Ranking IT Certifications On Common Criteria

crypticgeek

I was purchasing my copy of the VMware VCAP5-DCA Official Cert Guide from the Pearson IT Certification website the other day and I noticed something (other than the fact that their website is terribly designed). They have a blog post about ranking IT certifications. The author takes almost 100 certifications and makes his best attempt at creating a common set of criteria in order to compare them based on a number of factors (difficulty, time, cost, income potential, etc). He even includes an excel sheet and goes into detail about how he calculated each factor so if you want you can come up with numbers of your own and re-rank things, but I feel like he did a fairly good job with the numbers not withstanding some things that are subjective.

It's an interesting idea. What do you guys think? In my opinion it doesn't really capture one important thing. Reputation. An MCSE ranks as number 16 which to my mind is simply silly, especially against certifications that require a lab component. If I fix his numbers for MCSE (12 months prep? Please.) it drops down to number 52, which is probably more where it belongs.

Still, subjectivity aside, I think the idea of a ranking system is an interesting one. Maybe we should throw this up on google docs and massage it a bit.

His top 10:

1. Cisco Certified Architect (CCAr)
2. Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA)
3. Cisco Certified Internet Expert (CCIE)
4. Check Point Certified Master Architect (CCMA)
5. GIAC Security Expert (GSE)
6. Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE)
7. Oracle Database 12c Administrator Certified Professional
8. VMware Certified Design Expert 5 - Data Center Virtualization (VCDX5-DCV)
9. Certified Wireless Network Expert (CWNE)
10. Master Accredited Solutions Expert (ASE)

His bottom 10 (from "best" to worst):

1. LPIC-1
2. Security+
3. Novell/SUSE Certified Linux Administrator (CLA)
4. Citrix Certified Associate - Networking (CCA-N)
5. Brocade Accredited Internetworking Specialist (BAIS)
6. Healthcare IT Technician
7. Cisco Certified Technician (CCT)
8. Desktop Support Technician (DST)
9. Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS)
10. Cloud Essentials

Asif Dasl

I can never understand these rankings of certifications or the next "hottest" certification lists because it's like herding cats! Yes there are main or common certifications but it's crazy to say one is "hotter" than another because there are so many paths in IT that you just make huge brush strokes and categorise people without taking degrees or experience in to consideration (or your part of the country or what country you live in!) that makes it a worthless waste of time for me... a nice try but ultimately worthless - just my opinion

crypticgeek

Nothing you said is untrue but I don't agree with you that it's worthless. No one is saying "hire the person with the most cert points" or "the more cert points you rack up the more you're winning". I think a ranking is useful to assist people in prioritizing their goals, time, and money. Certainly no one list will be definitive, there's so much that's subjective, but I don't think that makes the exercise worthless either.

Asif Dasl

If you are into Cisco then look at the pyramid: Cisco
If you are into Microsoft then look at the pyramid: Microsoft
If you are into VMware then look at the certification map: VMware
If you are into Linux then I dunno... grow a beard!

I have yet to see a certification map that I actually found useful to me... at a very basic level the higher up the map/pyramid you go the better pay there is - That's as good as it gets for aiming for certifications... again, others may disagree.

abyssinica

um where is CISSP on this guy's list? lol what a crazy list

Iristheangel

The CISSP is in the middle of the list. It's not an exam that's focused on a lot of critical thinking but it's not straight memorization either so it's in the middle of the list there.

I'm not really surprised by this list and if you look at the exam style of the top and bottom exams, it should make sense to you.

Asif Dasl

Not sure how but VCP-DCV is above VCAP-DCA! - VCAP-DCA has to be taken after VCP-DCV and is much harder too. If time is based on months then there is no way it would take 12 months to complete VCAP-DCA there is a site that says it's possible in 8 weeks...