[nflug] Linux Certification

[Christopher Hawkins]

I'll second that. I know that in Human Resources and Project Management they
have certifications that you can't even take the test for until you have
thousands of hours of documented field experience. If they came up with
something like that for techies it might raise the bar somewhat. The whole
"paper MCSE" thing gave certs a bad name a while back... I worked with
several of them and it's a shame that it was (is?) possible to get certified
with so little actual understanding of the concepts. That's one reason I
never renewed my MCSE... Its value seemed to keep going down. One thing I
will say, though - the Cisco CCNA exam was *hard*. I'd value that in hiring
because I don't think you could ever pass if you didn't understand
networking backwards and forwards. Anyone else got an opinion on Cisco's
certs?

Chris
________________________________

From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf Of
Mark Musone
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 11:38 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: RE: [nflug] Linux Certification



Me and a colleague of mine just had a conversation about this topic. I
thought his comments were well warranted and wanted to share them. 

 

He said that he feels certifications are completely worthless (versus mine
being mostly worthless). Anybody can buy a certification. Training
companies, if you pay them enough, guarantee passing certification exams.
The technology companies themselves want people using their products, so
they are more than happy to provide whatever certification somebody wants,
if it means they make more $$ for the certification and they get more free
marketing of their products..

 

What the industry needs is not certification but licensing. Just as in any
other professional field (engineering, medical, law,..etc..). 

 

While these thoughts and ideas were not mine, I agree with them.

 

Mark

 

 

From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf Of
Mark Musone
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 11:19 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: RE: [nflug] Linux Certification

 

My $.02 is that certification values go down as the number of certifications
you have increases..

 

The first certification is very valuable, second pretty good, this is good.
Fourth ok


 

Once you have 5 or so, they’re quite frankly not worth much at all.
Especially if you’re one of those certification collectors (can I say whores
on the mailing list??).

When I see someone with 12+ certifications, more often than not, they lose a
ton of credibility with me, not gain it. Especially when I’ll  ask them a
seemingly simple question like “What’s RAID-5” and they give one of those
“Oh, it’s some disk redundancy thing. I used it before”, basically means
they don’t know what they are talking about and all those 12+ certifications
are instantly garbage.

 

Mark

 

 

From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf Of
Christopher Hawkins
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 8:08 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: RE: [nflug] Linux Certification

 

I think it depends on how far along you are in your career. When I was
trying to establish a career, certifications *really* helped. Sets you apart
from the crowd. And taught me a lot that I hadn't learned elsewhere... So
all the studying was pretty valuable. But now that I've been doing this for
8+ years, I find that I am no longer interested in certs - either pursuing
new ones or renewing the ones I have. At this point, I think my experience
proves that I know what I'm doing, which is what the certs are supposed to
do when you don't have the experience to fall back on. 

 

I'd be curious to hear what others think on this, too. I'm self employed and
perhaps I don't have a handle on what's important these days in a resume,
but if I were hiring I'd look for experience first (volunteer, if nothing
else, even something like helping people at an installfest) and
certification second if the experience were not very lengthy. Only once in
the past 5 years have I been asked by my clients about certification, but I
am often asked: Have you done this kind of thing before? And if I can answer
confidently that, yes, I have... It's a done deal.  

 

Chris

 

________________________________

From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf Of
mihakriket
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 12:24 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: [nflug] Linux Certification

Does anyone have any of the Linux certification? In the Buffalo area is
worth getting any of the Linux certifications? If so, what is the best
certification to get? I have seen a couple of different certification that
are out their. Any feedback would be helpful.
Thank you..

________________________________

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