Why is everyone so focused certifications?

I know I'm going to get flamed, but I have to ask anyway. Why is everyone so focused on getting certifications? Every certification I have or am working on is a job requirement, that's it for me. I can study and learn without spending money on specific programs and buying paper. The only certification that I have studied specifically for was the CISSP because it covers so much it touched on areas that I haven't worked. I work and study topics, then get certified because my company requires some sort of proof that I know what I say I know.

I see a LOT of people coming on here and asking for advice on certifications, what to get, what the cert is for, what they need to know for it, etc. People are focused on the certifications and not learning the material. The whole point in my opinion is to certify that a person knows the subject, not that they can pass a test. I understand first hand that some need them for compliance with jobs, especially gov jobs where they don't actually need to know what the cert covers, but most seem like they have no idea what they want. What happened to the times when people studied and worked in their field before trying to prove they were experts of X topic?

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jeremywatts2005

I could not resist on this one. Yes certifications play a role in the hiring process. Are they the only portion of that hiring process ? Likely the answer is no. From a hiring manager stand point I like to see a degree 4 yr or above for the my section. Incident response and system forensics requires a high level of commitment, writing skills, oral presentation skills, qualitative and quantitative analysis. That is in addition to tech skills. Also the more varied you are in your tech skills the likelihood you will be successful increases. The degree gives you the foundational set of skills especially from a hands on college. That foundation allows additional skills to be added to your degree.

I also am a believer that certification costs should be eaten by the employer and it they should be encouraged. I also do not think that you should as a manager make employees sign serf type agreements to stay with a company if they pay for a certification. It should be highlighted in your compensation package and be an incentive to attract talent. Also if you pay the employee an above market wage then the likelihood they leave is lessened. I also like the idea of an incentive for passing the certification besides just paying for it. Something like a $100 amazon gift card or something along those lines. Maybe a lunch out with the team and the person who got the new cert eats free. Things that motivate and encourage certifications. I also believe in a clear succession plan for a team. This gives a directed approach of what certifications and or degrees the individual needs to achieve to move to the next level and increase salary.

What I do not like is companies trying to constantly push certifications in hopes of landing a gem at a cheap price. You know the ones I am talking about you see them. They pay 5% above what you are making currently and may hire you if you have x, y or z cert. Some of these companies are trying to attract outside talent because to develop talent and build talent is not within their framework.

So yes certs are great, but I do not think they should be the single biggest indicator if you can do the job. Neither should a degree be the single biggest indicator you can do a job. A degree however is a larger indicator of soft skills and if a technical degree then it shows you can learn technical concepts. A certification also cannot show years of hard work that goes into achieving a degree. A degree especially in the technical field is nothing like "High School". If you do not believe me then get your rear handed to you at Champlain College in the Digital Forensics program.

Totally brutal and you feel like some courses you can barely stay afloat even working way beyond 20 hours a week. Wait till some instructor who has been working for malware for 15 or 20 yrs and is highly experienced and finding it, eradicating it and going over it hands you an infected image. Then tells you that you have 5 days to go through the image and tell him what happened with it. Yeah he deleted crap, infected crap, changed crap, hid crap, and even utilized anti-forensics in my case, just to make it more fun. Oh and by the way the paper needs to be in by Friday and it is Monday. It has to be typed, include screen shots and formatted APA perfectly along with any technical references you should be using to look up some of the crazy stuff. Then he hands it back to you and says you missed and got a C not a + but a C and barely passed the final.

Chinook

The business of IT is that of perpetual & continuous learning. I challenge the exams for the purpose of building my career & the optics it brings forth to my clients. Certifications are just part of building a brand (that being me) & one tool of self improvement. YOU manage your career, don't do things for employers.

And sometimes I take a certification solely as a means to learn a technology. And sometimes it opens doors to getting contracts/projects with that technology. I can't think of any certification that ever hurt my career.

beads

Certs go up and down in terms of importance in this field. One year its hot the next - not so much. As said above often people try to use certs to break into new field with mixed to poor results. Depends on market conditions, to be frank. If there is a shortage of people with XYZ skill a cert may very well help you get that all important initial experience. When times are tough that same certification with other education, lets say, may not get you a first pass HR.

Personally, I like to certify after I have some strong mastery, there is an oxymoron, in a subject. Otherwise, it comes across more like training wheels on a bicycle - not quite ready to ride unassisted. For me would be pointless.

-b/eads

philz1982

None of the certifications I have, have helped me to get a raise/job. I go aftet certifications because they force me to learn material thay otherwise my adhd would keep me from learning.

E Double U

philz1982 wrote: »

None of the certifications I have, have helped me to get a raise/job. .

I'm glad to hear it since you had the unfair advantage of being born with the AIO lol.

Dakinggamer87

Certs+Degrees+Experience = IT success in your career!!

I have gained vast knowledge in pursuing certifications over the years. I have also increased my pay so it's definitely been worth it. It also helps sharpen my goals by being focused on an objective. The icing on the cake is having something to add to my resume to show for it as proof of not expertise necessarily but experience and exposure to the technology.

Going forward my focus will likely be less on certs once I start my Master's degree. However, I will still study on different topics that interest me or improve my overall skillset.

philz1982

philz1982 wrote: »

None of the certifications I have, have helped me to get a raise/job. I go aftet certifications because they force me to learn material thay otherwise my adhd would keep me from learning.

Being born with that birth defect has helped me get some jobs due to disability hiring preferences.

Krusader

Certs are a structured way of gaining or improving a skillset
They tick a box for HR

Architect192

twodogs62 wrote: »

professional growth.
Focusing and learning new material
The challenge.
Resume material
Keeping current and relevant.

This

Edificer

In my case, new projects come up all the time, and more frequent as time goes on (i.e. last week I have been asked to look for IP Phones for video conferencing that are compatible with CUCM version and set that up. I have been called in my boss room again to look into VSAT and learn that and deploy one very soon for IPsec VPN. I've also recently placed a $80,000 order on NGFWs that I needed to do some heavily research on) I need to be very flexible. I need to understand, and communicate technical when new things come up. If I stay the same and just do 'maintenance' things would get problematic. When you understand your position well enough to maintain it you need to explore, and discover new things.

kly630

I've posted something like this before in the linux forums, but for me certs are like studying a foreign language in school before preparing to go abroad to live and work. They're just a test and not really a strong measure of any kind of technical "fluency". Items like the redhat exams or cisco ccie are closer to what you want skill wise because they're like having oral exams, but they're still just exams at the end of the day.

Just like I feel there's a huge difference between saying "I've lived in France for 10 years" v. "I majored in French in college" there's also a big difference between having on the job experience v. a certification in that technology. The demands and expectations of how you use your skills will be very very different.

So, I only study certs related to topics I'll need on the job. For me, I wouldn't go abroad without at least trying to study the language and I won't work a job without at least trying to learn the technology.

yzT

Put yourself in the skin of someone involved in recruiting. You got two applications with similar profile, but only can interview one of them. Whom will you choose? The one who has certs or the one who doesn't have certs?

PC509

Anybody do it for the fun? Personal goals? Or is it all employment?

I have a Vista MCITP cert. Worthless. But, I enjoyed earning it. I learned the material, shared what I learned with others, and had fun with it. I'm proud of it. Still, it wouldn't mean dick on a resume for any respectable position.

I'm working on my Windows 8 certs now. Again, most places won't put a lot of weight on it. I do. I enjoy it, I like learning and I like sharing what I've learned with others. I'll do the same with Windows 10 (I'm going a step further and writing a book on the cert exam for this one!).

For HR or whatever, those are worthless. But, they mean more to me than to them. It was fun learning the ins and outs of the OS (Except Vista, I knew a LOT more about the OS than that exam showed... exam was WAY too easy).

The others - school, work paid for and/or it was for employment stuff.

BlackBeret

Thank you for the replies everyone. It seems everyone has their own reasons to obtain the certifications and there a lot of different reasons. My main point in posting this was to see if the majority of the time for most people it's all about learning. It seems that's a large part of it for most people, I just understand the purpose of paying up to $1100 (GIAC) to take a test to prove that I'm competent in a particular area. I've studied network security, penetration testing, ethical hacking, whatever other buzz words you want to use, for years. I've worked in various netsec roles for almost as long and can cleanly detail job roles, their functions and the types of things I have worked with.

I'm just annoyed with certification vendors pushing certs on companies and companies falling for it. Now to move in to a role that I want within the same organization that wants me in the position, I have to come out of pocket $1100 to take a certification test. Granted the company reimburses me when I pass exams, it's annoying and makes me question the whole process. People learn everyday and focusing on a test may force some to learn things they wouldn't have on their own, but it also limits the other things they could have learned.

The real issue IMO is with the companies that require these meaningless certs. I've seen/worked with too many complete idiots who could pass a test and still not know a thing about what they're doing and it means that as a productive employee I have to pick up the slack. If they would focus more on interviewing people and their knowledge instead of what paper they have, the competent workers in the world wouldn't have a thing to worry about.

BlackBeret

PC509 wrote: »

Anybody do it for the fun? Personal goals? Or is it all employment?

I've done a lot of studying for fun, I just don't pay for the certification paper that says "Hey, this guy learned the basics of xyz". That's the real reason certification studying annoys me, it's too focused and rarely allows me to spend time on what I want to spend time on.

BlackBeret

yzT wrote: »

Put yourself in the skin of someone involved in recruiting. You got two applications with similar profile, but only can interview one of them. Whom will you choose? The one who has certs or the one who doesn't have certs?

I'd hire the one that can list the experience I'm looking for in his/her resume and has the soft-skills that I'm looking for. There's always time to interview two people. I do see what you're saying, but this again comes back to companies focusing on paper rather than people.

BlackBeret

Edificer wrote: »

In my case, new projects come up all the time, and more frequent as time goes on (i.e. last week I have been asked to look for IP Phones for video conferencing that are compatible with CUCM version and set that up. I have been called in my boss room again to look into VSAT and learn that and deploy one very soon for IPsec VPN. I've also recently placed a $80,000 order on NGFWs that I needed to do some heavily research on) I need to be very flexible. I need to understand, and communicate technical when new things come up. If I stay the same and just do 'maintenance' things would get problematic. When you understand your position well enough to maintain it you need to explore, and discover new things.

Just going off the cert list under your name (I know no one keeps it updated) it looks like you do what I do. You get the certifications you need and then study to learn for everything else. You don't go chasing certifications in everything you touch, you learn it and do it. You keep learning, keep doing more, and keep it up. That's what I'm talking about. There's no need to chase paper all the time. I see too many people going "what cert should I get now, I work in help-desk for 2 months but I eventually want to be a CIO, should I get my x and x and y and z and n and b, or should I get b before n..."

Don't chase paper, chase experience and knowledge.

ITHokie

BlackBeret wrote: »

I'd hire the one that can list the experience I'm looking for in his/her resume and has the soft-skills that I'm looking for. There's always time to interview two people. I do see what you're saying, but this again comes back to companies focusing on paper rather than people.

I think you missed the point. Given two candidates that appear to have the same skills (soft and technical) and experience, which one would you choose to interview? It's a rhetorical question. All else being equal, HR is going to forward the credentialed candidate.

On the other hand, I agree that the system is broken, which leads to some perverse incentives.

BlackBeret

ITHokie wrote: »

I think you missed the point. Given two candidates that appear to have the same skills (soft and technical) and experience, which one would you choose to interview? It's a rhetorical question. All else being equal, HR is going to forward the credentialed candidate.

On the other hand, I agree that the system is broken, which leads to some perverse incentives.

I do understand, that's why I have to get them even though I despise it. I guess in the end I've gotten where I have because I've gone out of the way to do what's needed and check the block.

Those who mentioned the salary increase that sometimes comes with it make a valid point as well. I still say they're unnecessary but worth the investment in the end.

PC509

What about when you're the HR person filtering through the 2000 applicant submissions to make a list of potential candidates for the IT manager to interview? You get a list of requirements/recommendations, and you find those that fit the most of those. You want to try and get to the top of that list. Even if you're an expert in something, someone else might have less experience, but have those certs. That's what get's you past HR much of the time....

BlackBeret wrote: »

I'd hire the one that can list the experience I'm looking for in his/her resume and has the soft-skills that I'm looking for. There's always time to interview two people. I do see what you're saying, but this again comes back to companies focusing on paper rather than people.

twodogs62

Certs have helped me.
Helped me get current job and probably keep it.
also helped me make more $$$

Having the education and certs may help you and when not expected.
You never know if management change happens. The new boss might look at certs to see who has been stalling in a job it one trying to keep relevant. Might be tie breaker in promotion.

Always keep learning as you never know.
You may want to leave and find new job.

So, study and get certs that will layout a road map where you want to go.

Mooseboost

In my mind, they are the same idea as 2 and 4 year college degrees. They open doors for those without experience in the field. They give a potential employer something to go on, especially when fielding entry level positions. They demonstrate that you have at least some knowledge in the area and have the potential to be trained to be more specific. General knowledge gets you the job, proprietary in depth knowledge keeps the job.

Jon_Cisco

For myself I know I enjoy the learning. I am happy that IT makes it easy for me to find topics and read about them.

One of the things I find interesting is the concern over cost. I understand the money adds up over time but it should be minimal compared to income. I don't expected people who have advanced to the point of specializing take more then a couple certs per year. I don't have a problem spending a little money to keep up with my career.

In my experience time is the real killer. Do I want to read this or go spend time with my family.

Balantine

To be perfectly fair I don't think IT is a very good long-term career for me.

I did it, I was awesome at it, and now I want to do something that is actually useful to other people. For example, medicine.

JoJoCal19

To me certs are the key to the HR gates. They're they key to getting your resume through the filters, to hitting targeted searches by both internal and external recruiters. They can also get you the interview. After that they don't mean anything. It's all about proving what you know and selling yourself. So far they have served their purpose well and have done exactly that. They've gotten me the callbacks from HR, the emails and calls from recruiters, and have landed me the interviews, allowing me to make two job moves in 2014 for an increase in salary of 44.5%. That's why I focus on certifications.

Jon_Cisco wrote: »

In my experience time is the real killer. Do I want to read this or go spend time with my family.

That is the struggle for me. Over the past year, I've spent almost no time at home studying for certs. All of my studying is done at work. That's been a real barrier for me and has slowed things down considerably. But I'm at a point in my life where my want to keep learning is still there and actually higher than ever, but my drive to keep learning is waning. It's a struggle for sure.

dave330i

Balantine wrote: »

To be perfectly fair I don't think IT is a very good long-term career for me.

I did it, I was awesome at it, and now I want to do something that is actually useful to other people. For example, medicine.

Medicine won't go very far w/out IT.

NetworkNewb

dave330i wrote: »

Medicine won't go very far w/out IT.

Not to mention he could volunteer his IT skills to organizations to help out people. If doesn't understand how IT is useful to people though than he probably is wrong the career. Maybe he just wants a job that deals directly more with people all the time?

(not sure why he mentioned it in a thread about certifications, but then again I commented about it sooooooo yea

)

jibbajabba

dave330i wrote: »

Medicine won't go very far w/out IT.

Without medicine you may not have many people in IT left in a few years ..

I almost bought a local micro pub and ditched I.T. ... only reason I pulled out was the fact my son was born and I cannot afford working 12hrs / day

Edificer

BlackBeret wrote: »

Just going off the cert list under your name (I know no one keeps it updated) it looks like you do what I do. You get the certifications you need and then study to learn for everything else. You don't go chasing certifications in everything you touch, you learn it and do it. You keep learning, keep doing more, and keep it up. That's what I'm talking about. There's no need to chase paper all the time. I see too many people going "what cert should I get now, I work in help-desk for 2 months but I eventually want to be a CIO, should I get my x and x and y and z and n and b, or should I get b before n..."

Don't chase paper, chase experience and knowledge.

Now that I think about it chasing the experience and knowledge is like an endurance race. It is fatiguing at times, no complaints here, I think I have been studying recently like it's a job and need to make it more fun.

N2IT

Fun is a good thing. I agree keeping it light and entertaining is a key component to self studying.