no respect for certs

_maurice

No one at my work respects certifications. wtf. Anybody else get that feeling at their work?

Here's a story. Someone at work was trying to figure out why he couldn't apply a multicast address as a source ip addres on a stateful firewall access rule. He was tryin for a really long time. I here him askin other people about it and I say, that it is because a multicast address is always a destination address. He argues that a multicast address is in both the source and destination in the ip header. I'm like, think about it, whats that gonna do, how is that logical. I ran a packet capture while pinging 224.0.0.1, and was like see! I also run a 'show ip mroute' on a cisco. He says well, I never needed to know this, I don't have any certs. I said, IT SHOWS!

Mrock4

Not at all. My co-workers all attained their Security+ in the last month..they had group study sessions and junk. Pretty cool I think. Everyone I know in IT who's serious about their job appreciates the knowledge and work put into certs..not to mention the monetary benefits..

blargoe

My boss valued them until his boss told him to stop valuing them. Coworkers don't think much of them either. There's a reason why my career is accelerating faster than theirs.

undomiel

At my new job my MCSE was mentioned a fair number of times during the interview. I think it was that more than anything else that qualified me for a senior level position. I haven't heard any mention of them around the work place though and only one person has their cert framed in their cubicle. That's the desktop support guy with his A+ cert.

JDMurray

Prior to my current place of employment, hardly anyone I worked with/for knew what IT certs were let alone valued them. It really takes a work culture that values training employees before you'll see achieving certs as being respected and encouraged. And it only takes one big boss who was unable to pass a cert exam multiple times to kill anyone else in the company from valuing certs.

loxleynew

After 5 months I got my MCDST cert (first cert) and my boss of then asked me how I got a new job that paid more than him. I said it was because of the cert. I wonder if he ever went on to get some certs.

Slowhand

I've had mixed responses about certifications, especially lately from potential employers. The companies I've worked for, however, have usually fallen somewhere in the middle on their opinions on certs. The data center I worked with didn't emphasize getting certifications in order to advance, but recognized the value of certifications that had been earned. While you could simply learn about the routers and switches we used, and work with them that way, the management also took into account if you were Cisco or Microsoft certified when assigning new duties. Another company used certs as markers for progress in your learning, but didn't really give you the time you needed to study, (while still marking you down on your reviews if you didn't take a test that quarter,) but they didn't focus so heavily on having certs, so much as showing that you had knowledge. If you had your MCSE, then you were assumed to be a properly trained Windows administrator and were assigned difficult tasks, if you could show your experience some other way or by working your way up from simpler things to more complex challenges, it had the same effect.

So far, I haven't come across a single employer (that I've actually worked for) looked down on certs or discouraged earning them. And I've definitely never worked for a company that promoted **** or other cheating to become certified. The latter company did turn a blind eye to people using ****, but that type of cheating generally happened outside of working hours on people's own time, and the management couldn't "prove" that **** were being used, unfortunately.

gojericho0

It really all depends on the company and co-workers. Personally I know that I have learned\gained experience in of world of stuff that I would never have known about if it wasn't for certifications.

I also have run into stuff that I only had prior experience with while studying. Just the fact that I studied a technology before helps accelerate the learning curve as opposed to working with it for the first time in a production enviroment

srcurrie

I have run into a couple of opinions. When I got my first cert (A+) I was one of the only people with any cert at all. Many times I heard "you were the only interview with any certifications". I have been working with computers for many years starting back in 1982 but only became certified in 1998.
I was also told once while studying for a new cert that none of my studying will matter because certs are only for getting a job!!
I was also told that people with certs do not know anything. Keep in mind that they were thinking of NT4 days when Microsoft was handing out MCSE's left and right and the "engineers" could not solve easy routing problems or DNS issues etc. In fact because of this attitude and the discovery of Novell Netware I became a CNA as my second cert.
CNA got me a better job. It DID make a difference. Any reluctance on the part of people could quickly be dispelled when I could show them what I knew.
I began working in a much bigger Novell shop. This network was relatively new. several humdreds PCs and printers, etc. Anything on the internet dialed out via Modem. Even the servers dialed each other to deliver mail! They had new network wiring and a public class c range. Not enough IPs for all PCs so they assigned them to important people and staticed them. The original people knew nothing of DNS, DHCP, NAT etc. When I first started working there I was not listened too when the person who outranked me said "we are not ready to give Internet access to everyone". I said you have everything you need already. I was overruled. After a couple of weeks I decided I would give a demo and brought in my own personal Netware 5.1 server. I sat it up witha public IP and a private IP and enabled routing between the NICsand set up DNS, NAT and DHCP. Then a call came in and I ran across the hall to fix a classroom's printer. After a few minutes my boss came bursting through the door. She told me that an entire lab was on the Internet and that lab had no public IPs set. I explained to her that we never needed any more than 1 IP to put the whole network on the Internet.
Needless to say I was certified and the rest were not. Oh, I honestly meant to just demo my server to my boss. Not just willy-nilly put the whole network on the Internet.
Lately I have been getting several certs and that has led to another job change and a big raise.
They do matter.

Jharl

Stories like these remind me why after studying till my eyes cross and my head feels like it will explode that i get back up and do it again.

GT-Rob

As ironic as it sounds I probably value certs the least at my work.

Only because of the 50 CCNAs or so, I would say about 3 or 4 got them without braindumps. And it shows.

Daniel333

Very true about the brain ****. We got a few of those.

Inc

GT-Rob wrote:

Only because of the 50 CCNAs or so, I would say about 3 or 4 got them without braindumps. And it shows.

+1 to this observation

UnixGuy

GT-Rob wrote:

As ironic as it sounds I probably value certs the least at my work.

Only because of the 50 CCNAs or so, I would say about 3 or 4 got them without braindumps. And it shows.

+1

unfortunately

nel

_maurice wrote:

No one at my work respects certifications. wtf. Anybody else get that feeling at their work?

Here's a story. Someone at work was trying to figure out why he couldn't apply a multicast address as a source ip addres on a stateful firewall access rule. He was tryin for a really long time. I here him askin other people about it and I say, that it is because a multicast address is always a destination address. He argues that a multicast address is in both the source and destination in the ip header. I'm like, think about it, whats that gonna do, how is that logical. I ran a packet capture while pinging 224.0.0.1, and was like see! I also run a 'show ip mroute' on a cisco. He says well, I never needed to know this, I don't have any certs. I said, IT SHOWS!

SO no one respects a CCIE or MCA or other vendors highest qualifications? That will probably be because they cant achieve them.

My work doesnt really look upon certs highly but if you want a position of responsibility then you have to learn the material for that role - and how do you get that? mainly through certs and other materials. So its kind of a catch 22 situation. Besides most of these people dont realise that the certs are actually the platforms they all run!!!

Anyway, any high level technical job will definately take note of your certs.

Get your certs, keep getting more qualified! It will be you who walks out the door into a better career.

HeroPsycho

Where I work, they only value certs well enough to increase partner status with vendors. Consequently, they nonchalantly will use and pass around ****, and were utterly baffled when they offered me one, and I got offended. Every so often, a higher up will send an email out congratulating someone for achieving some cert, and unfortunately I have to wonder if it was achieved honestly.

stupidboy

Where I work there is little appreciation of what is involved in obtaining a certificate legitimately. I have been set the modest task of, MCITP:EA, VCP, Hyper-V along with a couple I have already obtained (lucky for me otherwise it would be 10 exams) in a short time frame (~6 months).

Those setting these objectives have no idea what is required or they them selves have used **** type material in the past to pass other certifications.

I know that there are others in the organisation that are using the actual exams as a 'practise arena' to enable them to progress (financially and up the org chart). This then devalues the certificate internally, as others are passing, meaning objectives are getting harder and harder to achieve (leaving the honest out of pocket).

OK for those that have seen some of my other posts, this is another reason why dumpers P*** me off

Working for a VAR the certificates really help with partner standings and those further up see nothing more than little ticks in boxes (none of the hard work involved).

empc4000xl

I work for a partner and pretty much everybody is certified. I dont' know how much of them got the, but I was looked at as a dumper for a while, because I could'nt load a IOS or do any real switching. All my previous jobs were very router heavy oriented. We have had a few times where we had to troubleshoot BGP, and EIGRP and they were clueless, then I was asking them the same thing .

On to more about certs, most employeers know that you are more marketable with certs. At my last job we had a guy who just passed his written and they offered him more money to stay for a certain amount of time before he even got to his lab. They knew that even in this economy somebody would be willing to pay him more that what he was getting.

I just feel employeers don't want to loose good people and they try to keep you there through tactics like saying certs are not important. Even if they dont' want to pay for study materials or the test think of it as a investment in yourself. Or if they have college assistance, find a program that includues books and the test. There are ways to get certified even at a company who doesnt' value it.

Kasor

Show them that you earn your certification and no just something that can be done easy. However, the standard of cerfication had been abused for many years. Therefore, ... my boss is big certification guy, too.

Certification is a way to enhance your skill. In long term, people will understand.

gorebrush

My company respects my certifications.

Boss said on Friday that I'm now his key 3rd line support guy (as opposed to having time with outsourced contractors), as the guy previous to me couldn't do ANY 3rd line work...

Since I've come in, i've done all 3rd line level stuff, and saved the company a TON of cash.

However, it's not all been thanks to Certs. I am a very fast learner, and using the "soft" skills that I have built up over the years - the critical thing is that I know, I don't know it all... So when it comes to learning new things, or tackling a problem that I have never come across before - I wont bullshit and pretend... I will take my time and research it... so far I've been very successful with my methodologies and approach. Very methodical, and very much research based (if it is something totally new)

Before I joined them, I knew nothing about Cisco... Now i'm a CCNA, heading for CCNP, and I basically run the CallManager implementation. Think I saved them around £5K directly so far...

goforthbmerry

My boss seems to understand and value certs but the majority of my coworkers definately do not. They keep saying "what you know is more important than some test that covers things you will never use in your job". I think they are right to a point. Often those others bits of information covered in the cert are the bits of information that solves the unusual situation that will occur.

My coworkers also have all held the same positions for a number of years. I do not plan on staying in the same position. I feel that if they want to stay in the same position for the long haul, they are welcome too. I will take my certs and keep advancing my career.

blargoe

Four admins over the systems, network, and storage at my company. This week the two who didn't give a crap about certs and didn't care about growing their skills were the ones who were excused from their position when it came time to cut our headcount.

Turgon

srcurrie wrote:

I have run into a couple of opinions. When I got my first cert (A+) I was one of the only people with any cert at all. Many times I heard "you were the only interview with any certifications". I have been working with computers for many years starting back in 1982 but only became certified in 1998.
I was also told once while studying for a new cert that none of my studying will matter because certs are only for getting a job!!
I was also told that people with certs do not know anything. Keep in mind that they were thinking of NT4 days when Microsoft was handing out MCSE's left and right and the "engineers" could not solve easy routing problems or DNS issues etc. In fact because of this attitude and the discovery of Novell Netware I became a CNA as my second cert.
CNA got me a better job. It DID make a difference. Any reluctance on the part of people could quickly be dispelled when I could show them what I knew.
I began working in a much bigger Novell shop. This network was relatively new. several humdreds PCs and printers, etc. Anything on the internet dialed out via Modem. Even the servers dialed each other to deliver mail! They had new network wiring and a public class c range. Not enough IPs for all PCs so they assigned them to important people and staticed them. The original people knew nothing of DNS, DHCP, NAT etc. When I first started working there I was not listened too when the person who outranked me said "we are not ready to give Internet access to everyone". I said you have everything you need already. I was overruled. After a couple of weeks I decided I would give a demo and brought in my own personal Netware 5.1 server. I sat it up witha public IP and a private IP and enabled routing between the NICsand set up DNS, NAT and DHCP. Then a call came in and I ran across the hall to fix a classroom's printer. After a few minutes my boss came bursting through the door. She told me that an entire lab was on the Internet and that lab had no public IPs set. I explained to her that we never needed any more than 1 IP to put the whole network on the Internet.
Needless to say I was certified and the rest were not. Oh, I honestly meant to just demo my server to my boss. Not just willy-nilly put the whole network on the Internet.
Lately I have been getting several certs and that has led to another job change and a big raise.
They do matter.

I think the MCSE in NT4 gets a bum rap quite honestly. I learned a great deal about NT during my process to become an MCSE. The syllabus had it's faults but you stood to learn a great deal of useful stuff if you went about the track properly. I spent about 9 months doing mine, during which time I put a lot of the learning into context in the NT environment that was evolving around me at work. The problem was the candidates. Far too many were blitzing through the track by any means, and there were too many people without any meaningful experience taking it out in short order. **** were a serious problem and freely available on the web and candidates sailing through the whole track in six weeks or less not uncommon. But for the serious candidate who went about it patiently and really studied throughly it was worthwhile.

There was a lot of money about before the millenium and a lot of budget for upgrades. One serious problem was the post 'Paper CNE' situation. The precident of cramming and shortcircuiting study tracks was already set from 1995 onwards there and it escalated into MCSE NT4 when it was clear that this would be the next upgrade choice for so many companies. So the growing hoard followed suit. The other problem was that there were not enough 'real' MCSE's to go around vs the sheer volume of NT4.0 work that was going on that needed people that knew at least something about it but usually not enough.

For those of us already in IT at the time, we were already busy enough supporting what we had i.e Netware 3.12, Workgroups and Dos clients, desktop upgrades to Win95, replacing token ring with ethernet, and keeping bespoke applications running and AS400 access and printing provisioned. Here were the experienced people but faced with a choice... Cram the MCSE or spend ages doing it on your own time. There just wasn't time back then to study on works time. Some, like myself went the long route, but many others blitzed the track to try and catch the wave.

Demand outstripped supply for a while but soon we had a glut of MCSEs and a small army of non IT Professionals getting certified very quickly.

The MCSE in NT 4.0 could help you build out the environment but it was shy on essential administration details, often providing just pointers to admin tools without covering many situations where they should be and how they should be used. Logon scripts were not covered particularly well or printing for that matter. I found the CNA much better in that respect. The CNE was also stronger in networking technologies, design, and hardware through the service and support exam.

On internet, even the MCSE + I didn't live up to the billing and left the holder still shy on vital DNS and NAT essentials to name but a few. The elective in TCP/IP was one of the most important exams on the NT track but far too many MCSE's in NT4 skipped it.

A combination of both MCSE and Novell certification certainly helped me.

skeet2331

My situation is a little different. Since I work at a University there is not much to worry about cut backs. However, the only reason I have my job is because I had to have a CCNA to apply. My boss appreciates it b/c I am the only one in our area with it. He also understands that I am not going to stop there and probably move on to another location in a couple years.

tdempsey

I got a new, higher paying gig within a month of getting my S+ cert.
It definitely got me in the door for the interview. Then during the interview,
my future boss had to refer to his email for something and complained about their spam problem. I asked to look at their spam filter (GWAVA/Novell) and found that they weren't using the built in SURBL functionality which I had a great deal of very positive experience with. I told him he should turn it on immediatly. The next day, he called and said that the spam had slowed to a trickle and that I was hired. That was 3 years ago. I just took CISSP on November 9th is Chicago and am waiting for the results currently.