Do you get a pay raise for getting certs at your place of employement?

gui4life

Hello,

I was just wondering if you experienced getting a pay raise for getting any IT certs while being employed at your company. (Them explicitly telling you that we gave you X amount because of you getting a cert - not just a general pay increase at the end of the year)

What is your companies policy?

Did you get a new position/title because of a cert?

idr0p

My company will give you a bonus for select completed certs.

bonus amount varies on the cert completed.

gui4life

could you provide an example

blargoe

Most of the companies I have worked for will pay for a passed exam for a cert, but no raises.

Mrock4

blargoe wrote: »

Most of the companies I have worked for will pay for a passed exam for a cert, but no raises.

That's how mine is. One offer I had did involve a pre-determined raise amount for certain certs..but I turned that one down.

Shecky

Got my MCSE, MCSA, MCITP: EA and SA, CISSP, CCNA, CEH, and some CompTIA certs at my current employer and received a .20 cent raise. Literally.

powerfool

Certifications contribute to my accomplishments for personal development and marketing for my annual performance review, along with non-certification training and furthering my education.

I know many consulting companies do pay bonuses, however. For instance, one that talked with would pay a $100 bonus, on top of paying for the exam fee, for any passed exam; for multi-exam certifications, like the MCSE, CCNP, etc, they would pay an additional bonus after completing the entire thing. I interviewed for an Exchange job with that company... and I am glad I didn't get it... they asked me how I would troubleshoot mail that didn't reach the recipient... they answer they expected was the silly Message Tracking Center which is nearly useless... I answered using the telnet client to connect to servers' ports and manually typing SMTP to get responses or using packet analysis. They didn't like that, for whatever reason.

powerfool

Shecky wrote: »

Got my MCSE, MCSA, MCITP: EA and SA, CISSP, CCNA, CEH, and some CompTIA certs at my current employer and received a .20 cent raise. Literally.

You mean, per hour, right?

It would really suck if they gave you a $0.20 raise on a salary... "Yes, in light of your certifications, we would like to adjust your salary from $XXX,XXX to $XXX,XXX.20 as an offering of appreciation to you." It would come out to about $0.01/month after taxes. Foul deal. On an hourly basis, you would make about $400/year for a full-time job. However, maybe you have made yourself marketable for a new job. I am hoping that the economy starts picking up after next year's election. Coming out a recession is an awesome time for those that are highly qualified. Out of the last recession, I was watching people get huge increases... and it is a was a huge motivator for me to finish my undergrad degree.

Well, doing certs is only part of overall performance reviews, and sometimes a very small part. "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." I can't remember who said that, but it is brilliant. Your job is to provide value for your employer... certs don't do that for most employers. Consulting companies typically do value certs for many reasons, including maintaining partner relationships and marketing to customers. Beyond that, certs help to provide a minimum standard of proof of competency for interviewing purposes.

wweboy

Company doesn't pay for anything and we get nothing in return.

Coolhandluke

My Employer has paid for my Network+ but no pay raise (not worth anything anyway). I don't want my boss to know that I am getting other certs to move jobs. He doesn't know about Network+ as I went to HR to get it paid for. Since then I have got my CCENT and CCNA, working on CCNP right now. not looking for a pay raise at my current job so I havn't told them.

Even if I did tell them, I don't think I would get a pay raise. I have already had two performance related pay raises.

ccnxjr

At my last job there was a check box for professional development on our annual review, to meet standards you had to clock 40 hrs of training. Don't think they even cared what kind of training it was or if you even learned anything useful, just as long as you got a certificate or proof of training.
Your annual bonus was tied into the grade you got on your annual review, so I suppose it contributed to a bonus, but wasn't a deal closer.

SteveLord

We have New Horizons contracted with the state here. Can take their courses and exams there on the agency's dime with approval of course. I've done my MCP, Network+ and Security+ through them. Each costs roughly $1500 each.


Unfortunately, there are no increases in your job's classification or pay for improving your education. Even if I became a Microsoft Certified Architect and a Master's degree in IT and had Bill Gates as a reference.....it would only benefit me in applying for another job within state government. There are annual pay raises for your classification (that does have a ceiling) and usually annual cost of living increases for everyone...as negotiated by the union.

Considering all the other perks, I am totally fine with that.

historian1974

My company pays for them, but they don't mean extra $$$ on the paycheck. Sometimes certs are yearly performace review goals.

N2IT

historian1974 wrote: »

My company pays for them, but they don't mean extra $$$ on the paycheck. Sometimes certs are yearly performace review goals.

That's interesting to see certifications as yearly performance review goals. I have never heard of this before.

the_Grinch

My company pays for the cert (they'll provide books, if they have them, but no training), but normally it doesn't amount to raise/bonus. We do get bonuses, but to the best of my knowledge it was not based off of certs passed. They have made special agreements for two engineers to give more money if they passed certifications. The networking guy did get a raise, but the Exchange guy didn't. I believe the Exchange guy didn't get the raise due to the fact that we still lost out Gold Status with Microsoft (due to a lack of certification), though they shouldn't have held that against him. I'm hoping to get a few certs done prior to December so in my review I can point out some accomplishments and pull for a bigger raise (though if it was the same as last year, prior to the bump to keep me with the company, I'd be ok with it).

I will say I don't think I quite agree with using certs to factor in bonuses. I guess I feel that it could really just lead to cheating. If only part of it and then look at various projects that were part of the certification (IE, you get exchange certified and then head up an exchange migration, it goes off with only some minor hiccups) then it would be good. That is something I can say that I do truly love about my company, if you want to learn a technology they will give you a chance. I am lucky in we have senior engineers that are versed in all the major technologies (VMWare, Citrix, Cisco, Microsoft, RedHat) and they are always willing to help. They've approved for me to get Linux+ even though we only have one customer with a RedHat server and we are only responisible to monitor that it is up. I made the arguement (especially since the new senior engineer we hired is RedHat certified) that with trained people we can open another line of business.

Psoasman

My employer pays for our certs. They also provide some books and I can use the old computers for a lab.

SteveLord

the_Grinch wrote: »

I will say I don't think I quite agree with using certs to factor in bonuses.

Studying and acquiring certifications is one thing. Applying the knowledge you've obtained, in a way that benefits your employer, is another.

jamesp1983

No, my current employer gives raises based solely on performance, but they take care of us in other ways. The hours are great and the insurance is incredible. The closest I have ever came to an employer that would give raises for certs is a job that would pay for the class, materials, and the test (they would only cover the test if you passed). They would also give you a good bonus. The CCIE was $5,000 and the CCNP was $1,500. They were going to pay for INE.com's CCIE training as well as buy me a lab, but my current employer stole me away. I hope you do get rewarded though.

NinjaBoy

If we can put forth a good case for work paying for a certification program, they will. As for getting a pay rise/bonus for completing it - No...

-Ken

CodeBlox

I need to have security+ by the end of next month. What do I get? I get to keep my job.

nel

company pays for them but are to find out if they will give you a raise! . Give me time once i complete my masters and CCNP

Pishof

CodeBlox wrote: »

I need to have security+ by the end of next month. What do I get? I get to keep my job.

Get THE Security +. Darril Gibson's book. Study for a few weeks are you should be good to test. Just make sure you're strong on cryptography and how public/private keys work.

drew726

my company will pay for it if you pass the exam

DevilWAH

Compnay pay once up fornt for the exam.

if you fail then you have to pay for future exams untill you pass, at which point they will remburse you the cost of the exam you pass.

So basicaly as long as you pass with in two atempts they will pay for both.

Dont send us on courses usualy but do have a Lab room with 12 racks of equipment + some dedicated CCIE and specilised racks

CCNA = 5% bonus on top of there base salary
CCNP = 10%
if you work in a speclised role such as Security, then you would get and exta 10% say for having CCNP security as well.

Comapny is a Global Cisco Gold PArtner so they encourage people o get there certs to hold on to there status.

Microsoft and other departments have the same kind of maodel applied to there certs as well.

Strangly enough even with that incentive lots of people still dont bother. Which when you think some one new to networking, if they achived there CCNA and CCNP thats a 15% pay rise, and its not taken in to account for year on year standard pay rise, its a 15% on top of whatever you are on as long as you hold the certs.

historian1974

N2IT wrote: »

That's interesting to see certifications as yearly performance review goals. I have never heard of this before.

It's not anything employees are forced to do. It has be mutually agreed up on by the manager and employee. Also, it is applied to the education/training section of the performance review, so it's only part of a bigger puzzle. At the very least we have to do a couple of CBT based courses through SkillSoft. Believe it or not, there are people that work in my group that do not want to pursue certs.

DevilWAH

Oh yes we have cert and courses set as yearly review goals as well. How much of a yearly Bonus you recive also depends on how you progress though these.

So some one who gains there CCNP, and has it as part of there goals, would get 10% for passing + a nice yearly bonus on top.

Turgon

DevilWAH wrote: »

Oh yes we have cert and courses set as yearly review goals as well. How much of a yearly Bonus you recive also depends on how you progress though these.

So some one who gains there CCNP, and has it as part of there goals, would get 10% for passing + a nice yearly bonus on top.

It's good you are supported like that. Cert goals linked to bonuses are a positive thing. There can be downsides though in some shops. A departmental rat race for certs isn't uncommon, with people overdoing certs on works time when there are deadlines to meet, causing others to pick up the slack.

Similarly you can get a lot of dumping going on to make the grade and get it out of the way. Sometimes if this is chronic and the management are inept you get legitimate students who study the hard and long way under pressure to keep up with the stellar certer knocking out 15 certs a year doing ****. It can put them under pressure to pass when they have taken so much longer than peers who mystically sail through so many exams.

Savvy management can help with all of this, but some companies just have a certify at all cost culture. One can understand how some people feel they are falling behind and need to 'get with the programme' so to speak.

pitviper

I get reimbursed for test fees assuming that I pass. Other than that, personal development is frowned upon. It makes the employees more valuable to other companies, and worth more compensation.

Devilsbane

Negative. I have gained a lot of knowledge that will someday be used to secure a new job with a higher salary.