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Mojo_666

I was dealing with a guy from ESET who had his MCSA in his sig, I thought I was pretty cool, it is not something I do but I do not have an issue with it as such.

thenjduke

You know this is not a bad idea. I deal with enough IT with my personal email to have these certifcation logs. I did work hard for them. I will not do it on resume but I do display them at my home office. I actually had one person the other day on the phone which was really impressed that I had all those certifications.

tpatt100

I think it depends. I know if I were a contractor that supported a bunch of sites, or worked in technical sales or support it could be a good thing.

Asif Dasl

Yes absolutely, I was dealing with someone in an NHS hospital regarding an anonymous website attack (of a libelous nature). After some back & forth he emailed me and his signature said he had CISSP and I have to say I was impressed. As for adding it to your personal email address - not so much.

Claymoore

My company has a preferred signature format for us consultants and they ask that we use the cert abbreviations but not the logos. The logos can change the spam confidence level of an email because of all the imbedded image spam that was flooding inboxes.

Some people still include the images, though. We have a guy who went crazy with the MS custom logo builder and has logos that include every cert he has. It annoys me when he replies to an email chain because I will have to scroll past half a page of MCTS logos to read the original email.

Including the cert abbreviations helps us establish a technical baseline when communicating with consultants and customers across the country whom we have never met. Like Asif said, when the guy responds to a security email and he has a CISSP in his signature you probably pay more attention to his response.

subl1m1nal

I display my certs on my work email signature. It's not so much that I want to rub it in people's faces. I just want people to know they're not dealing with an idiot IT guy (I think we've all ran into them before).

That and I am proud of them. They cost money and they give me credibility.

subl1m1nal

No logos, just a simple list. My contact info goes on my regular signature. Then my reply signature just has my name, position, and list of certs.

it_consultant

I used to put the logos too, but as someone mentioned they often get stripped out of the email by anti spam filters, then my email looks really silly.

I ought to list my certs when I deal with other IT people, it gives them a quick rundown of what I should be familiar with.

There is another problem no one mentioned. Sometimes people have a cert that I think is useless. Like the CISSP (big deal in government contracting work), has a reputation as the premier security certification, but compared to the CCSP or the CEH (certified ethical hacker) its weak. The CISSP might be the best security guy on the planet, but when I see that in his sig line I think "Oh no, not one of THESE guys".

N2IT

My company doesn't allow us to display our certifications.

Aldur

Typically for intra-office email I won't. Everybody here knows me and they know and they know what I can do.

If it's somebody I don't know or don't work with very often I'll include my sig which has my IE certs and contact info. Other then that I would feel like I'm bragging and nobody likes that.

On a side note I would recommend not putting any entry/associate level certs in a sig no matter what. It just seems silly to me.

DevilWAH

I think mutiply signatures is the way to go.

you shouldl know who you are emailing and what they would expect.

A new coustomer will probable like to see that the person looking after them is certified.

However an older customer is likely to be well aware of your skills and does not need to have them force apaon them every time they recive a mail.

N2IT

Aldur wrote: »

Typically for intra-office email I won't. Everybody here knows me and they know and they know what I can do.

If it's somebody I don't know or don't work with very often I'll include my sig which has my IE certs and contact info. Other then that I would feel like I'm bragging and nobody likes that.

On a side note I would recommend not putting any entry/associate level certs in a sig no matter what. It just seems silly to me.

Hey now thats all my certs!

earweed

When I have significant certs which are pertinent I might one day put them in the signature. I'll never list the minor ones though. No CompTIA or MCTS in my signature and definitely no logos.

Devilsbane

Not many people do it where I work, there are a few CISSP's and CCNA's running around but that is about it. When I complete MCSE I intend to place it in my signature. If nothing else, maybe someone on the server team will notice it and consider me for an opening.

I could do MCSA, but I don't feel that is anything to brag about at the moment.

What I do discourage is listing ALL of your certifications. 1 or maybe 2 is certainly acceptable.

ColbyG

I list the NP and IP. It's not really to show off or because I think people care; it's because I'm hoping for some modicum of trust/respect when emailing another technical person. My company is pretty big and a lot of my emails go to people I've never met or spoken to.

When I see someone has the CCNP, or CCIE, or whatever, I assume a certain level of knowledge. It's a simple way to roughly guage someone's knowledge from a simple email. I hope it works the other way when I send an email as well. If I need something from an engineer in California, or Europe, or wherever, someone I've never spoken to before, I hope they look at my certs and think I might have some clue instead of assuming I'm an idiot.

DevilWAH

ColbyG wrote: »

I list the NP and IP. It's not really to show off or because I think people care; it's because I'm hoping for some modicum of trust/respect when emailing another technical person. My company is pretty big and a lot of my emails go to people I've never met or spoken to.

When I see someone has the CCNP, or CCIE, or whatever, I assume a certain level of knowledge. It's a simple way to roughly guage someone's knowledge from a simple email. I hope it works the other way when I send an email as well. If I need something from an engineer in California, or Europe, or wherever, someone I've never spoken to before, I hope they look at my certs and think I might have some clue instead of assuming I'm an idiot.

I think thats exactly it, However I would only put my highest and specilised certs on a signature. People who will find it usefull (such as other network engineers) know the order of certs so no need to list a CCNA when you have a CCIE.

ColbyG

Yea, I agree. That's why I don't list my lower stuff, only the top and or lateral certs. And only stuff that applies to my job, which is why I don't have the JNCIA on there and likely won't add the ITIL despite the fact that I only have it because I'm forced to by my company.

Hyper-Me

I've never seen any issue with doing it unlessy our company forbids it.

I see it as more a self-pride thing than anything (no, not selfISH or stuckup).

Anyone who honestly gets bothered by what someone has in their email signature is just jealous or a drama queen looking to start trouble. Which is precisely why I listed my bigger certs in my signature at my previous job...it royally pissed off another guy i was working with, to the point that if i was in the room he would fire up conversations with other people on how he thinks certification as a whole is pointless and worthless.

Paul Boz

I used to at my last company but don't here because no one else does and I like to fly under the radar. I know what my accomplishments are, they're in my cube, and I'm fine with that. There is far less competition for certs here than there was at my last job. Dynamik and I have given each other heartburn in the cert race many times

Heck my new co workers didn't know I was a SANS mentor until a few days ago...

chmorin

ColbyG wrote: »

Yea, I agree. That's why I don't list my lower stuff, only the top and or lateral certs. And only stuff that applies to my job, which is why I don't have the JNCIA on there and likely won't add the ITIL despite the fact that I only have it because I'm forced to by my company.

ITIL is about to be forced on me as well. Is it as annoying as everyone in my department seems to make it?

Devilsbane

chmorin wrote: »

ITIL is about to be forced on me as well. Is it as annoying as everyone in my department seems to make it?

Over the past few months my company is like 150-2 on passes. What do you expect when the instructor rattles off all of the questions and answers?

That is why I don't have any respect for ITIL, everyone just **** it. (But I do want to get it to slap it on my resume)

ColbyG

chmorin wrote: »

ITIL is about to be forced on me as well. Is it as annoying as everyone in my department seems to make it?

I think it's subjective. It was horrible for me because I couldn't get into the material, nor do I care much about what's being spewed at me. It's not my kind of cert. A Cisco/networking cert is fun for me because I love the technology. ITIL isn't like that for me... at all.

snokerpoker

I use to put MCSA in my email signature at my last job. It turned out to be a good thing because it showed that I was working on learning more and some people respected me more. At that job everyone was IT so they understood what it meant. At my current job nobody knows anything about certifications (or cares for that matter) so I don't put it in there. But reading this thread has made me contemplate putting them back on.

Chris:/*

I have some of my certs in the office. Having the certifications in the office prevents inevitable measuring contests with some people. I do not have them in my email signature as there is a required format on the networks I work on.

That being said if I had an RHCE, GSE, MCSE, CCIE or CISSP I would post that in the signature block at other jobs if it was authorized.

Forsaken_GA

If your certs are appropriate to the work you're doing, then I'm of the opinion that it's ok to list them as part of your signature. Listing a CCNA when you're a DBA or programmer seems a little odd.

colemic

it_consultant wrote: »

I used to put the logos too, but as someone mentioned they often get stripped out of the email by anti spam filters, then my email looks really silly.

I ought to list my certs when I deal with other IT people, it gives them a quick rundown of what I should be familiar with.

There is another problem no one mentioned. Sometimes people have a cert that I think is useless. Like the CISSP (big deal in government contracting work), has a reputation as the premier security certification, but compared to the CCSP or the CEH (certified ethical hacker) its weak. The CISSP might be the best security guy on the planet, but when I see that in his sig line I think "Oh no, not one of THESE guys".

You seriously think that the CISSP is 'weak' compared to CEH? And it's useless? Seriously?

You are comparing apples and oranges, CISSP is geared more towards managerial functions and a broad overview, while CCSP and CEH are narrow-focused, technical certs. Both kinds have their value, and both have their place. One type is not better than the other.

it_consultant

Your right, the CISSP is geared to a different type of professional. And no, I have not had good experiences working with them specifically because the CISSP is "a mile wide and an inch deep" to put it mildly. I worked in government contracting where the CISSP is held as the gold standard, not surprisingly this is also where I picked up my negative attitude towards that cert and ITIL.

In the private world CCSP and CEH are valued for people who actually work as security analysts where they may have to perform a forensics investigation on security and privacy breaches etc.

I see you have a CISSP, and I don't mean to devalue the time and effort you put into achieving said certificate, I understand the test is not easy by any standard.

colemic

it_consultant wrote: »

Your right, the CISSP is geared to a different type of professional. And no, I have not had good experiences working with them specifically because the CISSP is "a mile wide and an inch deep" to put it mildly. I worked in government contracting where the CISSP is held as the gold standard, not surprisingly this is also where I picked up my negative attitude towards that cert and ITIL.

In the private world CCSP and CEH are valued for people who actually work as security analysts where they may have to perform a forensics investigation on security and privacy breaches etc.

I see you have a CISSP, and I don't mean to devalue the time and effort you put into achieving said certificate, I understand the test is not easy by any standard.

No offense taken... and while I am a GoCo, in the private world, I still would not expect a security analyst who performs the tasks you mentioned above to rely on a CISSP as proof of technical knowledge... but if was the individual that managed those analysts, I absolutely would.

CChN

subl1m1nal wrote: »

I just want people to know they're not dealing with an idiot IT guy (I think we've all ran into them before).

A bunch of letters next to your name doesn't necessarily suggest you're not an idiot IT guy.

Devilsbane

CChN wrote: »

A bunch of letters next to your name doesn't necessarily suggest you're not an idiot IT guy.

No but it at least sets you off on the right foot. If you have the credentials and you sound somewhat knowledgable, then they probably won't question you.