Comment What's the Point of IT Certifications? (Score 1) 1100
This is an age old argument. Education -vs- experience.
You could go out and learn it all on your own. You could. But then again maybe you could't. It is pretty easy to miss something. But it is not like schooling and certs cover anything either. But why kill yourself trying to reinvent the learning wheel? But don't think that just because you have read a prep book and passed a cert that you are now "ready" and "knowledgable". You have now passed the 101 class.
Be careful. A person who has passed several certs, yet has no expereince, is about as useful as someone who is a genious but has no skill; they can think through it but they don't know how to get anything done.
College degrees prepare you even less. Any kind of degree or certification is useless on its own. But when combined with experience, it begins to gain meaning. The cert may help you get some jobs. But if you want to keep it, you had better have the knowhow to back it. Reality is expereince counts more than anything in most IT related fields. Certs are just eye candy for non-techie hiring managers. Of course there are those hiring managers that say, "if they have a cert I will not hire". Ignore them. They are rare. There are more that like certs than hate them. Also, if a manager is so close minded, you don't want to work for them anyway. Your life would be miserable.
The IT field is full of catch 22s. You need expereience to get the job. Well, then, where do I get the experience? Just like college, certs offer you a way to get in at the ground level so you can start getting expereience.
There are two reasons I have done certs:
1. Non-techie managers who need something other than my word that I am good at what I do. What they really don't know is my cert still does not say I can do it. But my experience does.
2. To push myself to new levels both in learning and employment. I want to know. The cert preparation process pushes me to learn things I would not have otherwise. I learn things that I would have looked the other way on because they were not interesting. That is a good thing. I learn things that would have taken years to learn by experience.
The best time to get a certification is after you have some experience. Then the cert preparation process will push you to new levels. If you have no experience you will spend most of your time learning the basics. You won't get much out of it.
Many who have experience only find they still have to study for the certs because they require you to know detailed knowledge about the topic that you do not use regularly. These people commonly say things like I don't need to know that. But after you have learned that detailed stuff, you all of the sudden realize there is a lot of application for it.
The bottom line is companies like to see degrees and certs. We all know that just because you have some paper, it does not proove you know anything. But by having both cert and experience, you cover both areas.
Don't expect a pay raise from the company you currently work for after passing the test. You will get that from your next employer. Over the past year I have increased my income by large amounts by combining certifications, study and experience to back the cert.
So should you get a cert? Well that depends on you.
Do you have experience already? If so you don't really need a cert, but having one won't hurt you. It will only help you. It is your choice wither you put it on your resume or not. There is a good chance though that if you get an advanced cert in the field you are now expereinced, in your next job, you will get to specialize more and get paid more.
No experience? Get a cert. Get some experience. Work your fannie off. Get another cert. Get more experience. Work your way up. If you can't get a job that will give you expereience, start getting creative and come up with your own ways to get it.
You could go out and learn it all on your own. You could. But then again maybe you could't. It is pretty easy to miss something. But it is not like schooling and certs cover anything either. But why kill yourself trying to reinvent the learning wheel? But don't think that just because you have read a prep book and passed a cert that you are now "ready" and "knowledgable". You have now passed the 101 class.
Be careful. A person who has passed several certs, yet has no expereince, is about as useful as someone who is a genious but has no skill; they can think through it but they don't know how to get anything done.
College degrees prepare you even less. Any kind of degree or certification is useless on its own. But when combined with experience, it begins to gain meaning. The cert may help you get some jobs. But if you want to keep it, you had better have the knowhow to back it. Reality is expereince counts more than anything in most IT related fields. Certs are just eye candy for non-techie hiring managers. Of course there are those hiring managers that say, "if they have a cert I will not hire". Ignore them. They are rare. There are more that like certs than hate them. Also, if a manager is so close minded, you don't want to work for them anyway. Your life would be miserable.
The IT field is full of catch 22s. You need expereience to get the job. Well, then, where do I get the experience? Just like college, certs offer you a way to get in at the ground level so you can start getting expereience.
There are two reasons I have done certs:
1. Non-techie managers who need something other than my word that I am good at what I do. What they really don't know is my cert still does not say I can do it. But my experience does.
2. To push myself to new levels both in learning and employment. I want to know. The cert preparation process pushes me to learn things I would not have otherwise. I learn things that I would have looked the other way on because they were not interesting. That is a good thing. I learn things that would have taken years to learn by experience.
The best time to get a certification is after you have some experience. Then the cert preparation process will push you to new levels. If you have no experience you will spend most of your time learning the basics. You won't get much out of it.
Many who have experience only find they still have to study for the certs because they require you to know detailed knowledge about the topic that you do not use regularly. These people commonly say things like I don't need to know that. But after you have learned that detailed stuff, you all of the sudden realize there is a lot of application for it.
The bottom line is companies like to see degrees and certs. We all know that just because you have some paper, it does not proove you know anything. But by having both cert and experience, you cover both areas.
Don't expect a pay raise from the company you currently work for after passing the test. You will get that from your next employer. Over the past year I have increased my income by large amounts by combining certifications, study and experience to back the cert.
So should you get a cert? Well that depends on you.
Do you have experience already? If so you don't really need a cert, but having one won't hurt you. It will only help you. It is your choice wither you put it on your resume or not. There is a good chance though that if you get an advanced cert in the field you are now expereinced, in your next job, you will get to specialize more and get paid more.
No experience? Get a cert. Get some experience. Work your fannie off. Get another cert. Get more experience. Work your way up. If you can't get a job that will give you expereience, start getting creative and come up with your own ways to get it.
