Cert articles

Hey peeps check out these Cert articles and let me know what you think abou this crap.

http://www.informit.com/topics/topic.aspx?st=61444

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Comments

Slowhand

A lot of what he talks about is true, a lot of it is misguided, and some of it is downright uniformed. I think the major issue I see with these articles is that Mr. Wyrostek here is using his own personal experiences in IT and writing them off as absolutes for everyone going into the fields. He openly admits he doesn't know too much about programming, and therefore doesn't offer too much on the subject. He seems to only know about a few certifications here and there, and doesn't offer a comprehensive list of certs with pros/cons about each, let alone having alternatives to popular certs in various areas, (like Cisco certs vs. Juniper certs, MCSE vs. RHCE/LPIC, Sun vs. Red Hat, defining that there are different levels of Cisco certs, etc).

The opinions seem a little limited, and the tone of the articles are "This is the way it is", as opposed to "In my experience, I've found that. . ." Take it with a grain of salt, and hope that uninitiated IT workers do the same.

dynamik

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1180991

I don't think standardization between Cisco, MS, Redhat, CompTIA (I like how this is included in the vendor-centric section) exams is realistic. They don't need to relate to each other as much as they need to be representative of their technology. As long as people know what level of competence they represent, it doesn't matter if they relate to one another.
Boohoo. Didn't we get into IT because things change quickly?
This is common knowledge. That's why you need to do MS, Cisco, etc. As far as certifications not being real-world oriented, that was really not the direction I was expecting to see him go. You can make an argument that an MS test might not prepare you perfectly for MS responsibilities, but he's saying that just having an MS certification won't prepare you for working with Linux, Cisco, etc.? This is obvious.
Kind of true, but a technical interview will quickly identify people who don't know the material.
So? He doesn't even bother to explain why this matters.
We've already perfected this: http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=188490#188490
I guess that means we should just not bother learning and obtaining certifications? Maybe HR people should have to get a certification for understanding IT certifications. It sounds like there is a lack of certifications to me.
There is a middle ground between multi-thousand dollar training sessions and a book and CBT Nuggets. I don't think I have to resort to **** because I won't be provided with expensive training options. This one was just ludicrous.
Yes. You have to do other things besides just having a certification to differentiate yourself. This guy sounds like he was spoiled from being one of the only people to have an NT 3.51 cert, and now he doesn't know what to do.
Isn't this basically the same as #7? Or is he referring to IT personnel. No one knows which certs have value today? Really? No one knows how many certs you need? I don't know. Maybe it varies depending on the position and what you want to do.

CCNA has only a three-year life cycle, which I find problematic

For someone who is really concerned about the value of certifications, he doesn't seem to get that they lose value if they don't keep current.

I skimmed the other ones. His getting started one seemed to be decent, but his program one was a bit off. I think this whole thing was just him trying to pimp his program.

If you don't want to waste a bunch of time like me, this quote pretty much sums it all up:

My final thought concerning IT certifications and those wanting to take their first steps is this: The only thing that does not change is change. The certifications that get you in the door today will be the assumed fundamentals in five years. The wheel keeps turning, and those who survive IT will keep changing with it.