Degree v Certification

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Is a degree more beneficial than industry certification?

 

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I feel they compliment one another

A degree with no experiance is as useless as a certification with no experiance, both signify knowledge in different practical applications, a degree is generally theory based, involving alot of the more complex procedures and theories in IT, certifications are generally practical based, prooving a sufficient skill in a given product/arena

both are useless without experiance
but both are beneficial

in the financial and blue chip market, degrees are sought after, they hold a level of importance even if the degree is unrelated to the task at hand, smaller companies favor those with practical skills and experiance more, as you climb the ladder you will find having both, coupled with experiance, a major help, and an opening of new windows

I myself and starting a masters degree in information security, I dont have a degree, never have had one, and for a while, thought I never would, but i now see how having both could serve to help me better myself, and my prospects

just my 2p

 

Somebody on another site a while abck now in a similar discussion said soemthing like:
"certs are all well and good, but to prove that you have the ability to learn and have stayed on a three year course of study, this proves a lot to your employer"

I sort of half laughed, was in bewilderment, and slightly perplexed at this argument.

Surely continually updating your certs, showing you must have a genuine interest in IT, is just as good if not better than making it through a degree
(I used to work alongside a girl who had a degree.She had about as much go in her as my dead great granny).
Also another guy a know who has a degree in IT, has about as much enthusiasm and go in him about IT than my dead greta granny's long dead cat.

I honestly cannot see how having a degree should affect how far you go in IT.

I mean what's the deal.You get really good references from some jobs, you've built up a lot of experience, and you read voraciously on many IT subjects, but because you haven't got a degree then well you'll only get so far laddy.

I think certs matter more.Yeah, I really believe that, and I have a good argument for it.

Certs show you are proficient in the software/technology you work in.
Employers should care more about whether you can actually do the job required of you (which certs as I've said are supposed to prove).

I spoke with my ex-manager a few weeks ago, a really sound bloke who is interested in getting into IT himself.

He told me that because I didn't have a degree, this would limit my choices.he knew this as he gets his guidelines from the top on who and who not to consider for various jobs.As I work for government department, and government seem to want to get everyone a degree these days, this came as no surprise.

It doesn't bother me anyway, I'll make it whichever way I choose to go.That comes from inner belief, not some scrap of paper that says cert or degree or whatever.

I read somehweree that about 90% of the most succesful businessmen in the US don't have degrees.
Apparently their second in commands all have degrees.
Lol I'm not one for coming second thankyou

It's not that I want to argue with anyone much about this, as what's the point.It's just that I don't like injustice.

 

I agree with you fully flex, mainly because of this bs statement

(I think I know where it came from )

If you think about it this is crap. A person that has their MCSE has also studied (maybe up to 3 years) for this and has shown the ability to learn too.

The difference is that the degree is a one shot wonder whereas the certification route is open ended. Okay, maybe it is a never ending circle but technology doesn't stand still either. If after 10 years you have your NT4, Win2K, Win2k3 MCSE's plus a few other certs too, I think this proves more.

Just my 2€ worth.

 

I think degree's are only important if it's in the area in which you work. There aint much point having a sociology degree working in IT. I do think Degree's allow employers to gauge that a person has ability to study at a high level and stick it out for 2+ years. Degree's are more about a way of thinking than actual hands on knowledge. A degree with IT certs is a strong position to be in for a person. Totally agree with Phoenix in that having IT certs without experience is useless but I don't think the same of degree's. I have a degree is e-Business and Technology. 90% of what I learnt I'll never use but it gave me an insight into business which most IT techs lack.

 

So then if you were a hiring manager and some people came to you with degrees, some with certifications, some with both, but this was their first shot at a job in IT, you would consider them all useless

So, how are they beneficial.I mean I think what I'm after here is an explanantion of why the hell I should bother getting my certifications when people will consider me useless without experience.
Afterall an important point, considering this place is called "CertForums.

Geez, thank god they brought in tuition fees.Why the hell should I contribute in taxes for someone to not even use 90% of what they've learnt.

So what are these "insights" then, they sound really great

Funny, I wonder how those 80-90% of top business people in the US who, haven't got degrees, managed to get their insights :hhhmmm

hey you never know, maybe some people who haven't sat in lectures and wrote essays for 3 years can actually come up with insights, learn how things work through their own volition.(volition means own consicous choice for all you guys who haven't got degrees btw as I'm sure all the degree people with their amazing insights already new that one )

Wow, inagine that

PS: I changed my mind, I think I will argue.

 

I think the figure for top business in the US is a tad off (do you have reliable sources mate?)

america is an entruapernorial (is that a word) country, you dont need business sense to make it big, you need an idea! with that idea you hire other people to handle the business stuff, your idea is whats making the money!

and those that dont have degrees, thats not to say they never went to university, alot of the smart tech startups are founded by VERY qualified individuals who just didnt bother finishing thier degree due to the sucess of there startup

the insight can be gained without sitting the final exam flex



and yes, a hiring manager (unless useless himself) would consdier the majority of candidates with no experiance, pretty useless, thats not to say they wont get hired, the types of junior roles people with no experiance go for fit the bill, the hiring manager is LOOKING for people with little or no experiance, but who have showed tech skills with either certs or a degree, or both, that way they dont have to pay you much!

try not to take the term 'useless' as is in this chat, to a manager, someone with no experiance cant really be judged, thats not to say they would be a useless candidate, or that they dont knwo what they are talking about, thats the purpose of interviews flex

otherwise people could just look at a CV and say 'he has more years experiance, has tons of certs and a Phd, we want him'

 

Hell, I'm gonna pitch in with some more controversy.

I have a Biology degree, and I do feel it is beneficial in my surrent (IT) position. Not because administering mail servers requires in-depth knowledge of purines and pyrimidines, but tha the 3 years spent gaining that degree gave me a more balanced, structured and mature approach to many tasks, and many aspects of life.

My IT certs were useful for getting me into my current job, and for getting that job done.

Here's a great example that illustrates this Poll perfectly - I have my IT certs (see left), one colleague has a networking degree, the third was barely halfway thru his HNC, and we all started within a month of each other. During a recent discussion, we ALL agreed that they counted for zip when we started, as theory is all well and good, but when you hit the real thing for the first time, your starting over.

Yes, we now feel the benefits of our respective IT education, but to begin with, we were all taken on, and all felt useless at it.

2€ *toss*

 

hence my comment about it all being pretty useless without experiance

and i do feel industry certs (if done right) do add a certain level of experiance, albiet small, they do, if done right, with practical tasks and such

even though this isnt always looked upon in the same light by employers

 

Interviews are pretty much pointless, they serve very little purpose.
I'll be glad when they've finally done away with the interview process for good.
Most jobs in any field are at first filled internally, if possible, because the next stages in finding a new employee get worse and worse.
When somebody is considered internally, the interview (if they even have one) is a mere staged interview, for the sake of going through the process.

Well they do.They get rid of the people who don't have degrees and throw them in the bin, and keep those people who do have degrees.It's just that they may end up with a few people with tons of experience, certs and degree.Therefore they interview as a next step, useless as it is.

 

Flex, i dont work for the government so I can't argue with your experiances, but i dont actually have a degree, and my CV lands on plenty of peoples desks

almost every company requires Tech people, not just tech companies, and each has thier own hiring practices, smaller companies are even more lax, they just want the most bang for thier buck

 

With all due respect Flex, Phoenix has a point. With some (not all) IT Certs a complete novice can buy a book read it and pass the exam. Plus as for not needing 90% of what I've learnt well thats life. In your life do you still need to know about rock formations that you learnt in Geography or the life of Shakespear etc.. most of what you learn at school once you leave you will never need in your life. Learning is not about needing everything you are taught but about showing that you are capable of learning new things and problem solving or working out theories. The same is true whether you do a degree or IT certs...

 

well in short I would say Certs for sure, I dont have any degrees either but if you ask me certs would be better for these reasons:

1. certs dont take as long as degrees so you dont lose interest at some point (and some people do)

2. with certs you can do intensive courses or study at your own pace (with degrees your at Uni or College for a number of years)

3. degrees only show what you have in terms of academical stuff, whereas certs tell the employer exactly what it is your good at.

4. finally with certs you can do more certs to be better qualified in the field your in.

so if I am wrong in any of those, I am open to correction boys (and girls, wherever you lot are)

but certs win hands down.

I forgot one more, with certs you can get your company to pay for the course (if you flirt hard enough with the boss that is ) I mean who would pay your grant and loan if doing a degree? (unless daddy has a big wallet) but all in all people and I am being really serious here there are those of us who are lucky in where we are right now, it dont matter how you get there and what it took, you got there in the end and you're happy, and some of us are still on the road to that place we all want to be and even if it takes 10yrs then so be it...but I just want to say well done to those who have reached their destination and good luck to those who will eventually get there. blimey what did I just write?

 

Yup ill clear all those points up right now noel

Not true, a degree can be done in 2 - 3 years now, some people spend more than that getting the equiv level of certs (getting one cert is all well and good, but its not = to a degree)

You can do distance learning degrees, part time degrees, whilst you work, in the evenings, whatever you want!

Certs dont tell the employer what your good at, they give them an indication, just like a degree, why would a degree in networking not indicate you are good at networking as much as say, a Network+ course would? because it would, 10 fold!

Yes, you could still do them with a degree, and you could do degrees up the whazzo to be better qualified if you saw fit
Bsc. Internet Computing, Msc. Information Security, Phd. Data Communications, for instance

see above

A degree doesnt cost anymore than a few certs, as seen in many other posts, and people are willing to pay for those, get loans out, etc, the one argument is that you cant really self study a degree in the sense that you cant buy a few books and sit an exam and pass, you need a full course, however thats not the argument you made at a single point

Degrees are Degrees are Degrees, they are not certs, they have thier own merits, thier own strong points and thier own weak points, and regardless what we think, or what we have experianced, the answer still remains that YES they are useful, YES they will help in your search for work, and YES the world still looks to them to be a baseline judge of academic achievement and performance.

 

didnt think you would go that far mate...but thanks all the same and as for the first part about degrees taking longer i meant 2-3years...but its ok now...glad you cleared it up... see we all learn from each other in the end....even if I do talk out of my bum a lot

 

Lol yeah, you do talk complete and utter sh!te don't you
*await noel's boring reply with zero enthusiasm*

Interesting thoughts on this discussion.I suppose the polled question could have been more specific.
I have absolutely no problem with people gaining degree's, good luck to them, it's a major achievement.I might do one myself one day, who knows.

I just don't get why people who decided that Uni wasn't for them, weren't academically inclined towards Uni, couldn't afford it, etc etc, shouldn't get a fair deal when applying for an IT job.

I'm not even talking about a high up IT job that requires major managerial skills.I'm just talking about a tech job, working for an ISP, or other jobs like that.

I think that Employees could be more open to persuasion, other than setting a degree as a benchmark for jobs which i feel don't really require it.However having said that, I realise the predicament employees are in.Hiring the right people must be a maddening job at the best of times.

It's not all gloomy though.Emplyees are willing to give non-degree people a chance.I know, as I've been to a couple of good interviews myself, where I narrowly missed out on the jobs, and I don't even have any certs yet

I think they were impressed with the fact that I got off my arse and decided to undertake self-study, using my own financial and intellectual resources, and learning advanced stuff from scratch.

I know that deserves merit, as other people self-studying should know also.

Good luck with your degree Pheonix, just make sure your doing it for the right reasons.

Thanks for the discussion thus far.

 

Flex mate, i second your concerns
but in my experiance very few employees in this country look at degree apps with any level of preference
sure its a big achievement on a CV, but so is an MCSE (although its taken a while to build that back up from 'anyone can get a bloody MCSE' back in the NT4 paper MCSE days)

it is annoying to find tech support jobs requiring 2:1 degrees, but fortunatly (and i apply for about 10 jobs, and view about 30 a day on jobserve) this requirement is the exception and not the rule, atleast it has been at the levels i have been applying, havnt quite got to high end managerial stuff yet, but even Team leader roles and Senior roles i have gone for have not required one

As for the right reasons, I think the right reasons for doing a degree are down to you, why do you want to do one, is it to get better career prospects? great, go for it, is it because you want to learn something totally new and unrelated to your previous tracks? excellent, its good to be well rounded! is it because you have an avid interest in the subject matter? and really want to solidify your knowledge and understanding to a high level? bonza!

all of the above? well even better then

each person has thier reasons for wanting to undertake something like a degree, and the same reasons usually hold true for an MCSE, or any other kind of achievement that requires massive ammounts of time, effort and money to achieve.

my 2p

 

nope no boring relpy...

 

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You two crack me up.