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IT Certifications!

SeanCallinan

Hello LTT people! 
I teach a series of IT certifications, but I would love your opinion on certifications! 
(I understand a lot of you will cry "NO NEED FOR CERTS, I HAVE EXPERIENCE!"...  )
That's okay...  but not COMMON.....    
Positive feedback would be awesome to relay to my classes!

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i'm with @Shimejii I would only suggest going after a certification if the job you want absolutely requires it.

 

In my area it's actually way more common that people want experience over a certification. 

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I very much appreciate the responses so far!        Consider this....  (I'm a college instructor for certifications...    I have A LOT of students with ZERO tech experience)......  its rough!   Thoughts?

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the thing is alot of the the certs are online courses with limited variety, its like working at a car shop, sure you might have a masters in automotive engineering, but do you have experience working on a wide rang of cars and trucks? nope, you need experience  

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2 minutes ago, SeanCallinan said:

I very much appreciate the responses so far!        Consider this....  (I'm a college instructor for certifications...    I have A LOT of students with ZERO tech experience)......  its rough!   Thoughts?

work with them, these kids usually didnt have a chance to get into this when they were younger and want to put in work now so that they can learn about this topic, if you properly teach the students they will probably be some of your best.

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cpu: ryzen 5 3600 @4.4ghz @1.35v

gpu: rx5700xt 2200mhz

ram: vengeance lpx c15 3200mhz

mobo: gigabyte b550 auros pro 

psu: cooler master mwe 650w

case: masterbox mbx520

fans:Noctua industrial 3000rpm x6

 

 

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Agreed Scuff Gang!   I feel morally obligated to at LEAST guide them to a system admin position yah?

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I always tell myself...  "Don't get angry or condescending....   they need to ENTER the IT field before excelling...."     This worries me and stresses me.......

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4 minutes ago, SeanCallinan said:

I very much appreciate the responses so far!        Consider this....  (I'm a college instructor for certifications...    I have A LOT of students with ZERO tech experience)......  its rough!   Thoughts?

then they need to be taught as though they have zero experience, just don't give them false hope that a certification will help then get a job, a certification does not mean knowledge or experience. it's a checkbox on a resume. 

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I agree...   i literally tell them "a certification means you get a basic job with the OPPORTUNITY to learn!"  I feel like a LOT of younger kids (Or career transitions) need this....

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Just now, SeanCallinan said:

Agreed Scuff Gang!   I feel morally obligated to at LEAST guide them to a system admin position yah?

yee, i didnt have the chance to get into anything that required a pc when i was younger, but once i had the chance everytime i heard something i didnt know about i would search up what it was, why it does what it does, and how its made.

 

remember to quote or "@" someone so they get notified 

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cpu: ryzen 5 3600 @4.4ghz @1.35v

gpu: rx5700xt 2200mhz

ram: vengeance lpx c15 3200mhz

mobo: gigabyte b550 auros pro 

psu: cooler master mwe 650w

case: masterbox mbx520

fans:Noctua industrial 3000rpm x6

 

 

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It is quite difficult to explain how a cert means you have the ability to learn........ 

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This thread has 54 views! Chime in if you're seeing this! Remember, I'm teaching BASIC users to transition to admins right now!

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Shimejii and Scuff...     do you remember when you first started learning about the IT world? (Ports? IP addressing?)

 

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8 minutes ago, Arika S said:

then they need to be taught as though they have zero experience, just don't give them false hope that a certification will help then get a job, a certification does not mean knowledge or experience. it's a checkbox on a resume. 

I agree! I try not to give false hope....  BUt...  I do recognize....  if you refuse to stop learning, you WILL be accepted by the IT world....

 

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3 hours ago, SeanCallinan said:

Shimejii and Scuff...     do you remember when you first started learning about the IT world? (Ports? IP addressing?)

 

I can tell you for the Vast majority of jobs, Certifications Are useless garbage that are just there to be annoyances rather then helping. They do not benefit most people, they do not come up for most IT situations. Id rather colleges and such Focus on whats actually beneficial, what you need to know and things that are good to know. Certs are often cram studied for, and never thought of or used again.

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11 hours ago, SeanCallinan said:

Hello LTT people! 
I teach a series of IT certifications, but I would love your opinion on certifications! 
(I understand a lot of you will cry "NO NEED FOR CERTS, I HAVE EXPERIENCE!"...  )
That's okay...  but not COMMON.....    
Positive feedback would be awesome to relay to my classes!

Specific certs that are only valid for a specific piece of tech/software are a waste of time and money... Generalised qualifications are more valid... I've had specific certs for specific software and those have been worthless for 15yrs now... But the ones I have for other areas will never be. I was lucky... I never paid for the courses... But I know people who got conned into paying for courses (That I warned them were worthless) that would get them into the IT industry and wasted thousands on quals that weren't worth the paper they were written on... and now they' working in warehouses or driving a lorry because they're not qualified to do anything else.

 

It's like other areas here in the UK... you have to be qualified to do electrics, but you need a specific and expensive cert to sign of on electrical installs.  So all of those people I know who used to do electrical work and are more than qualified to do it... no longer will because they don't do it often enough to justify the expense of being certified each year to 'sign of and certify the works'...   the same applies for gas work... many a plumber will no longer work on certain types of central heating jobs because it requires a specific gas cert... or they simply do the plumbing side and then have a gas cert engineer in to do the rest.

 

You can't even do electrical work on your own house now without having it certified... or you won't be able to sell the house until it is.

 

I can understand the changes in the law, because people have died because of dodgy work being carried out by unqualified people... But getting the certifications is a ridiculous amount of money and unless you do it as a main job all year round... not worth the effort.

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I for one think certs are a mlm money grab by the companies offering them. That being said they still are important depending on the job.

 

Lets say you want to do something in networking. Well you might take your network+ to help give your resume more attention and land an entry level position. Then since companies like to show they are investing in the workers by inspiring continual growth. Then they will probably have you work towards something like your CCNA. Which while vendor specific is a decent cert.

 

Certs should be seen as having competency in something. I mean yea if you have 6 years of networking experience then chances are the network+ isn't an issue to pass. That being said it gives companies the ability to say "well we don't employ anyone below this standard" and a cert is very much a measurable standard.

 

So while I feel experience can trump certs. Certs give a good picture of you having the fundamentals offered by that area to be successful.

 

Lastly, certs can and in most cases do bump up your earnings. Look at average earning increase for someone say with a CCNA or a CISSP. 

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11 hours ago, Shimejii said:

Certs are a crapshoot and i generally view them as money grubbing schemes. 

 

Certs should only be done depending on what the jobs require.

Pretty much.

 

Almost nobody cares about certs. Get a real education

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People here seem to know something so I wanted to ask after reading this stuff.

If you don't know jack.

What should a person get to just get a job in the industry?

Is that even possible with one cert and no experience?

 

I just love the thought of working with some company's hardware somewhere, anywhere.

 

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Isn't the point of certification to demonstrate you know actually what you are doing? If so, having experiences and related work history are much stronger proves. 

Sudo make me a sandwich 

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6 hours ago, wasab said:

Isn't the point of certification to demonstrate you know actually what you are doing? If so, having experiences and related work history are much stronger proves. 

I look at certifications as 2 things when we hire:

 

1 - It shows some amount of effort was put into improving the person's skills. 

2 - It shows a level of expertise that goes a little further than not having it.

 

Example. We are actually hiring a senior level help desk analyst right now. I have a small stack of resumes on my desk and anyone with a certification or degree is sitting on top of the pile. There are still people with experience under it, but a bachelors degree is the cutoff. People with a bachelors AND certification are on top of my pile for a call to set up an interview. Almost all of them have some sort of Comptia certification. People talking about how the A+ is a joke, but to me (someone who actually hire's people) it means they took the effort to improve themselves and actually show competency. Everyone says that they can pass the A+ without studying.. and then they see the stupid questions about old tech like ring token networking topology, data rates for ancient tech (think Parallel or Cat2 specifications), or how many pins are on a DB2 connector. People that took the time to study that enough to pass the A+ have an advantage when it comes to me at least giving them the time for an interview.

 

Anyone with an Oracle certification of any kind gets my eternal respect too. Those certs are NO joke.

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As someone who is trying to step on the IT career ladder, there's a burning question to all those who responded that certs are rip-offs and only experience counts: how does one gain experience in IT when one isn't working in the industry? Simply said: if you don't have experience, nobody will hire you, so you don't gain experience and thus, nobody will hire you. That's where certification comes in: it shows employers you have at least a basic grasp of IT and are willing to invest time and effort in gaining a better understanding. For me, I did COMPTIA A+ last year. And was duly greeted by an exam question in which I had to partition a pair of disks, using a Win-OS tool I've never seen before (I don't work in IT and never have) never mind used, so before answering the question I had to figure out how this tool works, and then perform the required task. Remember, I was actually in an official exam (the now obsolete 902 exam, to be exact. I reckon I am the very last person to have taken it, anywhere, as I took it on the day before the 900 series exams were retired) Last week I did the CDCP exam (and passed with a 93% score, thanks ? ) and one of my fellow students was a high-level manager with 20+yrs in the industry of a large world-wide data centre operation which originated from a Anglo-Dutch oil company.

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11 minutes ago, tech.guru said:

I see certifications as upkeep to stay current, and alot of certifications actually require upkeep to stay certified.

And a lot of $$$$$ 

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