Is there such thing as too many certificates?

instant000

010101 wrote: »

He admitted to me he had never even physically TOUCHED a server or router.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He was fired about 2 years later and is now an accountant.
.

Why did it take so long to fire this person if he did not know what he was doing? I've been working productively at jobs less than two years before.

N2IT

@ 010101 - It happens I've seen it happen. The person I am thinking about didn't have quite as many as you are talking about but he had 2000 and 2003 MCSE's. However this is usually an extreme situation that doesn't happen a lot not at least IMO.

Claymoore

No, as long as the certifications support your career focus you cannot have too many. I have 3 MCITPs and 2 MCSEs just focused on Exchange, spread across 4 versions and Office 365. Exchange is my primary consulting focus so it makes sense that I have all of these certs.

However, if you have a bunch of certs spread across different technologies people may doubt that you have the depth of experience to be effective with any of the single technologies. Or they will believe you are dumping them, which also means you won't have the knowledge to be effective.

ITMonkey

ajs1976 wrote: »

not sure what the right answer is, but i'm moving towards targeted resumes and having everything listed on linkedin.

Good answer!

010101

instant000 wrote: »

Why did it take so long to fire this person if he did not know what he was doing? I've been working productively at jobs less than two years before.

Good question. It took several clients submitting written complaints to one of the owners before he was canned.
I was brought in several times to clean up his crap.
He would have 2-3 installs of NT server on the same box. Like he messed up installing a server, and just installed overtop the old install. He would set the domain admin passwords to blank. One client was hacked because of this. Their servers got filled with movies and music. He installed a SQL box for a client, configured a backup for it, but guess what. He didn't use a SQL aware backup. He was clueless there was such a thing. Years after he was fired that client lost everything. No ****. Guy was a jackass. But had TONS of certs.

010101

I think the elephant in the room is you can **** at certs. The answers are online.
Everyone knows this.
And this is why if there are red flags, a lot of people assume the worst(that the person in question is simply a fraud/cheater).

SteveO86

ajs1976 wrote: »

Some people study on their own time, some do it on company time, and some use both. In the two specific examples I can think of both managers allowed people to study on the clock, appreciated the value of having certified employees, and understand the kind of time commitment needed to pass an exam. When they saw a long list of certs, they assumed that the person in question studied all the time at work and didn't do much actual work.

Not my opinion, but it was theirs.

Then that is just poor policy. I've never had the ability to study on the clock. Even if I did I would be careful not to abuse it. Sounds like a line needs to drawn instead of just writing off potential employees.

pert

010101 wrote: »

I think the elephant in the room is you can **** at certs. The answers are online.
Everyone knows this.
And this is why if there are red flags, a lot of people assume the worst(that the person in question is simply a fraud/cheater).

This is only a problem if hiring manager is incompetent. There is this thing called an interview where you can assess people's true skill. If you can't figure this out in less than 30 mins than you are incompetent at hiring technical staff. Why do people think this stuff is impossible to determine? Its beyond insanity at this point. No one ever gets called out on how worthless they are at interviewing. If you're asking senior candidates what the different spanning tree states are during an interview I have to question your intelligence. Have them design a network in front of you on the spot, explain what protocols will be used where, why, how, write a psuedo config, explain what make/model switches will be used where and why, what firmware will they be running, what security will be in place? If this sort of questioning scares them off, then GOOD!

theodoxa

The only certifications I've dropped are my Brainbench certs (I had tons of them and don't even remember what they all were anymore) and my CNA. I dropped the latter mostly to keep my Resume one page.

I decided to log into my Brainbench account [to see what certs I actually had] and it turns out they all expired after 3 years.

LarryDaMan

Once you get past the HR Gatekeeper; I have run into old-school managers and engineers who are very skeptical about highly certified people. Darn whippersnappers. Who has time for certifications when you should be working 16 hours days with actual equipment! One such guy has this comic posted to his door:

LarryDaMan

010101 wrote: »

Without a doubt.
Too many certs tells me the person is most likely a paper tiger who cheats on exams and probably doesn't know any of the material.

I'll never forget about 15 years ago I met a new employee where I work.
He had every certification known to man. MCSE, CNE, CCNA, etc, etc.
He admitted to me he had never even physically TOUCHED a server or router.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He was fired about 2 years later and is now an accountant.
.

I bet a lot of people have similar stories. We had an IT Auditor with a CPA (never worked as a CPA), a CISSP, a CISM, a CISA, and various other certifications to go along with his advanced Finance degree. He obviously didn't have real experience backing up his certs. I didn't participate in that interview, but it is not uncommon for someone with those credentials to have an easy interview. You're sometimes looking for the right attitude and for team chemistry at that point.

This guy constantly walked around with the biggest "deer in the headlights" look, it was almost comical. He got his work done by looking through prior year assessments and by constantly asking questions of others. Mind you, his salary was well over 100K for his position. He's still there and has been relegated to less important systems and paperwork.

pert

LarryDaMan wrote: »

I bet a lot of people have similar stories. We had an IT Auditor with a CPA (never worked as a CPA), a CISSP, a CISM, a CISA, and various other certifications to go along with his advanced Finance degree. He obviously didn't have real experience backing up his certs. I didn't participate in that interview, but it is not uncommon for someone with those credentials to have an easy interview. You're sometimes looking for the right attitude and for team chemistry at that point.

This guy constantly walked around with the biggest "deer in the headlights" look, it was almost comical. He got his work done by looking through prior year assessments and by constantly asking questions of others. Mind you, his salary was well over 100K for his position. He's still there and has been relegated to less important systems and paperwork.

Moral of this story is that your organization has incompetent hiring staff.

LarryDaMan

pert wrote: »

Moral of this story is that your organization has incompetent hiring staff.

Former organization and yes maybe.

But you do reach a certain level when competence in not necessarily called into question. A point where your credentials and history of achievement and experience belie a person who is obviously qualified. In those cases, you do tend to focus on personality and on finding a perfect fit for your team.

bobloblaw

No such thing as too many certs if they apply to the field you're in.

How many people have you known with a degree that turned out to be a dummy? I've met my fair share. How many people have you met with an intermediate/difficult certification that weren't remotely as proficient as they should be? I've met my fair share as well. The bottom line is if you line up 10 people on one side with their certification/degree w/experience and line up 10 people on the other with just experience, easy money is on the side WITH their cert or degree.

The exception does not make the rule.

010101

Related to this, I'm curious if anyone else thinks it's silly to put things like A+, Network+, etc on their resume when they have high level certs.
It's like saying 'I have a BS degree, And I graduated from high-school!'
It just seems weird to me.
Or like people who list they're MCP and MCSE, or CCNA and CCNP. Duh, no ****.

People are silly, I don't know. Just something I find funny.

.

Iristheangel

Agree with you 010101. It's always amusing when architect- or senior-level engineers will list A+ on their certification (seen it twice). Just seems sort of a waste. Not that it's really going to hurt their chances at a job but at that level? It does zilch to improve their chances at an interview. Just looks a little silly.

bobloblaw

@iris - At that level, yeah... that's silly.

Unrelated - I'm thinking about going to WGU and finishing my my BS, so I thought I'd knock out the ones that seem to be in every concentration prior to enrollment. I put in for my work to pay for the A+. My boss thought I was joking.

Roguetadhg

Keeping Iris' and others' opinions in mind I ask this question, for those with a lot of certificates under their belt:
At what point is there too many certificates?
At what point is there not enough certificates?

I think like-field certificates are important, but listing your CDL while you're going for a nursing job is pointless.

010101

Roguetadhg wrote: »

Keeping Iris' and others' opinions in mind I ask this question, for those with a lot of certificates under their belt:
At what point is there too many certificates?
At what point is there not enough certificates?

I think like-field certificates are important, but listing your CDL while you're going for a nursing job is pointless.

IMO, I would rather have 2-3 very high level certs than 10 low/medium level certs.
It's not like it's necessarly quick to get a low level cert. 10 low level certs might take you 4-5 years.
I would rather spend those 4-5 years getting a CCIE and a CISSP.

Not to mention you have to renew certs. If you have 10 certs and have to renew them every 3 years, you'll get to the point where you don't have time to learn anything new, you don't have time for a GF, or time to do real work. You'll just be renewing your old low level certs year in and year out. Seems silly to me.

.

Asif Dasl

I'll keep it short and sweet...

Roguetadhg wrote: »

At what point is there too many certificates?

When you can't back up the knowledge you learned to get the certs in the first place.

Roguetadhg wrote: »

At what point is there not enough certificates?

When you don't have the knowledge to do your job or desired job properly.


On a resume, you need to list only job relevant certs. Your experience should stand out more than certs.

Claymoore

The folks that list CCNA with their CCNP are doing it to get past the resume filters. The HR drones may not know that the CCNA is a pre-req for the CCNP. So while it seems silly to include it, missing a job opportunity because you left it off is sillier. However, I don't list all of my certifications on my resume. My MS transcript is 6 pages by itself. If I miss an opportunity because I didn't call out my Deploying Vista and Office 2007 exam, so be it. I doubt I would have been the best match for that position anyway.

Cisco has had a renewal system for a long time while Microsoft just implemented it. A network engineer may only list a CCNP, even if he has had it for 9 years and passed tests to renew it 3 times. In that same span I have MCSEs/MCITPs for Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, and Office 365. I wind up with more certifications to list than the network engineer even though we are both just maintaining our certification level for our primary career focus. I will slow down on certification and likely just maintain my renewals the Server Infrastructure and Messaging tracks.

RouteMyPacket

networker050184 wrote: »

If you have a bunch of certifications and not very much experience first thing people are probably going to think is you dumped them. If you have a lot of certifications that match up to your experience then I don't see it being a negative.

Bingo!

N2IT

networker050184 wrote: »

If you have a bunch of certifications and not very much experience first thing people are probably going to think is you dumped them. If you have a lot of certifications that match up to your experience then I don't see it being a negative.

Not sure how I missed this post but agree 100%.

Goodspeed

Getting a certification is still better than consume liquidity on stuff you do not need.
The job market is tough today, to stand out you have to show that you invest in yourself. Willingness to learn. It is always good to take entry-level certifications if you are without a job. Expect a job - not a high salary.

I think you should have certifications in those tasks that you find interesting. 7 billion people in the world - to stand out today you need more than just knowledge. Social skills is more important in my opinion, (to get along with people).

SecurityThroughObscurity

An employer would prefer one CCIE then a bunch of CCNPs, CCNAs.
So don't spend your time for dispersion your skills.

pert

SecurityThroughObscurity wrote: »

An employer would prefer one CCIE then a bunch of CCNPs, CCNAs.
So don't spend your time for dispersion your skills.

Dont agree with this. CCIE is not needed for people in Enterprise, ability to manage routing/switching, wireless, voice, and security at the CCNA/CCNP level is. CCIE level knowledge is a wasted opportunity cost unless you are at an MSP, ISP, reseller, cloud/data center provider. Some employers may be too stupid to know this, but its true nonetheless.

Expect

I agree with what was said earlier, many certifications with no backed up knowledge could only do harm (especially in interviews)

SecurityThroughObscurity

pert wrote: »

Dont agree with this. CCIE is not needed for people in Enterprise, ability to manage routing/switching, wireless, voice, and security at the CCNA/CCNP level is. CCIE level knowledge is a wasted opportunity cost unless you are at an MSP, ISP, reseller, cloud/data center provider. Some employers may be too stupid to know this, but its true nonetheless.

CCIE guys get paid more

pert

SecurityThroughObscurity wrote: »

CCIE guys get paid more

At the typical Enterprise I'd say that CCIE vs multiple NP is irrelevant when it comes to determining your pay. When you go into MSP, ISP, reseller, cloud/data center provider then sure. I think people are obsessed with CCIE for dumb reasons. It's useless knowledge if you don't work in an environment where there are tasks that can utilize it. CCIE R/S at a medium sized enterprise is like **** on a pig.

networker050184

SecurityThroughObscurity wrote: »

CCIE guys get paid more

Positions that require CCIE level knowledge pay more. I think that is where people get confused. A person with a CCIE working first line support isn't going to get paid more than someone with a CCNA designing networks.