[nflug] Linux Certification

[Richard Hubbard]

Hey! I resemble that...

Where I used to work, you couldn't teach a class, unless you had the 
certification. So I ended up collecting a bunch.

But I'll have to side with Chris and say that it is a decent foot in the 
door.  But not a be all and end all.  When the sales dude is trying to 
convince you that it's worth 80K a year, remember, he's a sales dude. If 
I am in a position to hire, I usually look at a certification as a 
potential understanding of basic, and wide ranging issues.  However, I 
still try to ask questions on the interview to see if he understands the 
info behind the cert.  (We called them Paper MCSE's, if they didn't.)
One guy I know asked candidates to subnet a class C network.  That was 
his first interview question.  It was the last if they just sputtered.  
If the candidate started to solve it, he got cut off and asked a bunch 
more questions. (So you really didn't have to get to the right answer on 
the interview, but you needed more than a 'deer in the headlights' look 
to get past it.) And there were plenty of people with certifications who 
couldn't answer the question.



Mark Musone wrote:
>
> 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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