What's the vaule of a certification without having the experience in the feild?

NetworkingStudent

So I was wondering how valuable certifications are?
If you don't have the feild or career experience, that they suggest you have, can they still look good on your resume? For example NETWORK+ suggests you have a year experience before takingthe exam. If you take the exam and pass, but don't have the experience in networking, does that still look good on your resume? I 'm just wonderng what's the vaule of a certification , without having feild or career experience? For example a student in college getting certified

aordal

I would say yes they look good, but only up to a point. By that I mean certain certifications look good with little experience (Network +, A+ a few M$ certs) because you have to learn the material to pass the tests.

However, if you somehow get a really advanced certification and have zero real life experience it might look fishy. So, don't let not having experience deter you from getting some startup certs.

Miikey87

I guess it also shows some level of dedication. That you are willing to put the time and money into studying something as well. But yes experience is the other half of it too.

msethk

I got my CCNA after finishing the Cisco Networking Academy. I didn't have any work experience besides a 5 month internship. Having my B.S. degree and a CCNA helped me beat 8 other people and get the job. Half of those people had experience. I also had several other certifications at that time. So yes, it does matter to have those certs even without experience, but don't apply for a "Network Administrator" position with no experience. You're probably not gonna get the job. Almost everyone has to work there way up. There are also other factors that fall into the equation such as knowing the right people and having the right references.

LBC90805

Very good point there you have.

Why would you go on to the CCNP after passing the CCNA without having "Real Experiance" working with Cisco equipment.

Soon I will be full CCNA, but I won't even think about starting the CCNP track until I get some experiance under my belt. The hard part about after getting the CCNA is what I'm going to do next?

brad-

Experience is king. Being able to say you've done something for X amount of time for X amount of users or networks holds more water than a 19 year old that just got their Net+ or CCENT. It does.

I would also add that experience tends to go hand in hand with some certs. Once you're experieced and stable, you can decide for yourself how important the next cert is. The question is, how many certs do you need to be stable? Its alot easier to just learn new material to perform a job than it is to regurgitate it for a test. Once you've mastered something, the relevancy of its related cert is probably proportional to your job volitility.

Flame on.

UnixGuy

brad- wrote: »

experience is king. Being able to say you've done something for x amount of time for x amount of users or networks holds more water than a 19 year old that just got their net+ or ccent. It does.

I would also add that experience tends to go hand in hand with some certs. Once you're experieced and stable, you can decide for yourself how important the next cert is. The question is, how many certs do you need to be stable? Its alot easier to just learn new material to perform a job than it is to regurgitate it for a test. Once you've mastered something, the relevancy of its related cert is probably proportional to your job volitility.

Flame on.

.....

+1

meadIT

brad- wrote: »

Flame on.

I don't think there's much to flame about your post. If you're in a nice, stable, well-paying job, you have less incentive to earn certs. However, if you're in a not so nice job, and are interested in improving your employment status, be it money or getting better experience, then that gives you the extra motivation to get certs. These will give you a leg up on the competition for that dream job.

Turgon

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

So I was wondering how valuable certifications are?
If you don't have the feild or career experience, that they suggest you have, can they still look good on your resume? For example NETWORK+ suggests you have a year experience before takingthe exam. If you take the exam and pass, but don't have the experience in networking, does that still look good on your resume? I 'm just wonderng what's the vaule of a certification , without having feild or career experience? For example a student in college getting certified

You can't get certified in experience I'm afraid and that's certainly what most employers are looking for in candidates. Not many certificates have experience as a pre-requisite so not having any shouldn't prevent you from trying to obtain most of them. The problem happens when people accumulate lots of certificates and try to pass themselves off as being supreme in the discipline accorded to the certification track. The worlds of certification and work do not always align very well. It really depends on what deliverables the world of work tasks you with.

I do remain a certification fan though for people with or without experience. For those with experience a certification track provides structure to expand ones knowledge about what is possible with a technology and an opportunity to provide context to what one is using in the field. This is very difficult without certification as practitioners are usually locked into the specific application of the technologies they have to support. So certification can provide a path to much deeper understanding there.

For those without experience, certification provides awareness on capabilities and what might be possible. The downside is that without experience one is more likely to be book learned and beholden to what the vendor says goes because the reader has no comparison to bring to bare based on their own experience. This is one of the downsides to many certification tracks but in fairness it's very difficult for a certification to legislate for that.

At the very least though if you wish to learn about something new that you would like to get into, but don't have around you at work, studying something new isn't a bad thing at all and it beats waiting for your employer to decide to install it. They may never install it, but at least you know something about it when you do encounter it elsewhere.

On that note I shall be installing HP Openview Network Node Manager at home later this year because Im sick of waiting for the opportunity to see it in anger