Should I get Certified?

Today I came across several articles asking that age old question: Should I get certified? Of interest was an article at SearchDataCenter.com that titled “IT Jobs: Certification Doesn’t Pay.” According to a study, non-certified IT professionals average more pay than their certified counterparts. The researchers stated that “The corner has officially been turned for IT professionals who choose to market the diversity of their talents, not just their technical skills.” So, is this the end of IT certification? Are we wasting our money going after MCSE, MCTS, MCITP, CCNA, CCDP, Network+ . . . ?

On the other side of the issue is Georgeo Pulikkathara. Georgeo has a vested interest in the future of certification - He heads up the MCP program for Microsoft. In his blog post, Georgeo compares certification with US Army training. The value of training in the Army is that the training is standardized. This means that when soldiers fall in combat, units can recombine and immediately fight as a cohesive unit. No matter what unit a soldier comes from, they have all had the same training and same approaches to combat. The same way, if a company hires Microsoft Certified Professionals, a consultant who is Microsoft Certified could join with the group and very quickly be able to work with the team. They all use the same terms and language. They are all familiar with the way things work and what needs to be done to accomplish the project even though they have never worked together before.

The question that we need to ask ourselves is why we are pursuing our certifications. Does anyone believe that by getting certified that we will all of a sudden go from making fries one day at $5.85/hr to a making over $200,000/year as a systems engineer the next day? Of course not. (By the way, no disrespect to those that make the fries. I worked my way through college as a restaurant worker. And at times, I made the fries). Now, there are still some companies that tie certifications to promotions. The type of companies that I think would do this would be consulting firms and training firms. But why get certified if there is no instant monetary gain?

I will now stop asking the questions and get to some answers. As a trainer, part of the reason that I have pursued my certifications is so that I have more classes that I am able to teach. But for now, teaching is only my part time pursuit. My full time job is as a systems engineer. How does my certification benefit me there? During my past job search, I found that my certifications helped me meet with recruiters and interviewers. It helped me get exposure to employers. I have found that pursuing certifications have helped me on the job as well. When I study for certification, I am exposed to the technologies that the vendor wants me to be aware of. For example, when I studied for my MCSE 2000, I had to read about Remote Installation Services (RIS). Even though I had no use for or desire to use RIS, I still had to study it as part of my certification. Wouldn’t you know it? About a year later, I was using RIS for all my desktop imaging. If it were not for my certification studies, I would have never thought of using this technology.

While experience is certainly an important factor to an employer, certifications make a statement about the kind of IT Professional that you are. Certification show an employer that you are continuing your education in your chosen field of IT and that you are part of a standardized program of evaluating that knowledge. Certifications can also show future value to an employer. For example, maybe you worked as an assistant systems administrator in your last job. Occasionally, the email administrators would show you a few things with Exchange server. Exchange began to interest you, so you studied and passed the certification exam for Exchange. While you do not have a lot of experience with Exchange to be a full time Exchange administrator, it shows that you have a foundation of understanding that could prove valuable.

In conclusion, while getting certified may not make you a millionaire, it is a helpful method to stay up to date in the constantly changing Information Technology field. Certification provides standardized testing goals that allows you to work more easily with others who have pursued the same training and certification. It exposes you to features of the technology that you may not have discovered or used on your own. And for some employers and recruiting firms, certifications can make your resume stand out from the others.

- Tom <><