Any hidden gem or obscure certifications that you would recommend?

We always hear about the common ones like Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA, etc. I was wondering if any of you all had the opportunity to learn or certify in a certain certification that most of the public would not be aware of.

Maybe firewall certifications or something specific to a certain technology. I'm interested in seeing who values what and if there is something out there that really added value to someones profession. I don't really have any honestly, I know the CAPM is relatively an unknown and I have done some reading on ISACA COBIT and CBAP certification on Books 24-7.

My boss who spent 15+ years at one of the big 3 service providers was HUGE on COBIT and ITIL. Take it for what it's worth

Thoughts?

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Comments

Essendon

I considered a Blackberry cert once but didnt pursue it. My manager once said - Build the castle first, put up flags later.

CodeBlox

One of those would have been a good idea to get for on the help desk that I work on. That's what I'm weakest in. I feel like they should just do away with blackberry support all together.

SteveO86

I've got two of those BlackBerry certs a few years ago when I did BlackBerry/BES support.

The tests in my opinion go way the top for what you really need to know in order to support the Handhelds/Server.

I did hear rumors that last year they were going to discontinue the BlackBerry Certification Program, anyone know if that was true?

ptilsen

Really, hard to have a hidden gem in this field. Few certs or vendors have high academic value and little market value. Maybe Offensive Security, maybe GIAC, but they've become fairly mainstream in the security world (if somewhat obscure in the infrastructure world). MS actually has some "obscure" certs that I feel have great value, but, again, coming from MS it's hard to call them obscure just because all anyone's looking for is MCITP:EA or MCSE.

ITIL and CAPM are more examples of good paths that aren't at all unknown, IMO. When you said you were dropping PMP in favor of CAPM I thought "that just makes sense". CAPM is the perfect cert for someone who wants a serious, well known PM cert but doesn't have the time, energy, or experience for PMP.

I guess Apple's new tracks might apply, but really, I think those aren't that valuable or useful -- yet. BB is a good example of a waste of time, along the same lines as SonicWALL CSSA (although at least the latter product is growing market share).

HP and Juniper have some networking certs that align well with Cisco's, only for their respective products. Those might be good certs that are lesser known, but both have specific places within vendors and the average folk is better sticking with Cisco.

So, long ramblings made short: Good question, N2. Good question.

cmitchell_00

I totally agree with you about your assessment of the market and the vendor-related certification comments. Now, I always thought getting Dell or Checkpoint certified was just as important as Cisco certifications but, I'm seeing maybe not. I see there are allot of telecommunication certifications to get like the Avaya and Mitel etc. but, I hear from management it's only about Cisco and that's it. The powers to be want Cisco only certified people for support even in HP, Junpier or Dell environments which can be an hassle if your learning the hardware & their IOS on the job. I want to get some more Comptia certifications but, I see them as being an waste of time if you have the Tri-factor already. The VMware or Cloud certifications are some areas I want to visit; however the market needs those Cisco guys.

erpadmin

Essendon wrote: »

I considered a Blackberry cert once but didnt pursue it. My manager once said - Build the castle first, put up flags later.

I actually like this quote. The "castle" being relevant, meaningful IT experience and the flags being certs (vendor-related or otherwise.)

Your manager, in this respect, is quite wise.

NetworkVeteran

ptilsen wrote: »

HP and Juniper have some networking certs that align well with Cisco's, only for their respective products. Those might be good certs that are lesser known, but both have specific places within vendors and the average folk is better sticking with Cisco.

Juniper certifications are well-known in the networking world. When I hire, I typically accept both Cisco and Juniper certifications, but not Network+ or other lesser networking certifications. I've just never felt any pressure to pull the trigger myself. After all, even Juniper will hire folks with Cisco certifications, and Juniper's OS is fairly similar to IOS-XR.

N2IT

@ Code and SteveO

A few years back one of my coworkers did one of the blackberry certs and it proved to help him get a high paying helpdesk job. I think he walked into tier 2 paying 50+ which wasn't to bad back then. Of course this was in 2007

Roguetadhg

RIM isn't doing so good. I would like to see RIM come back with a phone... but could RIM really compete with iPhone, Droid, and now since Verizon said they're pushing Windows. Does it really have a future?

N2IT

@Rogue

Probably not.

just_in_time

A cert that is not common that I feel would help would be the Wireshark Certified Network Analyst. You don't see too many jobs requesting that cert but I think that it a person would stand out in a stack of resumes if they had that one. Of course, you would probably want to have all the common ones before pursuing that one.

YFZblu

I feel like this is where CEH comes in - From what I've seen, if you do it right, you get experience with a number of network monitoring / sniffing tools. But a Wireshark cert could be interesting...I was also looking at the NMAP cert recently.

jibbajabba

Most useless cert I got is ZCP+ (Zeus Certified Professional Plus) ...

paul78

I am not sure if its obscure or not - I guess it depends on who you typically work with - but I plan to look into the CIPP later this year. I work with quite a few people that hold this.

N2IT

Googling now

Way out of my league but good luck!

contentpros

jibbajabba wrote: »

Most useless cert I got is ZCP+ (Zeus Certified Professional Plus) ...

I second that! I hold a ZCE which has added zero value other than contributing to the alphabet soup.

I do think a newer cert which may be a diamond in the rough is the CCSK (Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge)

https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/education/certificate-of-cloud-security-knowledge/

With so much buzz about the cloud, this may be something to help set you apart from the other candidates. This doesn't try to be everything about cloud security but rather a basic foundations to cloud security and the information security controls and how to apply them to the cloud.

HTH,

~CP

contentpros

paul78 wrote: »

I am not sure if its obscure or not - I guess it depends on who you typically work with - but I plan to look into the CIPP later this year. I work with quite a few people that hold this.

The CIPP is good stuff. I have looked at this myself and seems to be picking up steam in the large enterprise and places with heavy compliance requirements. Many corporate counsel's I know have been adding the CIPP to their names.

HTH,

~CP

N2IT

If you guys or gals find a business analyst certification that doesn't require 5+ years of experience let me know

Thanks!

NOC-Ninja

The Value of an ASQ Certification

ASQ certifications. Bio-medical company pays a lot of money for Quality Engineers and Business System Analyst. They start at $80k. I have friends that work there for a long time. One of my co worker with this 8 years experience that does contracting was getting paid $80/hr and they offered him $120k when he got a permanent job.

JDMurray

+1 for the Juniper certs.

And Wireshark and Snort certs will get you the tech geek cred.

MAC_Addy

I've been thinking of getting a Juniper cert.

Ch@rl!3m0ng

JDMurray wrote: »

+1 for the Juniper certs.

And Wireshark and Snort certs will get you the tech geek cred.

+1 For JD's quote

But -1 for the HP networking ones. Really did not enjoy these. They felt like cheap CISCO ones to me. Also have not helped me get any of my jobs.

N2IT

@ MAC that would be pretty cool. I worked with a guy who recently got the junior level Juniper one. He said it wasn't that bad. I'm not a networking guy and the exact name of the certification eludes me right now.

MickQ

I got the Juniper JUNOS cert as it was going at half price. Thought it'd be good to get a start into their world of things.
I'm not sure if they've stopped doing the half price exams or not.

JDMurray

If you take the official Juniper courses, you can get vouchers to take the exams for free.

the_hutch

After I get my CISSP, I'm planning on going for TCNA (Tenable Certified Nessus Auditor). My department is switching over from Eeye Retina to Nessus, so I'm pretty sure I can get work to pay for it.

N2IT

But you have to do PowerPoint 2010 first!

Aldur

@ MickQ

The half price thing is still going on, and from time to time you get 100% off. Just depends what promotions they have going on the Juniper Learning Portal.

Albeit that I'm a Juniper employee, and so my views might be a little biased.

Juniper certification has done wonders for me. It wasn't 4 or 5 short years ago that I was working in my dad's kitchen cabinet shop. I always loved working with computers but I really didn't know much about them, or networks for that matter. Now I doing a work from home dream job that covers the bills and then some

I can honestly say that if I went another route, certification wise, I would not be anywhere near this point in my career. It might not work the same for all people, but I know quiet a few people who did the same thing as me who have landed similar sweet jobs.

ChooseLife

On the InfoSec side, I feel the hidden gem is Real World Security Professional certification. Interestingly enough, the first link coming up on Google leads to a TE thread

JDMurray

ChooseLife wrote: »

Interestingly enough, the first link coming up on Google leads to a TE thread

Oh Gawd. I had completely forgotten about that thread. With that kind of ranking in Google, you think I would be invited to take the exam gratis so I could publicly review it here.