Computer Certifications
When I first started researching whether or not I should or should not change to a computer career, and how, the first thing I learned was that the vaunted certifications, even the CNE and MCSE then being pushed by the computer schools, were NOT enough to get you a good job if you had no experience. Maybe a Help Desk job, which is a foot in the door, but not a high-paying network engineering job as implied for the ads.

Yet computer schools were advertising in local computer papers and on radio how you could go from fast food cook to $60K per year. I discovered that did happen, back when MCSEs were few and far between, maybe around 1996, but by 1999 too many employers had been burned. They discovered that a fast food cook with an MCSE was still a hamburger flipper who could pass tests and might have good potential but was still not yet a network engineer.

The hype has diminished since the dot com crash and subsequent collapse of techie job market, but it hasn't disappeared. I still hear radio ads touting several local computer schools.

"One out of 10 jobs created between now and 2010 will be in the IT industry," they say. And a man's voice adds, "And one of them will be mine."

Maybe true. And maybe he'll have to wait until 2009 before he's hired for it.

The experts I consulted while researching my computer careers book, Secrets of Changing to a Computer Book, disparaged both degrees (except for 22 year old wannabe programmers) and certifications. They claimed only experience, preferably paid experience, counted to employers.

This post on computer certifications offers a little different outlook but obviously is a hard headed
antidote to certification hype.

http://badger.blog-city.com/read/104135.htm

best,
Rick Stooker
Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career
- posted by RickStooker @ 11:08 AM