"IT Certs declining in value"

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Here is a link to an article thart I read on the code project news letter.
http://www.eweek.com/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=48340&pop=1&hide_ads=1&page=0&hide_js=1
I cannot say that I am happy to read this. The gist of it is that IT certs are no longer regarded as highly by employers as they once were. I suppose that this corresponds to what Bostenmicheal said on an earlier occasion, that experience is the most important attribute on a CV.
PS could someone show me how to use script to include an address as a link?

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I think they missed the real reason: the sheer number of certified professionals in the market nowadays. Dulaney wrote an small blurb about it on certcities.
http://certcities.com/editorial/columns/story.asp?EditorialsID=293

Maybe IT security and project management fared better than other specializations because so few people hold certs in those areas.

 

I think the people resposible for the so called "devalue" of certifying are the employment agencies.

They are NO GOOD at matching what skills people have against what roles they offer to people, i have seen field engineer role with specs for doing very basic jobs (non admin roles) needing MCSE which are two different skill sets, an A+ certified guy could have done some of these roles (and much cheaper for the company hiring).

I for one think HR departments and managers are getting fed up of this, people who are not right for the role, and this could have contributed towards the so called perception for this.

As long as they ar there to show my ability, and i continue to learn new things doing them I for one will continue going for certs, and as someone said, get cisco certified, and you can get the company you work for discounts.

Experience is good, but certs at least show determination and willingness to learn, as long as the employer asks the right questions and weeds out all the dumpers from their selection process, then i think certs do have a place.

 

[ url=http://www.web adress here.com]name you want to use here[/url]

remove the first space for it to work

Grim

 

Yeah, I'd have to agree there. If I hire someone and they prove to be inept, it's not their credentials that are to blame. It's my poor hiring/managerial skills that need to be reevaluated.

 

The problem isn't the employment agencies... the problem isn't the number of certified people... the problem is the number of certified people who aren't capable of doing the job, thanks in large part to the prevalence of braindumps. If passing a certification correlated to whether someone could actually do the job, the value of certifications would continue to be high. But when an employer hires someone based on certification, and the person proves unworthy of the certification because they can't do the job, the employer's perception of certifications is greatly diminished.

Sadly, there will always be people out there who cheat... but the cheaters have overwhelmingly grown in number to the point where they have destroyed the very thing they have desired. Thus, more and more employers are seeking people with experience, not just certifications.

Certainly certifications can give you an edge over your competition, provided experience levels are similar. But the days where certifications would guarantee you a job are long past - none of this is new news.

 

I keep hearing that argument over and over again here, and quite frankly I think it's a crock. There must be 10X as many sites selling college term papers as certification dumps. So maybe it's not the paper MCSE that's to blame but rather the paper MBA.

Just a few articles I found googling:
http://www.millersville.edu/~jccomp/acadintegrity/jcheating.html
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/OAS/oas_htm_files/v80/p91_97nf.html

If you want to blame a culture of cheating then fine, but it's certainly not specific or confined to IT certifications.

 

You can call it a crock all you want, but I've absolutely seen with my own eyes - over and over and over again. Techs dump, get a job, can't do the job, and employers let them go, saying, "If that's what an MCSE can do, I'll not ever hire another one!". You cannot tell me that's not true, because I've witnessed it.

Further, a term paper isn't the entirety of a degree... it's but a small piece. In contrast, a certification exam *is* the entirety of a certification.

Did I say it was specific or confined to IT certifications? None of what you say invalidates my argument.

There's an argument to be made as to why degrees aren't valued as highly as they once were too. College kids graduate expecting to be making big bucks... and sadly, that's usually not what happens. Employers have similarly figured out that a degree doesn't necessarily make someone qualified to do a job either... it merely shows that a candidate can stick to and complete a field of study over several years.

 

That's spot on Michael, more people need to realize this!...... rep given!!

 

Experience will always be more valuable than certs, although a good employee will see certs as evidence that you're committed to learning and so on.

 

Agreed, but how does one measure experience ? Its a circular argument, basically you need to have an industry expert assist in recruitment, hopefully one expert can spot another one...

Crito's right, lazy recruitment practices both created and destroyed the value of certs.

I'd also have to somewhat agree with his point on MBA's, many of the people making the decisions are the most inept and the most underqualified. We tend to give ourselves a hard time in IT, but its not an IT only issue by any means, in fact many of the people causing the biggest problems in my mind are people that obviously don't belong in IT, they could be weeded out with some fairly basic questions.

We have people passing Computer Science degrees that struggle to write the most basic programs, physics graduates that can't light a lightbulb. God knows what the average MBA grad learns.

The point is none of this can be taken at face value anymore, thats if it ever could. Experience must also be quantified because the 'bums on seats' attitude means years in job != good experience, some people can survive for looooong periods of time on very little ability in many organisations, others find a comfort point and stick at it or have limited experience due to a repetative workload.

 

We're talking IT certifications so that's what BM responded to; but have you never met an inept manager (IT or otherwise)? There are plenty! Some of these people cheated to get the letters (e.g. MBA; PhD; etc...). The point is as more and more dishonest folks get the certification; degrees; etc... and prove not to be capable of the responsibilities that go with the accreditation, then the 'paper' loses value.

On the flip side, how does experience lose value? Well, it does lose value, but not as quickly as letters behind a name or paper saying you're qualified with no experience.

 

Eh? By... the amount of exposure you've got with the technology... typically as a factor of time, assuming full-time employment.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at a resume and see that someone has an MCSE with no experience, or that someone else has no MCSE and a lot of experience. You don't have to BE that expert to SEE what an expert should be.

That's what interviews are for. Certifications merely get your resume noticed.

 

At least experience has value to begin with. With the exception of the entry-level certs, having only a piece of paper saying you're qualified has no value to begin with. Coupled WITH the experience, certifications have value.

 

I think you are just agreeing with my point, only an in depth interview and some background checks will prove the person is who they say they are.

I've witnessed people who have 'lifted other CV's' (They stole their wifes), HR departments too lazy to even check references or that they even worked for the last employer (They lied about their last employer and in fact never worked there), people with years of experince in big name companies and CV's that made mine look like dog food and they we're worse than useless and could not even do a tenth of what was on their CV (Severe exaggeration/untruths and ability to hide in big corporations).

Length of time in full time employment is not a good metric, its maybe better than nothing and probably better than certs. People can be just as good at faking experience on paper and in poor interviews as at cheating in cert tests or on degree programs.

 

Original by: dmarsh,

I've witnessed people who have 'lifted other CV's' (They stole their wifes), HR departments too lazy to even check references or that they even worked for the last employer (They lied about their last employer and in fact never worked there), people with years of experince in big name companies and CV's that made mine look like dog food and they we're worse than useless and could not even do a tenth of what was on their CV (Severe exaggeration/untruths and ability to hide in big corporations).

Onoski, replied:

They might get hired but with time they'd get sourced and if not related to the IT manager that recruited them then case is over. I bet you figured that one out, because they wouldn't last and get fired.

 

But we're straying off topic. Yes, people fake experience. Yes, people cheat in college. Yes, people pad resumes. But none of that matters as to why IT certs are declining in value... we're speaking specificially on how braindumping has hurt certifications... and that's done specifically by cheaters using their ill-gotten certifications to get them a job, and subsequently giving the certification a bad name.

 

I thought braindumps/cheating wasn't actually that common anymore, especially with the Microsoft exams?

 

It's horribly common. Ask around - certified techs will readily admit to using those products... some don't even know that they're braindumps. Even worse, they're often given out by instructors and/or training providers, thereby making the braindumps seem legit!

 

I thought MS made their exams a lot more difficult - to prevent braindumps - you have to really understand the question and read through carefully to get it right.

Surely, a well thought out technical assessment at the interview will flush out these cheaters.