Certifications aren't needed for everything

I've been a member of TE for a few years now. I've also grown significantly in my career since then.

When I first started and obtained my first certification, (MCP) I wanted to get certs in anything and everything I even remotely touched. I was doing this up until a few months ago. (After ditching my CCNA effort.)

However, from what I've begun to notice in my career is getting certified in everything isn't always a good thing. Especially if they a.) Employer required b.) Help your career c.) Don't fall inline with your current job function (unless you're trying to move away from it.)

Now, don't get me wrong I am an advocate of certifications. I just think there's an influx of the shotgun mentality when it comes to certs. The key is to slow down, learn a technology well, and branch out from there.

Just my take on certifications and career growth. Argue with me if you'd like, however, after working for a large well known IT company this is what I've seen and heard from others.

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

vCole

Maybe it's my area (Boston,MA) but most employers are looking for solid knowledge/experience rather than certs. I found out I almost didn't get a call for my current job because I had Microsoft certs.

knownhero

Where I am from certs are a major factor of getting work. Before I got my foot into IT at my current job (NOC) I had nothing. I was with all the recruitment agencies you could think off and didn’t hear a word. Fast forward 4 years I sit here now with a few certifications I have been offered so many job interviews its unreal. Most jobs though here are its not WHAT you know its WHO you know kind of thing but having certifications are a real help.

I had the shout gun attitude with certifications also but with out that I wouldn’t have found SharePoint, which has lead onto my interest with SQL.

Mrock4

Truthfully, it wasn't my actual CERTS which got me my current job, but rather the trend of moving forward in my field. My employers exact words were: "Wow, you got your NP during this month..then your DA the next month..now you're working on your IE a year later? That says to me you're constantly learning and trying to become better"

And FWIW, they wanted a CCIE in my position, but felt confident I'd be getting it reasonably soon, so I was hired. So again, the certs on my resume told the employer I wasn't stagnant my career.

Oh! And in the past month, I have said the following to at LEAST 5 former co-workers: "I'd love to bring you on over here..but you have to have your CCNA." They're great at what they do, but to even pitch them to upper management they gotta have at least their CCNA.

Mike-Mike

Mrock4 wrote: »

Oh! And in the past month, I have said the following to at LEAST 5 former co-workers: "I'd love to bring you on over here..but you have to have your CCNA." They're great at what they do, but to even pitch them to upper management they gotta have at least their CCNA.

boom! another CCNA vote... totally going for my CCNA when I complete the CCENT

N2IT

Mike-Mike wrote: »

boom! another CCNA vote... totally going for my CCNA when I complete the CCENT

If I ever end up getting laid off and or not liking what I am doing I will go for the CCNA. I was a network analyst for just over a year and it was a lot of fun. I never worked a more fun job. Never configured routers, but working with CLI and running low level Cisco commands and diagnosing networking incidents and problems was a lot of fun.

NOC-Ninja

In my experience, you need certifications to get an interview. If you are really true to yourself then you will get hired since you bust your ass studying. I would NOT have got hired without my CCNA and the things I learned from it.

Now, I'm not going to get interviewed by 2 big companies this coming week if I dont have any certs or I only have CCNA.

Also, pursuing my CCIE is opening a lot of doors. I get so many emails and I only passed the written. I literally get 5-6 calls a day from companies. Furthermore, I'm learning a LOT of things on labbing. Studying CCIE is making me learn more technologies, making me push myself to be more hands on, and making me burn my money.

I can also see hiring managers from linkedin that are clicking on my blog.

You're right that it shouldnt be a shotgun approach but dont make that stop you from gettin the certs that you want.

pham0329

NOC-Ninja wrote: »

Also, pursuing my CCIE is opening a lot of doors. I get so many emails and I only passed the written. I literally get 5-6 calls a day from companies. Furthermore, I'm learning a LOT of things on labbing. Studying CCIE is making me learn more technologies, making me push myself to be more hands on, and making me burn my money.

Kind of off-topic but since I see the CCIE in my future, I have to ask. How is the CCIE opening more doors for you? Do Cisco publish their CCIE candidates or do you update your linkin profile/resume?

NOC-Ninja

pham0329 wrote: »

Kind of off-topic but since I see the CCIE in my future, I have to ask. How is the CCIE opening more doors for you? Do Cisco publish their CCIE candidates or do you update your linkin profile/resume?

How? I dont know. Maybe a recruiter sees me as in the pool of CCIE written.

I post my credentials in dice, monster, linkedin, careerbuilder and wait for someone to call/email me.

Everyone

Like some others here, I remember the late 90's early 2000's when a bunch of people came in with every cert they can get their hands on. A lot of them had no clue what they were talking about or doing. There have been some threads here about putting certs in your e-mail signature, and other places... These people did it. You got the feeling they'd tattoo their cert list on their forehead if it was acceptable, and yet they knew very little.

It was having to work with these types of people that made me not want to have anything to do with certs for a long time. I got my first cert in 2002, a Windows 2000 Pro MCP, only because I was given a voucher, and told I had to go take the test. I didn't study for it at all, I'd been using 2000 for a couple years already, walked in and passed no problem. I didn't tell people I had it because I didn't want to be like the others I had come to dislike. I wouldn't get another cert until 2008 when I got my Security+. I tried to avoid it, but it was required if I wanted to keep my job.

Now after a my recent job search, my thinking has changed. I have an interest in getting a couple certs that are relevant to my career. I had no trouble getting interviews and finding a job without these certs, so I certainly don't think they are needed, however I know I was passed up on for at least one job because I didn't have them. That job had a starting salary 30% higher than the one I ended up taking.

I like the job I found. They don't really care about certs here (no one on my team has any), but my boss is willing to pay for tests, and even training, as long as it is related to my job.

it_consultant

I use certifications as a way to get a basic knowledge of a topic so I can have at least a little external validation of my skillset. Within 30 seconds of talking to me most of you would realize that I know my stuff and my certifications will be irrelevant to you. However, any profession should require at least a little bit of professional education throughout one's career. For example, I am studying for the CWNA exam next because I have found myself doing
a large amount of wireless installations.

I think everyone has learned from the paper certs era and know it seems like certs are even harder than degrees. Cisco tests have always been hard, MS Exchange tests are no joke, and this CWNA material is very in depth.

vCole

I think my point is getting lost somewhere in here with everyone defending certifications.

I'm not saying don't get certified. Actually what I'm saying is, get certified in what will make the most sense for your career. Being all over the board, with low level certs it going to keep you in a low level position. Pick 1-2 areas (usually that go hand and hand) and get enterprise level certs.

eserfeliz

vCole wrote: »

I think my point is getting lost somewhere in here with everyone defending certifications.

I'm not saying don't get certified. Actually what I'm saying is, get certified in what will make the most sense for your career. Being all over the board, with low level certs it going to keep you in a low level position. Pick 1-2 areas (usually that go hand and hand) and get enterprise level certs.

I don't know that your point is getting lost, necessarily. What caused me to view this topic in the first place was the title "Certifications aren't needed for everything". Perhaps you meant more, "Every certification isn't needed"?

I'll just go ahead and put in my two cents. Ten years ago I started working for a public safety agency as a 911 dispatcher. I had worked a few IT jobs, but didn't really keep up with my career and was just looking for a way to pay some bills. I went along that path for a while until I got tired of it and started attending MCSE classes at a technical school. I and my classmate knew more about servers than the instructor did and, subsequently, I did not pursue certification.

My classmate had an IT position as a Network Analyst and offered me a chance to go work with him at a new company. We'd be a team, learn hands on about networking and servers. In the few months that I was there, I learned a little about those things, but in a digital fiefdom, those with no certs, no experience and no education are paid peanuts. Or $32k/year. I soon went back to my dispatching job full time, where I could earn $45k. Soon an opportunity to work for the Help Desk at the public safety agency came open, and I got the position, probably due more to the recommendation of my Chief, more than the MCSE courses that I'd taken.

During myy third week as a Help Desk Analyst, I had a pretty bad illness and was out for almost two months. When I came back, they'd hired someone new and he knew way more about the position than I did. I began to take IT as a career seriously. I learned everything that I could and became an important part of my help desk. Unfortunately, when a promotion for what I thought was a job I was perfectly suited for came up, I was passed over. I was pretty dejected for a few months, and then I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and take my career into my own hands. When management offered to pay for certification training and testing, I took them up on it when my other co-workers were scornful of the opportunity. I also decided to finish up my degree. I contacted the CTO of the school I would attend and asked him a whole bunch of questions: what degree should I pursue (IT Management, Computer Science, or IT Engineering), should I double major, and, most importantly, "What does it take to be successful in this field?" To the last question, his answer was succinct and clear:

"To ensure success, you need a degree, you need certifications, and you need experience. If you're missing one of the three, you might be able to get lucky and find a niche somewhere. But if you want to write your check and go anywhere, you need all three."

I have found that he was correct. I'm a semester from finishing up my Bachelor's, I most recently passed my Network+, and, two weeks ago, when a vacancy came open in the NOC unexpectedly, I applied for in and got the position, over candidates that are senior to me. People who were 1 exam away from their MCSE or have their JD but no certifications.

So, to those of you who are wondering about the value of certifications, I'm here to tell you, "it's there". If you don't have any certs, taking one or two entry level certs can get you the requisite confidence with a certain vendor's test style and get the ball rolling. But also take heed of vCole's advice and target your time and monetary resources to cover certifications that will lead you where you want to go.

contentpros

I think Martell1000, N2IT and vCole hit a few key points on the head. As "IT" people we often make it our focus to gain IT certs. While this may help you show your strength in a particular technology we need to remember that business is made up of more then just technology. If you want to open up opportunities for advancement you need to understand what makes the business tick not just how a particular technology works. You should learn to speak the language of management (and the bean counters).

Some of the comments made were talking about "soft skills" and many people overlook how important these skills really are. Taking your CCNP may be beneficial from a tech skill set perspective, but joining a group like Toastmasters and becoming a solid public speaker that can present in front of a large group of people and convey a message is just as important. Working on your project management skills or learning about "business intelligence" and if or how it is being applied in your organization can be the difference between leading and following.

It can be tough to avoid getting stuck on the certification hamster wheel. It kills me when I look at job postings and you see some absurd wishlist items like the ideal candidate should be a CISSP, CCIE, Oracle DBA, Telco god and hold 3 SANS gold certs and by the way were paying $30K a year. Yes, that was an exaggeration but you will see that type of silliness out there. When the job market goes south and we see companies reduce staff and begin to hire again there tends to be a shift from having specialists to have a bunch of generalists that are expected to know everything.

I personally don't see a problem with certifications but I would encourage everyone to take some other business focused courses versus always staying tech heavy.

HTH
~CP

martell1000

You should learn to speak the language of management (and the bean counters).

Thats really how it works. In a lot of companies you have a guy in charge over who gets hired that has no clue about technology. In the best cases you have an MBA with a lil technical background but i have seen english teachers who are managing directors in big companies. So if there is a job vacant, and they are using cisco equipment for example, the first thing these guys rely on is if there is some kind of "proof" that someone knows how to get the job done. This is often a BSC or Master degree in computer science, but since a lot of these people tend to have none relevant knowlegde about working with real gear, because they learn a shitload full of math and physics at the university they stick to certs and/or working expierience. Next problem that occurs is that a lot of "nerds" are not able to talk to someone who doesnt have a technical background. This is where softskills or stuff like ITIL kicks in.

So a good way is to have some respected certs and be able to talk to an average joe who doesnt have them in a way he understands you.

I know a guy that doesnt have a college degree an holds absolutely ZERO certs but is in charge of an IT team in a large investment bank, he has a lot of tech knowlegde but beeing at the right place the right time and convincing the managing director got him the job. He is very good in explaining complex stuff to someone who doesnt know anything about it and he is a very trustworthy and "solid" person...

On the other hand i see a lot of security breaches happen because people just make noobish mistakes, like not deleting config files on websites, or using default passwords on production enviroments....

So the conclusion for me is, get some certs, know your stuff and learn how to make an impression, even if your resume might not be the best you will get a lot of chances, since there are a lot of dumpers, noobs with a degree and other idiots around who get constantly hired and fired ...

veritas_libertas

Excellent thread vCole. I hope those that are new to IT will pay attention. It's easy to get caught up in certifications, and loose focus on goals. The only way to be successful is to set goals and follow them.

the_Grinch

Very good thread! I'll give my two cents since I have the background of a little experience, certs, and a degree. The two fulltime jobs I have worked at wouldn't have happened without the degree. Soft skills? That is the best endorsement for a degree I have ever seen. At my college it was constant group work and projects. You would have to work with people you didn't know, like, and sometimes couldn't understand. To top it off, you are then told to present your information. I got lucky in the fact that I was in a high school engineering program and that required presenting all the time (plus I'm a type-a kind of guy who loves to talk). I took courses in public speaking, Chinese, and combined with my required English courses truly helped me become articulate. A few months ago, twice I was called into partner meetings to discuss issue that arose with one of our customers. Was I involved prior to that? Nope, but I knew the technology and I am very good infront of people plus speaking to the level of the group.

I do think certifications have their place and importance. Obviously, when you're new to the field you are a kid wielding your dad's shotgun just doing whatever will get you that job. Once you get in, then you find out what you want to do, and what is required to get there. The fact is you still have to get through HR and most of them are just checking off the boxes. I interviewed at a hospital and it was all checkboxes to get the interview, then it was online exams on the technology you needed to know (Outlook, Word, Excel). First thing the HR person said to me was how excited they were to get someone with an IT degree as most of the guys in the department had degrees in other areas (Bio, Music, Philosophy). So I have been of the mind to do what is required to get the interview and shine from there.

In regards to the CCNA, it is definitely a good thing to have. I haven't been overjoyed at trying to finish it, but it has gotten me more interested in networking in general (packet level stuff, protocols, etc not just the Cisco stuff). I can agree combining it with a sever based cert (or education) is powerful because you want to be able to say "yup it's a network problem". I recently switched to the Night NOC position at my company and many did not want it to happen. They kept asking why would you do that? A lot of people questioned if it was good for the company. They let me do it and everyone is very happy with the move. Why move to NOC? Because you find out what causes problems. I get constant email alerts and now I can call exactly what will happen from one alert (like outbound discards on a firewall or disk queue length on a server hard drive). Those are a nitty gritty details that you don't see just working on the helpdesk. This post was all over the place, but I think everyone gets it lol!

jakecitrix

man, if someone goes into i.t for money its bad, matter of fact if ur motives are money then it wont be good for u or the company that u are working in the end.

Passion powns old

vCole

jakecitrix wrote: »

man, if someone goes into i.t for money its bad, matter of fact if ur motives are money then it wont be good for u or the company that u are working in the end.

Passion powns old

Where have you gotten this idea? Granted, I *do* enjoy more money

, personally MY motives are not more money. I've been able to enjoy my job, work at a really cool company and get paid well for it. Now that, is the whole idea of this thread!

cxzar20

jakecitrix wrote: »

man, if someone goes into i.t for money its bad, matter of fact if ur motives are money then it wont be good for u or the company that u are working in the end.

Passion powns old

You're wrong bud, I went into IT purely for extrinsic reasons and am in a very senior level position for my career. When I go home after work I don't even touch a computer, technology is just a way for me to make a good living. Everyone is different, I have very little passion for this stuff but I am also motivated by working hard to support an upper middle class lifestyle.

There aren't many careers that allow you to live like that anymore.

jakecitrix

cxzar20 wrote: »

You're wrong bud, I went into IT purely for extrinsic reasons and am in a very senior level position for my career. When I go home after work I don't even touch a computer, technology is just a way for me to make a good living. Everyone is different, I have very little passion for this stuff but I am also motivated by working hard to support an upper middle class lifestyle.There aren't many careers that allow you to live like that anymore.

Dont geT me wrong money is great we all need money to live, but if ur money hungry its not good, one day u gonna wake up and hate ur job and quit it and quit i.t. Most ppl who made money were ppl who didnt chase after it, sure there r successful ppl who went for money but it doesnt mean they became successful the right way.

jakecitrix

i never liked money, i hated it and i wasnt born rich, i even worked for free, now i make good money for someone my age ( not to mention over time)

Raidersfan81

I hate money too, I would like to give all mine away and all my future paychecks.

jakecitrix

briandy81 wrote: »

I hate money too, I would like to give all mine away and all my future paychecks.

Thats a dum idea.

Blackout

I kind of get the feeling that this thread has run its course.

Raidersfan81

jakecitrix wrote: »

Thats a dum idea.

Thank you for the support.

jakecitrix

cxzar20 wrote: »

You're wrong bud, I went into IT purely for extrinsic reasons and am in a very senior level position for my career. When I go home after work I don't even touch a computer, technology is just a way for me to make a good living. Everyone is different, I have very little passion for this stuff but I am also motivated by working hard to support an upper middle class lifestyle.

There aren't many careers that allow you to live like that anymore.

In a job interview say all of those things,

say that your in I.T purely for money and that money is your motive and say that I have very little passion for I.T

and see what happens

Blackout

Yes because ever employer assumes immeadiatly as you walk through the door that you don't want money. All the time and money you spent on training wasn't to increase your paycheck it was for shits and giggles. If i met an interviewer that assumed that I didn't want money i would litterally walk out in the middle of the interview.
I must be crazy cause i thought someday i might make enough money someday to pay for my kid to go through college, or to buy a new house, i guess that wont happen. Shame on me for thinking i could make good money doing something i love.

Blackout

Can we lock this thread up i think it has derailed beyond saving.

cyberguypr

Blackout wrote: »

Can we lock this thread up i think it has derailed beyond saving.

Definitely needs to happen.

Raidersfan81

I believe I know a few nurses who go to work everyday and they don't have the passion for that job but it brings them in a very nice paycheck each week. It doesn't mean they do their job with any less quality than any other nurse who has the passion for it.

It's all about what you can tolerate in this world. Work isn't always about your passion and this I can say for 99.9% of ppl, its always about that paycheck/money.