at an outfit that agrees to help you pay for it!
I ended up getting a job where I provide assistance to students and faculty with a couple of different distance learning software packages. I had no experience at all with either package, but this type of job is so new the people that hired me didn’t expect to find anyone who did. What they did want was someone with a passing familiarity with common hardware and software in general, who wasn’t afraid to learn a lot of new stuff in a short time, and had decent people skills.
Often, the difference between getting a job and not getting one will rely a lot more on good basic job skills and a good attitude rather than the amount of technical knowledge you have accrued.
I concur. I’ve known too many MCSE types who didn’t know their arse from a hole in the ground, and just as many geniuses who never bothered to get them. It’s a plus to have the certifications, but an employer who cares about getting the job done correctly won’t judge you by your certs.
Just remember, a guaranteed piece of crap is still crap.
Get the job, then have the company pay a part of the cert. courses. While they’re not necessary, they are quantifiable, and that can mean more money at negotiation time.
Certifications get you interviews.
Experience gets you jobs (aside from entry-level).
Certifications coupled with experience gets you really good jobs.
I’ve been doing tech support for going on 6 years now. Fell backward into it because I showed early that I was competent and learned quickly. Stayed in it because it paid for grad school and got me my current wear-two-hats position. Am looking forward to doing it no longer.
That’s the background.
Certification is a crock, IMHO. Either you can do the work or you can’t. Anybody who won’t hire you because you don’t have a piece of paper that says you can do the work is somebody you wouldn’t want to work for anyway. On-the-job is the best way to learn how to do techie stuff anyway because then you learn how your shop works and you get married to doing things that one way, turning you into the kind of short-sighted, single-solution ubernerd everybody hates until they become one.
No it doesn’t. At least not with me or any company I have been associated with.
Actually, I would say certifications coupled with experience gets you dead end jobs. Say you go and get certified on Windows 2000. Well, you have about 2 years before that OS (and its certificate) are obsolete.
I don’t put a lot of stock in certs myself, I have mine because my company paid for it. HOWEVER, there are a lot of companys that dont know what they want, so they look for the certification. I have missed on good jobs that I could have easily done because I didnt have it. It will get you in the door a lot of places. We had a guy come to work here, who was a paper MCSE, and cisco also. He flat out told us his first day of work “I dont know anything, but I learn quick. I was able to learn enough to pass the tests, but I dont have any experiance.” This guy worked out great, he was smart, he learned fast, and he was not afraid to ask questions. Without the certs, he never could have got the job. I know a lot of other Paper MCSE that walked in with an attitude and thought they new everything since they took a few classes. They didnt last.
Point is, it will get you in the door, and give you a chance to prove yourself. A+ is not that expensive, and some shops (mostly retail), will not hire you if you dont have it. I have a ton of experiance as a tech, and several years as a Systems Administrator, and I couldnt get a job at comp-usa because I dont have an A+. (not that I would want to, or that they could afford me).
It will also get you a higher pay rate. I know people with less experiance, and more certs that make a lot more than me.
Many places value certs above a degree. By the time you get a degree, much of what you lear is already obsolete. Many employers assume this(right or wrong), and pretty much ignore it. I, however, wish I had a degree because it would mean more money where I work.
Well, my former InfoTech teacher at school is a MCSE and Novell certified IT guy, and he gets job offers from various institutions (Professor positions in colleges, IT manager positions, etc.). He currently makes $70k working at the school, but he’s been offered jobs for $150k+.
Not having a cert might hamper your efforts to land a good job. It doesn’t mean you won’t get one, but certs do garner attention (Especially if you ace your cert tests!).
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Yes it does. Unfortuneately. Look at monster or computerjobs.com, or any of the big hiring web sites and you will see an excessive number that either require certification or it is highly desired. If you dont have it, and the 100 people who apply for that job do, you dont get the interview.
This is especially true of contracting companys. the company I techncially work for, contracts to do all the IT stuff for many major companys, such as Lockheed, the IRS, Raytheon etc. We do everything from the servers to phone support to networking. And the company gets to charge more for every head that have that has a certification. Therefore, they highly encourage all of thier people to be at least MCP. the job I originally hired on for 3 years ago now requires MCP and I believe A+. I’m not saying it should be this way, but it is.
Not really, no. Companys, such as mine, pay you to keep your certs current. Every year, they charge the end company for me to go to classes and take test for a couple of weeks. They pay me, the defense contractor pays my company more than I get, so they make a profit, and the contracter charges the Airforce still more and they make a profit. The taxpayer gets to foot the bill eventually. I get to keep the latest and greatest cert.
ALSO, say I upgrade my MCSE from NT 4.0 to win2k. It doesnt mean I have to start over, just take one more test. Windows xp or whatever new pile of crap Microsoft comes out with becomes the current thing, I take another upgrade test or two. WERE not talking about a four year degree here.
Even if I don’t keep my degree current, once I’m in the door, my company doesnt fire me when they upgrade to new operating system. The most I get is “you really ought to get that new Windows 2002 cert”, It hardly means I’m in a Dead end job.
Having certification can never HURT your prospects. But be aware that plenty of tech guys have certificates up the wazoo and are functionally useless IRL, and everyone in the industry knows this. So, if the subject of your qualifications comes up, be plain about what you’ve got, and also be ready to acknowledge that it doesn’t really tell the potential employer anything.
The potential employer will have his/her own list of hot buttons, but the basics remain the same:
Do I think this guy knows his stuff?
Do I think he’s a basically decent, likeable person that won’t be a pain in the arse around the office?
Do I think he’ll fit in?
Do I think he’ll respect authority and the rules, and accept occasional nasties like extra hours or tasks, without kicking up a major fuss?
Those are the ticks to aim for most of all. Certs are just a nice extra.
After getting a job, it’s certainly possible to end up in a rut, but for most of the high-tech companies I’ve worked for, initiative and hard work should open doors for different jobs, and further training should be part of the benefits offered to you.
A lot depends on what market a person finds themselves working in, but if it’s a competitive job market, the employee should be able to get some benefits which aren’t immediately financial in nature, specifically training.
In my current position in the Air Force, I do network administration, desktop support, and help desk functions, (as well as anything else people want me to do, such as hardware, software, and the typical “put this thing that you have never seen before together and get it interfaced with our old system by yesterday” type of things.) Recently, many, many people with my job have been getting out of the military because, as luck would have it, my career field is in high demand in the real world, so much so that the Air Force offers upwards of $60,000 to reenlist. A lot of people I know have found jobs in the IT world outside of the military, and there are some that do not, despite having a lot of experience. After noting this, i’ve come up with the 2 out of 3 rule. The 3 being:
college degree
extensive experience
certifications
I’ve noticed that everyone with at least 2 out of these 3 qualifiers have had no problem getting a job. Others, tho having a lot of experience (3-6 years worth) are not being hired. Seems the certifications are becoming something that people MUST have, instead of being a bonus. As said in previous posts, a lot of companies don’t know what they want, so they just look for catch phrases like “MCSE” and “A+” in order to hire people.
Just my thoughts.
(on a side note, often a 4th qualification appears:
4) The ability to bullshit your way into any job
but this is very rare and I wouldn’t count on it to get a position.)
My professional opinion, as a tech industry worker for several years is that certifications are worthless in a sense, and valuable in another sense.
Companies with IT directors/departments that are worth anything know that the certification is meaningless. But, it’s harder to find a job without it. I’ve met a HUGE number of “paper techs”, meaning people who are loaded down with certifications, but can’t do shit when it comes time to do the actual work they’re certified for. Employers love certifications, but that won’t last long. A few more years of hiring certified people then having to teach them how to work on computers and networks, and the cert process will fizzle out. I hope.
The other possibility is this: Since certification has become an industry unto itself, it could spiral upwards, with always more and more levels of certification.
Well, if that’s the master list, I’m set. I have exceptional people skills, so I’m hoping that will get me out of the cubes in a year or two and I’ll be able to actually interact with real people!
On a side note: An Oracle DBA would come into my CS class when I was in High School every 2 weeks. I became really good friends with him and he knew that I was really interested in going into the computer field. He told me that he doesn’t gave a degree and that if he did, he’d make $20,000 more.
I have another question too:
A the certifications even really relavent to the real world work everyone does? For instance, would working at a company and doing tech support for 5 years be just like studying for A+? Or are certification questions obscure things that you may only come by once in awhile?
I’m a consultant, I pull a salary in the high five-figures, and I’ve got jack.sh!t for certs or degrees (albeit many, many credits). What I do have is an ability to get along well with others, miles of patience (a seriously important attribute if you pull any kind of customer support!), a fast mind, and years of hard-won trouble-shooting experience. I’ve reached a point where if I want to pull down six-figure salaries, I’ll need to finish my degree or get a certification or two.
The wild-west days of IT support are just about over. Now-a-days, employers are looking for a degree and experience. Certifications are nice and useful, but aren’t a primary hiring point anymore, excepting for commodity support positions, and those don’t pay much. Get a degree, but try for some entry level work, too. A degree combined with some (even a little) real-world experience is a pretty sure gate to good job.
Read the advice of ianzin, mikemartin273, bdgr, and Purd Werfect well: They’re dead-on, and telling it like it is.
If you MUST certify immediately, go for MS Win2K Pro and Server, Networking Infrastructure, MS Exchange (5.5 or 2K) and Novell CNA. The MS 2K-oriented tests are harder and get more respect than the NT-based tests, and that combination will allow you to fit productively into almost any shop, including many mixed-infrastructure shops. Follow as soon as possible with a CCNA, which (if you can get it) will radically open new doors.
I took a an A+ practice test that was supposed to be dead on a few years back, and totally aced it. I had never seen any A+ lit nor had I studdied it before. I did it straight from my own experiance. They have, however, changed the test, and since I’m a Systems Administrator now I don’t plan takeing the A+ test and havent looked into the new one.
I tried to do the same thing with microsoft tests and didnt fare so well. There were just too many things on the test that you don’t come across in real life.
If you are gonna take the test, know what your doing already, and wanna just study fo the test, go to Troytec and buy a study guide for the test you are going to take.
Basically they send you a book with all the questions and answers that you will run into. It’s easy to see how people get certification without knowing what the hell they are doing. Anybody, no matter how computer illiterate, can memorize one of these books and ace the test.
If you don’t know what you are doing, please do at least take the class. Getting the cert just by memorizing the guide might get you in the door, but you probably won’t last on the job.
(although, it’s only 1.5 months till I start school again, so that maybe why).