Who has the most active IT Certifications?

Over the last ten years I've racked up loads of IT certifications. Some I pursued purposely, some my employer required, some came with my degree, and the rest were because I got free vouchers (so why not?)

I think it would be cool to set a Guinness World Record. But I'm curious if anyone knows anyone with a ridiculous number of active IT certifications and what that number is? I'm sure there must be several people who have more than I do. It would give me a good sense of how much work I'd need to do to surpass them.

Thanks!

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dhay13

I don't have that many (maybe 6 or 7) but a co-worker of mine probably has about 20-25, including CISSP, MCSA, CCSP, and a whole bunch of others. In fact it was because of him that I even did the Sec+ and CISSP. He also directed me to this site but not sure he posts on here.

Essendon

I believe TE member, Claymoore, has 42. I have about 20-25 or so.

Honestly nothing to brag about. It's the value certs bring to you and your employer, not the count. Certs should be seen as a way of increasing value to the marketplace.

PC509

"Certs should be seen as a way of increasing value to the marketplace."

I've taken some certs just as a personal goal with no interest in the employment value.

I don't have a lot. Maybe 20-25 or so. Some aren't relevant at all to my job, other are. Of course, that includes the A+ from the late 90s. Does it matter? Not really. It validates what I know and have experience with. It was a great goal, though. Work my butt off, study a ton, learn the material. Get that simple piece of paper and it means a lot more to me than it does someone else.

JoJoCal19

PC509 wrote: »

I don't have a lot. Maybe 20-25 or so.

LOL

Sorry that had me rolling.

dontstop

Number of Certs vs. current Salary would be the more interesting metric.

rob1234

micchickenburger wrote: »

Over the last ten years I've racked up loads of IT certifications. Some I pursued purposely, some my employer required, some came with my degree, and the rest were because I got free vouchers (so why not?)

I think it would be cool to set a Guinness World Record. But I'm curious if anyone knows anyone with a ridiculous number of active IT certifications and what that number is? I'm sure there must be several people who have more than I do. It would give me a good sense of how much work I'd need to do to surpass them.

Thanks!

You have not said how many you have?

TheFORCE

There was a thread maybe a year or so back about a guy, he had his own website too, listing all his certs, if my memory serves me right, he had like 50 or 60. I believe they were still active, the guy was a trainer also and with a massive lab at his house. The thread is somewhere here lol if i find it i will post the link. Maybe some of the CISCO CCIE's here might know for whom i'm talking about.

trojin

We should count here Ken Salchow
Ken is a legend in the certification industry. More than 160 certification exams in his career

Micheal Alex

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roninkai

I recall seeing the post of the guy with 100+ certs. Crazy! But if you have the time and the lab, the sky is the limit.
I've mapped out to my stopping point on certs, which I think is around 30. I'd like to get a major cert in each area of IT to be
pretty well rounded for most roles. I need more focus on networking, linux, but right now Im still on the Microsoft track.

It gets to a point though, where you can't really list them on a resume or email sig without being ridiculous. But I think most
people in this forum are pretty ambitious, so its really not about the certs, but more about the challenge and the learning.

OctalDump

trojin wrote: »

We should count here Ken Salchow
Ken is a legend in the certification industry. More than 160 certification exams in his career

That... that seems achievable. According to my most recent count I have passed 37 exams, and more than 30 active certs - although many are lifetime, and are for things that aren't particularly relevant anymore. Some are very low value, some are superseded by higher level certs, and quite a few are "entry level" for their respective fields. Some certs take more than one exam, some exams give more than one cert. The only certs I've let lapse were Sec+ and Net+, although I did Sec+ again.

If you compare that to someone like claymore... yeah, not quite the same league. He has the two Pro AWS certs, 3 MCSEs, MCITP:EA (the 2008 MCSE equivalent) and a bunch of other MCITPs and MCSAs. Of course, he has about 10 years on me

Maybe I'll catch up.

My guess is that there's quite a few people here that would have a lot if they included everything, and not just the ones they actually use.

mbarrett

trojin wrote: »

We should count here Ken Salchow
Ken is a legend in the certification industry. More than 160 certification exams in his career

The real question is, which ones does he not have? For someone with that many, it becomes an obsession. So there must be some time or difficulty constraints that would prevent the rest.

hurricane1091

I think I have like twelve and most are a waste and these days I'm more concerned with quality over quantity. Some of them I only got for WGU (Linux+ Project+) and they are useless to me. CCDA did nothing for me but CCDP might. CCNA security taught useless CCP, regretful except it transferred into WGU.

Getting high hanging certs in your field and maybe some low level certs in related field(s) should really only be the ones you go after. Maybe a couple others in different areas if you think it will help become a CTO or something

gespenstern

Quantity doesn't mean much, quality means as big certs (CISSP or likes) easily beat a number of small ones (CompTIA or CIW stuff).

The most accomplished guy on this board I've ever seen is dijital1. CISSP with all concentrations, some other (ISC)2 ones, OSCP+OSCE. That's a lot of work, a lot!

Sirkassad

dontstop wrote: »

Number of Certs vs. current Salary would be the more interesting metric.

I'm sure there is some I.T tech out there that doesn't have a single cert and makes six figures. Could be someone who is in there 60's who got into it when there weren't certs and never bothered to get them and did good work

TheFORCE

Sirkassad wrote: »

I'm sure there is some I.T tech out there that doesn't have a single cert and makes six figures. Could be someone who is in there 60's who got into it when there weren't certs and never bothered to get them and did good work

There are plenty of people like that not just some, most of them are Unix experts from years of experience without any certs having learned most of their skills on the job.

Iristheangel

It'd be a tie between Scott Morris and Darby Weaver but Scott Morris would win by default because he has expert-level certs.

Resume of the Uber-Geek

I know Scott is a long time member of the forum but not a frequent poster. HAI SCOTT!

TheFORCE

Yep that was the one, Iris to the rescue.
Here is his lab site also Lab Overview

Last updated 2006, I was just starting then lol

mbarrett

TheFORCE wrote: »

Here is his lab site also Lab Overview

Probably getting off-topic, but it would be interesting to see how much of that formidable hardware display can be eliminated by a few beefy servers running VMWare. A lot of stuff will run as an OVA nowadays, especially in a lab environment. Not to mention the physical cooling & power constraints are considerably less.

JasminLandry

There's also Neil Moore who has quite a few certs including RHCA, CCDE, 8x CCIE, VCAP, VCIE, CISSP & JNCIP-ENT
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ccie10044/

psheehan5

@Iris WOW! All hail the Uber-Geek!

shochan

micchickenburger wrote: »

Over the last ten years I've racked up loads of IT certifications. Some I pursued purposely, some my employer required, some came with my degree, and the rest were because I got free vouchers (so why not?)

I think it would be cool to set a Guinness World Record. But I'm curious if anyone knows anyone with a ridiculous number of active IT certifications and what that number is? I'm sure there must be several people who have more than I do. It would give me a good sense of how much work I'd need to do to surpass them.

Thanks!

Thanks for posting this...I wanted to query everyone on how many certs you all had, but you beat me to it.

Cheers & HI5!

SteveLavoie

Iristheangel wrote: »

It'd be a tie between Scott Morris and Darby Weaver but Scott Morris would win by default because he has expert-level certs.

Resume of the Uber-Geek

I know Scott is a long time member of the forum but not a frequent poster. HAI SCOTT!

That guy should be ok to install a Linksys router

Incredible!

OctalDump

Iristheangel wrote: »

It'd be a tie between Scott Morris and Darby Weaver but Scott Morris would win by default because he has expert-level certs.

Resume of the Uber-Geek

I know Scott is a long time member of the forum but not a frequent poster. HAI SCOTT!

Pfft... That's cheating. They're all networking certs. Plus I don't see A+/Net+/Sec+ on there anywhere! Who's going to hire them without the basics?

SteveLavoie

OctalDump wrote: »

Pfft... That's cheating. They're all networking certs. Plus I don't see A+/Net+/Sec+ on there anywhere! Who's going to hire them without the basics?

He will be filtered out by the HR depart, he is under qualified lol...

TheFORCE

If I had those certifications, I would close down LinkedIn, Indeed and any other job site.

Or I would try to joke around with the new recruiters lol.
I have CCIE x4 but i don't have sec+ you think the manager would interview me?

mbarrett

OctalDump wrote: »

I don't see A+/Net+/Sec+ on there anywhere! Who's going to hire them without the basics?

I know, right? The HR computers will filter him out...

NetworkingStudent

With that many certs, how do you have time for anything else?

SteveLavoie

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

With that many certs, how do you have time for anything else?

As everything in life, it is matter of priority and time management. Also I didnt look at his resume(more than his cert list), but sometime if you work for a Cisco partner, his boss can give him much approval in $ and time to get cert to comply with some Partner program requirement.

I will have to get my Server+ soon because of that kind fo requirement. Also my boss sent me to the vSphere Design workshop class because it was the requirement for Enterprise Partner program.. etc...

But it is a crazy number of certs...

thomas_

SteveLavoie wrote: »

He will be filtered out by the HR depart, he is under qualified lol...

Totally, he doesn't even have 5 years experience with the technologies that were just released in 2016. What company in their right mind would hire someone without that experience when there are plenty of H1B's that do have it...