Will ITIL Foundation increase likelihood of being hired in 2016?

metalone4

Is it even relevant any more? I'm almost ready to take the ITIL Foundation exam. I've put my CCNA studying on hold so that I can knock this ITIL cert out. In terms of value on a resume, is it even worth having? I'm currently not working, will it increase my chances of getting interviews? I've got tons of "ITIL like" experience, just no ITIL cert...yet.

Polynomial

It seems nice to have but utterly meaningless.

At least in my experience.

metalone4

Polynomial wrote: »

It seems nice to have but utterly meaningless.

At least in my experience.

That's a shame. Perhaps I'll save the $250 for another exam. On a related note, any opinions on what certs will increase chances of getting interviewed? I have over 10 years of experience, now I just need more certs.

kohr-ah

metalone4 wrote: »

That's a shame. Perhaps I'll save the $250 for another exam. On a related note, any opinions on what certs will increase chances of getting interviewed? I have over 10 years of experience, now I just need more certs.

10 years of experience doing what for experience?
What do you want to do or what would you like to end up doing?

metalone4

kohr-ah wrote: »

10 years of experience doing what for experience?
What do you want to do or what would you like to end up doing?

I was a Technical Analyst/admin of an automated pharmacy system. Production line environment, a mix of robotics/automation, and Windows domain support. I'd like an intermediate-high level support job in a similar vein. It doesn't have to be a production line, but that's where most of my experience lies.

Polynomial

The Microsoft site has more guidance than we could probably give since you're more familiar with yourself than we are:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-overview.aspx

ITIL Foundations is still probably worth taking because of how much a joke the actual test is though. However, then it goes down to experience / education / etc. that is most relevant to a job search.

metalone4

Polynomial wrote: »

The Microsoft site has more guidance than we could probably give since you're more familiar with yourself than we are:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-overview.aspx

ITIL Foundations is still probably worth taking because of how much a joke the actual test is though. However, then it goes down to experience / education / etc. that is most relevant to a job search.

Thanks for the link! Yeah, the ITIL seems like a breeze based on the studying I've been doing. I've got the concepts down, the only thing I've needed to go over is the specific terminology. Maybe I'll take it after all...as long as having the cert is worth $250.

techfiend

I came across a few positions, mainly manufacturing, that required ITIL when I was job hunting. I think it's worth having just in case, it really is a simple test as long as you can remember their terms.

scaredoftests

Nope, not in my opinion..

TheFORCE

If you want to improve IT processes take the ITIL. Theres a reason it has been going strong for so many years. It's simple yes, but it teaches and opens your eyes to common sense. Something that a lot of IT departments are missing these days.

metalone4

TheFORCE wrote: »

If you want to improve IT processes take the ITIL. Theres a reason it has been going strong for so many years. It's simple yes, but it teaches and opens your eyes to common sense. Something that a lot of IT departments are missing these days.

Regarding the common sense thing and many IT depts lacking it, I agree completely! Not to toot my own horn, but best practice and methodical/logical troubleshooting seemed to come more naturally to me than many of the colleagues I had the "pleasure" of working with. That, and bullheadedness seems to be contagious in the IT industry as well. To conclude my little rant here, I'd just like to add that technical knowledge is vital, but so is personality.

gncsmith

Here's a good visual for the ITIL I found while searching for ITIL videos; I found it interesting and helps put things in place.

[video=youtube_share;1sL36wodPHs]http://youtu.be/1sL36wodPHs[/video]

Dan-in-MD

ITIL Foundations is a terminology and basic concepts test. It's 60 minutes long and consists of 40 multiple choice questions. It's extremely easy and you could study for a couple hours (e.g., buy ITIL for Dummies) and pass it without difficulty. I took it in 2008 (passed) and again in 2010 (after joining a new organization, just for kicks--and passed). The purpose of ITIL foundations is to get people to speak correctly about service management terms and concepts. It's common that people that don't understand the difference between request fulfillment, incidents, and problems, etc. So I would not say that ITIL Foundations is meaningless, but it will probably have next to no impact on a hiring decision.

If you want to get an IT Service Management certification that might make a difference in a hiring decision, pursue ITIL Expert.

In 2011 I took the 5 intermediate exams followed by the capstone exam (managing across the lifecycle). Those are 8 questions per exam and you have 90 minutes. I took these exams one per week (which is rather aggressive) and I found them challenging. Once you pass the capstone, you're certified as an ITIL Expert. You really need to purchase the official ITIL 2011 Suite of Books, which will cost upwards of $400, and read them all.

UncleB

ITIL foundation is of use really only in the job markets where it is recognised - Europe does recognise it fairly widely and it will often be a pre-requisite to get an interview for a support position simply because it shows you understand the principles of "best practice" in relation to the work you do.

The US market is a bit more lax and don't really use the frameworks (ITIL or Prince2) and you would be better off working on technical qualifications to compete in this arena.

Unless you are planning to focus on IT Processes or Service Architecture then the ITIL Expert route is a difficult and expensive path, but it is worth if if those roles are what you are interested in.

The ITIL Expert cert has certainly opened a lot of doors for me in the UK, not least by giving me the vocabulary and context for many discussions with senior management when looking at how IT is going to align with business strategy and measure the return of value on investments made. Not everyones cup of tea I'm sure, but it does come with a very nice salary

thanks
Iain

si20

I failed the ITIL Foundation by 1 mark - and this post might sound like i'm bitter - i'm honestly not. I was forced to do the exam by my workplace for "compliance reasons". I absolutely detest things like ITIL in IT. Feel free to read my ITIL thread here. When i've gone to interview with large companies and even public sector, the general consensus is that ITIL's methodologies are crap and they couldn't care less if you had the cert or not. I had an option for a FREE retake - but I turned it down. That's how little I care for ITIL. I've had several job offers by companies who claim to use ITIL and even they didn't care if I had an ITIL cert. So to answer your question, save your money and put it towards a more worthwhile certification.

aspiringsoul

si20,

A few things...

First, Nice avatar!

Secondly, kudos on the OSCP.

Thirdly, thanks for the advice.

bpenn

I have seen many DoD jobs asking for "ITIL Foundations v3 preferred." This was for non-management jobs, too. I don't think its a bad thing to have as my company put me through training for it but I just haven't taken the exam yet.

dustervoice

I took ITIL about 5-6 years ago. I barely passed the damn thing. I'm not sure if that was related to my lack of interest or the test was difficult. When going through the training, my overall thoughts where " This Framework is just an excuse to hire more IT people". Ive switched jobs about 4 times since then and no one has ever inquired about my cert. Like someone says its better to have it rather than nothing but don't think this cert will land you a job!

Verities

I've seen a lot of senior level systems administration positions on Linkedin that require or prefer ITILv3 certification.

JoJoCal19

Agree with Verities, I've seen quite a few higher level positions asking for or requiring ITIL. Also where ITIL will be really valued is by international companies. It's a much bigger deal across the pond, but in companies I've worked for that are global, they've wanted us to at least take ITIL training. I know when I worked for Merrill Lynch doing second level desktop support, we were required to take the training.

Kinet1c

ITIL will help you if you want to work in large corporations. For smaller corporations it's too much of a time sink to implement and follow. Find out what sort of company you want to work for. Even if it's not the larger corporation, the knowledge can be helpful.

wd40

I took an ITIL Sample exam two minutes ago. I failed, got 23/40 (Passing score is 26).

Working in a global organization we use ITIL, it feels like we are wasting lots of time in CAB meetings, SLAs, OLAs incidents, problems, CRs etc.

But the system works in an excellent way for this type of organizations, for smaller companies most of it will be a useless waste of time.

I am planning to take the foundation exam this year, it is really expensive, but if it helps you by 1% in getting an interview I think it is worth the high cost.

ccnpninja

Polynomial wrote: »

It seems nice to have but utterly meaningless.

At least in my experience.

I used to think "what the H*** is Management doing in the company?". After ITIL, I have a good idea about what's going on up there.

Tom789

I would say yes. It will definitely not lessen your chances. Also, it might help to tick some box in some recruiters book and make you more marketable. ITIL is a big thing in the multinational companies.

UncleB

wd40 wrote: »

Working in a global organization we use ITIL, it feels like we are wasting lots of time in CAB meetings, SLAs, OLAs incidents, problems, CRs etc.

ITIL, if implemented effectively, will reduce a lot of the risk from engineers that don't know as much as they should, don't understand the implications of services being down or are just plain sloppy and want to push something through to get finished and go home.

Downtime = cost and reputation damage. Engineers normally don't understand or care about this as they don't have to answer for it - the IT managers do - so you can see why management of larger companies where the effects of a poorly executed change or engineer cock-up will be significant are keen to use a well established and easily trained framework to lower risk and keep cowboys in check.

Yes it's tedious and bureaucratic, but it works. Where it falls down is when it is not followed by the cowboys or the untrained.

The cost/benefit is not really worth it for small companies, but once you grow beyond a few hundred staff then it is worth it in my opinion.

Out of interest, what sort of framework for best practice is used in the USA for incident, problem and change management?

thanks
Iain

ThePawofRizzo

My employer offered free ITIL training one week and I took Foundations shortly after. I found the information helpful, and it can be useful albeit no company I've seen seems too interested in dedicating and hiring enough manpower to document and do much in the framework. For me it was some good resume padding to get a free cert, that was helpful to some degree in terms of knowledge. And you should be able to knock out Foundations pretty quick.

From what I've seen I could see the higher level IT certs being useful for those in management to think about processes, or for PM.

metalone4

Thanks all, I think I'll schedule the test and take it next week. I've already invested 3 weeks study time, so I might as well. My past job of 10+ years utilized ITIL heavily, although I didn't know it at the time. If having the cert helps bump my resume up the pile even a little bit, I think it's $250 well spent.

volfkhat

i took it last year.
it was $205; at a proctored site.
But for only $170; i could install their crapware on my laptop, and take the exam from home.

Where are you paying $250??

beads

I have talked to lots of folks who claim then readily admit they aren't really using ITIL in practice. Nice for lip service but hardly ever used in practice.

Passed the foundations exam in little more than 12 minutes.

I was bored.

- b/eads

TheFORCE

I think with your experience Beads, people are expecting you to pass OSCP in 12 minutes never mind ITIL.

beads

Redz is the all time master of 10 minute or less exam strategy.

- b/eads