Is there any lifetime certification yet?

I'm very disappointed with the business they are making with the certifications industry, paying every a couple of years to keep what once you got.

I'm wondering whether there is still out there any certification (worth to get) which does not need to be renewed every 2-3 years.

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techwizard

afaik, Microsoft does not require a certification renewal every 2-3 yrs. I believe a MS cert is good for the "life" of the product. Sure, its not "lifetime" but its better then most.

instant000

Certifications are useful for validating a "current" skillset, not an "old" one.

Without continuing usage, your skills can grow stale.

If the certificaton is not useful for your future employment, then just let it expire.

If the certification helps you to get paid more, then maintain it.

Hope this helps.

rowelld

instant000 is right. Using Microsoft as an example, you wouldn't want to put down your MCSE Server 2000 Professional certification on your resume when employers are looking for Server 2012 engineers.

The reason you pay every few years is to keep yourself up-to-date. It's a recurring investment in yourself.

While you may not find renewing certifications worth it, there are many employers who believe it is 100% worth it to keep their staff members well trained. Additionally, some employers will pay for that training.

linuxlover

I don't understand people complaining over expiration dates. What are you going to do with a Delphi certificate? Are you going to put that on your resume? I don't get it. Renewals should be every year if you ask me, because things change so fast with technology it's not even funny anymore.

LarryDaMan

rowelld wrote: »

The reason you pay every few years is to keep yourself up-to-date. It's a recurring investment in yourself.

Totally disagree. You pay, so the certification company can make profit. The old model of lifetime certifications was not the most profitable model, so we pay. Whenever you think there is a good reason behind something, it's still only about money. How does paying anything keep you up to date?

A lot of the continuing education programs are a sham as well. If someone skimmed 20 issues of InfoSec Magazine and took the quizzes and submitted CPEs, does that make them "up-to-date"?

networker050184

LarryDaMan wrote: »

How does paying anything keep you up to date?

Paying the money doesn't keep you up to date, the studying in order to pass the exam does. Of course in the end everything is about money. We use the exams to get better salary and the vendors use them to push their products and make some money. It's a win/win if you ask me. A couple hundred bucks every two or three years is hardly swindling us.

LarryDaMan

REMOVED UNNECESSARY QUOTED REPLY FROM PREVIOUS POST
I agree that being forced to take another exam (or an updated one) every few years has value, but most of these things are renewable with some PDUs/CPEs/Continuing Education and a fistful of ducket$

paul78

yzT wrote: »

... any certification (worth to get)...

That's the key point - are lifetime certifications worth it? The reality is that generally these are not useful certifications in the eyes of most hiring managers. Certification serves two constituents - the value that they provide to the certificate holder and the value that they provide to the prospective employer.

Some of my colleagues who are hiring managers will generally discount certifications if they are not updated because the content can become stale over time. I know a small handful who even will discount certifications which are not ANSI/ISO/IEC 17024 accredited.

SephStorm

And I disagree, while an MCSE in Server 2000 isnt the most relevant, it shows me that this person had the knowledge and capability to learn the technology, which means he should be able to learn it today. In addition, the industry rarely changes that much in the required timeframe. Recert every 5-10 years make sense, major technologies appear, networking technologies are phased out and replaced. Not much varies from year to year to write whole new courses.

And finally the greatest smell test, if your MCSE 2000 has an MCP on 2012 are you going to turn him down because he doesnt have a full MCSE? If you want sec+ and my Sec+ is expired but I have 15 other valid security certificates covering the competencies, are you going to throw me to the side? This person has obviously maintained the knowledge and experience in security.

paul78

@SephStorm - you absolutely have a valid point - that's why I used the term "discount". But candidate selection based on certifications is a slightly different subject - at least from my perspective.

While some of my colleagues may view certifications as a larger factor of someone's commitment and learning abilities. My own approach has always been multi-dimensional and I prefer to judge a candidate's commitment to career and abilities based on the conversation that I have with them.

Right or wrong, I've always felt passion for IT can only be judged subjectively.

linuxlover

LarryDaMan wrote: »

Totally disagree. You pay, so the certification company can make profit. The old model of lifetime certifications was not the most profitable model, so we pay. Whenever you think there is a good reason behind something, it's still only about money. How does paying anything keep you up to date?

A lot of the continuing education programs are a sham as well. If someone skimmed 20 issues of InfoSec Magazine and took the quizzes and submitted CPEs, does that make them "up-to-date"?

So you suggest that vendors should spend money on certification systems and give you a lifetime charge-free access?

SephStorm wrote: »

And I disagree, while an MCSE in Server 2000 isnt the most relevant, it shows me that this person had the knowledge and capability to learn the technology, which means he should be able to learn it today. In addition, the industry rarely changes that much in the required timeframe. Recert every 5-10 years make sense, major technologies appear, networking technologies are phased out and replaced. Not much varies from year to year to write whole new courses.

And finally the greatest smell test, if your MCSE 2000 has an MCP on 2012 are you going to turn him down because he doesnt have a full MCSE? If you want sec+ and my Sec+ is expired but I have 15 other valid security certificates covering the competencies, are you going to throw me to the side? This person has obviously maintained the knowledge and experience in security.

Totally false.

All that tells you is that the person did some certification some time ago. Period.

LarryDaMan

paul78 wrote: »

Right or wrong, I've always felt passion for IT can only be judged subjectively.

With all due respect, who cares about passion? Can you do the job? Are you intellectually curious? Qualified? Competent? Responsible? Trustworthy?

Passion? Does my garbage man have a passion for garbage? No, but he does one heck of a good job every Tuesday and Thursday. Perhaps I am a little disgruntled or jaded, but is perceived passion for IT/Security/Management a quality that is very important to others? As a manager, I'm just happy to get competent and qualified people.

networker050184

I'd much rather someone passionate about their job than someone that is not all other things being equal. I'd probably also rather the more passionate candidate even if the non passionate one was slightly more qualified. I know people took a chance on me early in my career due to my passion and desire to learn.

LarryDaMan

linuxlover wrote: »

So you suggest that vendors should spend money on certification systems and give you a lifetime charge-free access

I have an old school lifetime A+, and I assume yours has to be maintained, right? So now, you must take more CompTIA exams or submit continuing education credits and pay maintenance fees. Do you think CompTIA is doing you a favor? Do you think this makes you a better A+er'? Do you think an employer even knows or cares about the difference between our certifications?

CompTIA wants cash and it wanted to be 8570 compliant to get more cash. CompTIA did not change their program so you could be more relevant.

I think passion is commendable and I probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, but sometimes the feel-good crap just tires me out. We have a job to do, give me some people who can do the job. Let's do a good job, take pride in our work, and let's go home.

networker050184

LarryDaMan wrote: »

CompTIA wants cash and it wanted to be 8570 compliant to get more cash. CompTIA did not change their program so you could be more relevant.

Making it 8570 compliant does make it more relevant. They get some more cash too obviously they would never make a move to lose money. It's not a charity after all.

LarryDaMan

REMOVED UNNECESSARY QUOTED REPLY FROM PREVIOUS POST

Going out on a limb, but since linuxlover is in the EU, I don't think he is reaping the benefits of CompTIA meeting a DoD standard (nor are many others).

yzT

I understand that certifications for an specific technology have a "usage time", for example, the Windows version-based certifications, but I'm very disappointed with the expiry of "general knowledge" certifications. Basically, any vendor-neutral certification.

It's like if you had to do an exam every few years to certificate that still you know what you have learned in a Bachelor's Degree. Obviously as someone said above, lifetime certs weren't profitable so they needed somehow to increase their earnings.

linuxlover

LarryDaMan wrote: »

I have an old school lifetime A+, and I assume yours has to be maintained, right? So now, you must take more CompTIA exams or submit continuing education credits and pay maintenance fees. Do you think CompTIA is doing you a favor? Do you think this makes you a better A+er'? Do you think an employer even knows or cares about the difference between our certifications?

CompTIA wants cash and it wanted to be 8570 compliant to get more cash. CompTIA did not change their program so you could be more relevant.

How do you figure we're equal in the eyes of a potential employer when I keep updating my certificate every year and you passed yours ten years ago? I don't understand why would someone on TechExam have this kind of mentality. Don't you realize how technology changes? A certificate is a confirmation of your knowledge and if you update your certificate that means you have to update your knowledge as well. In twenty years when mechanical computers will be replaced with quantum computers, you will proudly display your non-expiring A+ certificate and say "look, I know how to put together a Pentium". Does that make any sense to you?

Secondly, vendors have to pay large sums of money to PearsonVUE and Prometric regarding of how well they do. Disregarding that, certificates are getting more expensive because they're getting more popular by the day and I expect them to get even more expensive in the future. Something holds value when there's limited supply of it. If the supply is infinite, the value drops. This is basic economic principle. If every IT engineer in the world gets their CCNA tomorrow, the CCNA will become worthless and everybody is back to square one. I can't put it simpler than that.

LarryDaMan

linuxlover wrote: »

How do you figure we're equal in the eyes of a potential employer when I keep updating my certificate every year and you passed yours ten years ago? I don't understand why would someone on TechExam have this kind of mentality. Don't you realize how technology changes? A certificate is a confirmation of your knowledge and if you update your certificate that means you have to update your knowledge as well.

Really? So you submit 20 hours of CEUs and a maintenance fee to CompTIA and that means you have "updated your knowledge"? We can agree to disagree, thanks for the stimulating debate.

networker050184

Maybe a few CEU's for a mostly useless CompTIA cert doesn't necessarily update your knowledge, but having to renew a lot of other certifications in this industry takes some actual skill updating.

N2IT

I like the hybrid approach where you get the certification but have to keep up with PDU's. From experience with the PMI certifications mainly my RMP I have to obtain 30 PDU's within a 3 year span. That's not to bad and honestly the rate of my certifications have trended downward quite a bit. I'd prefer to have 3 - 4 really solid certifications than a bunch of nonsense so in my own little twisted way it helps me shave off some of the earlier certifications once they expire since I have a hard time leaving them off since I did pay for them and took the effort to read multiple books and sit the exam. At the end of the day I think I want to keep my PMI certs and ITIL ones and hopefully obtain some MS SQL ones before the end of 2014.

paul78

LarryDaMan wrote: »

I think passion is commendable and I probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, but sometimes the feel-good crap just tires me out.

LOL - maybe you should try meditation

LarryDaMan wrote: »

We have a job to do, give me some people who can do the job. Let's do a good job, take pride in our work, and let's go home.

I think this is probably where our management styles differ. My viewpoint is that I rather have people that will do what it takes to get the job done versus just being able to do the job. BTW - I equate passion with intellectual curiosity - perhaps it's just semantics.

Sorry about taking us off-topic.

rowelld

I don't think it's too far off-topic. True, we pay more to vendors for recurring certifications. There comes a point where you may not need to re-certify. Does this mean you lack passion, no. Does this mean you're lazy, no. Passion/laziness will show on the job regardless of a certification.

I also lean towards the passion. I've worked with people who can get the job done. Will they get the job done after 5pm when they're off the clock, maybe. We each have different viewpoints on passion and that's why we hire/work with people who have the same caliber and that's where I will say I agree with paul78, in equating passion w/ intellectual curiousity.

A cert is just another method of getting your foot through the door, getting a raise, bragging, learning, etc.

If you feel that it's not worth giving your money to vendors to get certified every x years, then that's just a path one will take. How that will affect your career is unknown because like many of the comments above, a cert is just a piece of paper. There are so many other factors. Much of it depends on how an employer values that cert.

If an employer doesn't value my personal time in obtaining a cert then I will not be interested in working for them.

Plantwiz

Worrying about updating an A+ from 10-15 years ago when one has moved on and works as a Network Engineer is hardly worth the effort. (IMO) If one remains a bench tech, it would likely be beneficial to both the individual and the company they work for (or own) to prove current proficiency in the technologies being serviced.

We are talking about 'certifications' not degrees. CEU and a nominal fee is typical in several industries including horticulture. The value is their for some individuals. This may not apply to many, but we each have the choice. Pay and stay current (and one's employer may support it the payment and the time away from the office) or not (and risk the perceived stagnation that goes with dormant certs).

The fees and the CEUs try to level the playing field to ensure folks are active and not just walking around with a piece of paper.

In return, some vendors cut discounts to resellers for 'x' number of cert holders. And as always, a certificate does not make the person a 'superstar', it simply means they answered the set number of questions on the test correctly to be award the paper.

Teachers also have to stay current in most states now, so this is not likely a trend that will fade anytime soon. More supporters than not.

netsysllc

I also believe that people in IT should be passionate. The garbage man does not have to deal with new technologies on a regular basis. People in IT who do not have a passion for it rarely learn new stuff and just rely on what they know. I see this all the time and it drives me crazy.

Dieg0M

The only lifetime certification is a degree, and it is utterly useless in my opinion.

Ivanjam

LarryDaMan wrote: »

We have a job to do, give me some people who can do the job. Let's do a good job, take pride in our work, and let's go home.

Now, that's my interpretation of passion for the job.

W Stewart

If you're looking for a lifetime certification then just get your degree.

xenodamus

I see a lot of this as apples and oranges. The recertification process for the CISSP can't be compared to that of the CCNA. One requires you to pass the same exam (or an additional related exam) while the other requires CPEs and a maintenance fee.

CPEs are only as credible as the individual claiming them. I can put true effort into keeping my infosec knowledge current, or I can watch a few webinars and pay my $85 annually.

The CCNA, however, requires me to reaffirm my knowledge in networking or a related area with a skills based test. This makes it more valuable to me in some ways.