A friend of mine, Tony, thought he had all it took to land his dream job. A degree in compuer science, CCNA, MCSE, A+, Network+, Security+, some Unix training, a good attitude and personality, some experience in technical support fixing everything from loss of connectivity because of network cable being unplugged to manually installing Win2K3 server and building servers.
Few days ago I bumped into him and he vented about IT and he said if were to do it all over again, he would never shop for an IT career again. He said all his training and certifications mean 'logos and paper' to employers. He complained that most employers did NOT consider his experience with equipment and technologies he worked with while getting trained and certified as experience. He's now working in a call center showing peple how to delete cookies and temp IE files and how to setup an email. I know him and he's very well-spoken person, so it's NOT lack of interview skills that he can't get a job.
His words really affected my perception of IT, not that I'm just easily influenced, but just that this is not the first person who has rigouresly complained about IT. So, if most employers do not value certificatoins and training, why just not go and work in a practice firm to get some expereince? I've come into contact with so many senior network admins who have had literally no training/certification in IT, some got there when IT was in demand, so some employres hired about anybody.
What's the value of cerifications/training, if they don't assist you get a job? If it's not expereince, then why the vendors certifity you? I now strongly suspect that cerifications are primarily there to generate profits for vendors than to provide value (expereince & security) to those who seek them. Most vendors such as Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA and others claim that their certifications make you 'in high demand' while quite the contrary is true. It's true few do get jobs eventually, but that's not primarlily because of certifactions as most employers see them as mere 'logos and papers'.
You don't have experience and training/certifications don't count. What's the third option? There must be a viable alternative that would take you to a career within a reasonable timeframe. Of course you can try decades and get burnt out to go through 'certifications' path, but hey, we were born to live not to get 'certified'
