What certifications? Director Level

So I was promoted from IT manager to Director of IT at the software company where I work. I will be managing support, QA, development, training etc which is super exiting. I am not sure what certs to try and obtain. I am thinking about the PMP which I just need to pay for and schedule, but I am also thinking about the ITIL.

A little background.

Degree in CS
8 years of formal experience
Currently managing a team of 14 people

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Comments

networker050184

At the director and above level certifications are pretty useless. At that point you are pretty far outside of the technical realm unless you work for an extremely small company.

redz

Echoing what Networker said, certifications aren't going to help your career much at the director level.

Aside from that, there are plenty of other reasons to get certifications. ITIL may make you more efficient in some aspects of running your IT department (I don't mean foundation). PMP or RMP may do the same. I don't really know, I don't have those certifications. You may want to take a more financial management certification route, too.

If you're doing it for fun, go get a cert on something you're interested in (Security, Virtualization, etc).

They won't make you LESS marketable, they just aren't going to really help anything.

eansdad

ITIL and PMP maybe

LarryDaMan

From my observations, the Director level (at big companies anyway) is when fancy graduate degrees can start to pay dividends in terms of standing out from the competition.

paul78

Congratulations on your promotion and new role!

I don’t necessarily agree that certifications are useless. At a director or higher positions, certifications simply play a very different role in career development. I am curious why you are seeking to attain certifications? Is it primarily for self-enlightenment and broadening your horizons?

Based on your brief description – 2 others to consider which may be interesting to you would be the HDI track http://www.thinkhdi.com/certification.aspx and ASTD track Tools for CPLP Candidates. While neither certification are geared at managers, you may find the learning opportunity valuable.

If your employer is in a specific industry that processes personal data (ie Financial or Healthcare) – you could consider some broad certifications in security (ISC2 CISSP), risk (ISACA CISM or CRISC), and privacy (IAPP CIPP) as well.

gabypr

Congratulations!!! Im an IT Manager and pursuing depth technical certifications is kinda worthless like others have said. But you can go and have a foundation on several hot topics such as virtualization and cloud computing. For example I decided to pursue the VMWare VCA-DVC which is free for now, and the CompTIA Cloud Essentials to keep updated and know at least the basis.

N2IT

Solid understanding of financials.

paul78

Coincidence that you mentioned it. I came across this recently - http:/www.itfma.com I don't know much about the organization but I thought it was an interesting organization.

@gabypr - I wouldn't call in-depth certifications useless. I think it largely is a matter of personal interest in the subject matter. It may not help in day-to-day activities. But it can provide useful empathy to the skill involved in a particular technology area.

Sounds Good

Definitely ITIL and PMP. my director has gotten those recently and I see a positive trend in the way things are run.

Spaced

LarryDaMan wrote: »

From my observations, the Director level (at big companies anyway) is when fancy graduate degrees can start to pay dividends in terms of standing out from the competition.

+1 Either with a technical focus or business/management.

stryder144

I spoke to a director in the company that I work for and asked him for advice on how to prepare myself for consideration when manager and above positions open up. He mentioned ITIL, PMP, and more traditional process improvement certs (Lean/Six Sigma) are important. An MBA was useful but not strictly necessary. It just depends on where you see your career going. Remember, you are a director already and the answers I received were for how to prepare to become one. Thus, his answers to me might not be applicable to you but should give a picture as to what training would be good, foundationally, for a manager/director-type.

crazyITguy

Really my reason it to be better at what i do. I have managed a support department for the better half of my career, but with development it is different. My degree was in dev, but I never practiced it and this is the department with the biggest need of change/process improvement. I really want to thank everyone here for the input. It is greatly appreciated.

redz

You've identified the problem space (improved processes).

Your solution space should be something like:
Working to ITIL-Intermediate in the Service Lifecycle stream, or CSI at a minimum.

To me, that sounds like the biggest impact. This would also, however, require you to attend (an) accredited class(es).

UnixGuy

Brown-nosing Certified Expert

lamha88

UnixGuy wrote: »

Brown-nosing Certified Expert

Still working on my CAKE (corporate ass kissing expert) certification. I'll look forward to the bnce afterwards

instant000

You established what you needed in your original post, when you mentioned the PMP and ITIL.

You established that you wanted to improve processes, which is what ITIL is supposed to be for. PMP might help also.

When I clicked on this thread, I thought it was about someone wanting to move up to director, but you are already there.

What I usually do when curious about the qualifications for a particular position, is that I look at the type of problems that role is facing, and/or the type of work that is most commonly done. If I do not have first-hand knowledge of what that is like within my own organization, I can sometimes get a hint by looking over several job descriptions for the position. Another thing you can do is look at the profiles of people in that role on sites like linkedin or indeed. Also, you can read up at sites like cio.com, where IT directors might get some of their daily tech news.

Here is a search that might give you a few ideas:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22IT+director%22+jobs+site%3Aindeed.com

I looked at several positions. They mention service delivery, budgeting, motivating teams, and whatever technicals are specific to their organization.

When I search for IT director versus linkedin.com, and look at the profiles that come up, a few will have PMP or MBA. Many will have neither.

The common trend throughout all results? They wanted experience. You appear to have this one already.

Hope this helps.

GoodBishop

crazyITguy wrote: »

So I was promoted from IT manager to Director of IT at the software company where I work. I will be managing support, QA, development, training etc which is super exiting. I am not sure what certs to try and obtain. I am thinking about the PMP which I just need to pay for and schedule, but I am also thinking about the ITIL.

A little background.

Degree in CS
8 years of formal experience
Currently managing a team of 14 people

I would also recommend a graduate degree, either MBA or MSIT.

santaowns

One way to improve your department is to first ask your team what they think needs to be improved. I know if my director were to ask he would get an extremely long list from me, and although I have told him I was more than willing to tell him what is wrong he never responded by phone or email. I also suggest PMP and ITIL, but I feel like knowing what is actually going on is more important. So drop in on some calls listen in and find out for your self. It was very obvious for our VPs and directors when they started listening in on our change window calls why we kept breaking our change windows and causing sev1 calls after weekend window. Hey, what do I know though I just work in Operations for a fortune15 company that seems help bent on keeping their poor performance.

Mike-Mike

crazyITguy wrote: »

I will be managing support, QA, development, training etc which is super exiting.

There are some Software Testing and QA certs out there, I'm going to look into them:

Software Certifications ~ Certified Associate in Software Testing (CAST)

Certifying Software Testers Worldwide - ISTQB® International Software Testing Qualifications Board

NinjaBoy

If you're in the UK there are various Chartered statuses that you can choose from:

Chartered IT Professional
Chartered Director

etc, etc, etc...

Is there not something like this in the US?

blargoe

ITIL, Project Management, and any training you can find on communication skills.

N2IT

I think your best bet would be a MBA from a solid University (Top 25) then 50 etc

JoJoCal19

MBA would be helpful at cementing your ability to pursue director and above positions at other companies. As for certs, ITIL, PMP, Six Sigma, and for security, CISSP, CISM.