Whats the point of IT certs??

[tye stik]

I'm a regular visitor to Slashdot these days and i came across this story... *cLiCkY*...

Anyways, i'm a high school student with an A+ certification and an impending N+ certification through Cisco and CompTIA. How exactly is this going to help me? Do employers even care about certifications? What companies would hire me when i graduate this year? Will one even take the chance on me? How would i get them to take that chance?

So yeah, I figure some of the people here might have some helpful insight for me.

 

[smcd]

Certifications (I think) are largely over-rated and cost a lot of money. Some certifications might actually help you, like Oracle certification for example. However, for things such as A+ I don't personally feel they are worth the time or money.

 

[Robbbert]

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[ScottJC]

The more qualifications you have the more employable you seem, more or less.

If you have an IT Cert along with other computing qualifications it'll look really good for you. i'm starting a HND In computing, technical support tomorrow! (Thats a higher national diploma and it makes most IT certs look like ****)

Plus theres the fact i've passed the previous two courses to get on this one, National Qualification and Higher National Qualification.

 

[WhiteX]

here these certioficates are like free courses, they look good on your resume, the ministery of education does not see it as complimentary education and most employers (myself included) want to see if the dude has that knowledge that the certificate claims that he has and if that certificate states useful knowledge at all, at some point a friend took a series of Netware courses got the certificates for (sorry if the names do not agree with the ones you got there) installation, maintenance, distribution, server-client, and all kinds of crap but when compared to a dude that wrked his ass of on netware (and never spoke a word in english) my friend knew next to nothing on the day by day experience of running a netware environment, i dunno on the US or overseas how it works but here on Brazil, experience speaks louder.

 

[Redah]

IT certificates mean nothing, I've noticed that. They claim they do, but they don't. Example:

When I first did my CCNA certification, I passed and got the certificated. I then transferred to another school, and they also offered CCNA courses. That was 2 years later. I said "I already have them!" and they asked me, "what version?". And I was like... what version? Turns out I got the CCNA v2.4 or something. And nowadays, they teach 3.0 or 3.1. Basically the same course, but it means you have to take the course all over again because your old CCNA's are invalid.

How, I tell you, can knowledge become invalid? Who invented that knowledge should have version numbers? I can understand if they teach a shitload of new stuff... but they don't. They just updated the version number, making all older CCNA's useless.

 

[Hexidecimal]

I'm just starting college, and have no certifications. I'm going for network certification and in the last 3 years have worked very closely with the administrator of a major highschool and several business owners in the computer industry.

They all have certs, and they've all said save your money. They teach you nothing you won't learn in a college networking or computer class.

 

[RatTrap]

It's a money scam. But at the same time, companies don't want to waste money on someone who only has experiance. Both are a big risc for the company. It might be easier to get a job if you have a lot of experiance, but way too many times it's harder to keep the job or advance in the company (this is not a rule though, sometimes it's diferent just look at me, but i'm so very special ).

Imagine a company has a development-department where they hire you and have you build a piece of software for them to use internally by many of the employed personal.
Okej, so you build it and it turns out it's unusable because nobody understands it. Now the company has a few choises but they see $-signs running away from them every damn hour the system is faulty and not used. The choises are, fire you or keep you. They weigh how much knowledge you have in building systems. If you've gone to school you may know a thing or two about human perception, mind, memory and also about design. If you've only got a whole lot of experiance. It usually means you'll be fired because you would take longer than nessesary to "learn" what the personal wants to use (of course this also isn't a rule, but it's easier to get fired in 8 out of 10 cases).

I've been an employer 3 times now since 1998 in 3 diferent companies. Let me tell you that i've fired 5 people. 4 of them came directly from university to work and they where very young. These guys just didn't understand how things work and they didn't understand the relashionships between ppl and systems. 3 of them where programmers and 1 was a designer.

As a system/software/website programmer you are supposed to not only know how to program but also know how to make things easy to interact with. This is something you can learn from experiance but it takes more time to learn that with trial-and-error methods than just reading a good book on it and understanding it.

As a system/program/website designer depending on the job it's good to have a lot of knowledge on how the human brain, mind, perception and memory works. Even culture and computer interaction affects the choises users make sometimes. The interface feedback that the users needs is also something to think about for a designer. All of this can be learnd from experiance. But it's easier to start this type of subjects in a school because it's not easy and not a small subject.

And if you think this is something only programmers or ppl who build something needs and not others you will be very wrong. Because you have use for this type of knowledge everyday.

If you want to learn something about this kind of things right now you should try "Psychology of Everyday Things" i think the book is called. Written by a guy called "Nordman" i think. I don't remember exactly his whole name.

 

[Derek]

Cert's pretty much only have worth for your first job in <insert certification here> field. And even then, only to get you a junior level position.

Outside of managers/HR people who are not technical people, experience is always more important. They do have a slight help in people who don't have prior experience, though.

The A+ certification may carry some wait if you're working for a company that cares about warranties, though. Many distributors will not cover hardware under warranty if it's been worked on by people not A+ certified, and such companies won't hire hardware guys who don't have an A+.

 

[Nin_10_Dough]

I've been thinking of getting an A+. We studied from A+ books for a few semesters. I think it would be beneficial to have both the hardware and software A+ certifications.

Btw, my name is also Derek (This spelling is SUPERERIOR!)

 

[Derek]

That's cool. It's not exactly the most common of first names

 

[gokuss4]

OK then, for a real-world newbie, how would one get experience in a field if most employers look at is experience in employees and won't hire greens? internships?

 

[Derek]

junior level sys-admin type positions, interns, or starting off much lower in the pecking order and working your way up (RE: desktop support, help desk, etc).

 

[PalmTree]

junior level sys-admin type positions, interns, or starting off much lower in the pecking order and working your way up (RE: desktop support, help desk, etc).

Agreed. I'm currently in the middle of my second unpaid internship right now to gain enough experience to get an entry level postition when I return back home, lol.

I have a long way to go....

 

[RatTrap]

yeah.. all those work.. or.. you can lie your ass off .. probably won't work but it did for a guy i know.. he went to a company saying he had experiance in everything they wanted but that the systems he built where closed systems that he was not allowed to show.. then he gave them a number of a guy he knew at that company.. and the guy said he was telling the trueth when they called it up.. after that he's been working at this company for 12 years now..

i would NOT be proud though..

 

[jdsony]

It depends on the employer but a lot won't look at you if you don't have the certification while others may only care about experience. To get a job it's best to know someone though. All my 6 or so jobs I have gotten I have known someone which helped just a little bit extra. My last job I was shortlisted from 170 or so resume's partly because I knew someone there and party because I kept checking back with them and making myself known. My current job I got through someone who I worked with at my last job.

If the employer likes you, you stand out, and you seem really interested in working for them there is a good chance they will hire you regardless of experience. If you seem like you have good work ethics you are worth keeping around and learning as you go. Some places like to mold their employees to some extent.

 

[blizz]

If they know you already, they've already got a good idea whether you're any good or not. That makes a major difference (as long as you're good of course...).

 

[RatTrap]

and if your bad.. and they know it.. ehm.. i dunno.. kill them.. take over their identity.. hire yourself.. and so on.. yeah.. i think this is the way to go..