question for people working in the industry.

[pezz]

Really? Experience last? Interesting. I am the exact opposite. I'd rather have someone with actual experience that struggled through high school than someone with a degree.

Actually no, Experience on a case by case basis. Depends upon what position they may be hired for.

The best example in dealing with experience is interpersonal skills. I can't tell you how many techs and admins I have seen shifted around in contract situations, and even let go, because they did not play well with others. We have a guy now who has a M.S. and 5+ years of experience. He was recently shifted (aka)"promoted" into a vacant DBA position because of his lack of interpersonal skills.

On the contrast, if you have 10+ years of experience in IT, and no degree, colleges cannot hire you as a professor, regional accreditation states you must has a degree higher than the level you are instructing on.

If you have a M.S. degree, and 10+ years of experience, with no certs you cannot teach professional boot camps for Novell / Micr0s*ft. You need an MCSE + MCT.

Again, it depends on where you want to work and what you want to do.

In addition, some integration firms and on call tech providers, can bill more per hour for a CNE / MCSE simply because they can sell the certification to customers. Locally a tech can command 50 (billing)on the hour for net admin contracts, and 120(billing) on the hour for a MCSE.

Businesses are in business to make money, certified individuals go for a higher rate, thus a requirement for employees is certifications.

If you come to an interview with me and spout off the letters you've acquired - be prepared to be put in a very uncomfortable situation when I start asking you about real world troubleshooting scenarios.

This is exactly my point. I can only think of a few companies where hiring managers knew the right questions to ask, or even have some type of a clue.

So whats the answer?
I have long been a supporter of revamping the cert exams to include hands-on configuration, and troubleshooting evaluation. However, I do not agree that a pre-req of professional experience should be used. There are alot of people tinkering at home building massive networks, just to see how they work.

[bascule]

On the contrast, if you have 10+ years of experience in IT, and no degree, colleges cannot hire you as a professor, regional accreditation states you must has a degree higher than the level you are instructing on.

Do you have any more information on this? There's a certain "professor" (I think technically his job title is something like 'Interim Course Instructor') at my university who only has his BS in CS has been making life hell for every student in the department for quite some time because the department has been too lazy to find a real professor to fill his shoes...

[Gadsden]

any forum that puts banned users on display like a head on a spike deserves a little respect i think

Generally, people almost have to strive to attain residency in the fucktard hall. I have yet to see anyone thrown on the spikes that did not deserve it.

[TheOtherGuy]

Not a "me too" but close...

Experience from being in the interview process, and the work associated with trying to screen cadidates, which appear qualified on paper, is a time consuming process.

Here is what i note on the subject of certification on IT skills based on experience in the hiring process:

1) If a candidate has a 4 year degree in *anything* then that is better than most certs. A 4 year degree shows the candidate can work within the confines of a job description and follow orders and implicitly includes such things as time management, and public speaking.

2) A candidate who is a "team player" (plays well with others -- not so much a, "slave to the man.") They are more highly desired than a "super-star-coder" who does not work well with others. "Super-star-coders" often works best on projects by themself, or on projects where they are the lead designer. They sometimes become owners of a business or team leaders.

3) Any candidate with only certification from one vendor is a HUGE warning sign. All of the various certifications from vendors (Cisco, MS, Novell) include questions to test people on what each company has proclaimed to be "industry standards" and in many cases (especially MS) there is a tendency to re-use existing words that have definitions included by the IEEE or IETF and in RFC which run contrary to the vendor's "new definition" for the same word. (Consider the joke... "How many MS Software Engineers does it take to replace a broken light bulb?" (you know the answer)
MS has even included questions on their tests like, "The best solution for e-mail service to clients on the network is...." with the correct answer being "MS Exchange"

4) Experience employed in a field by a known company is a very, very good asset on an application when it includes positive references from the preceeding company. We have chosen to take people with "real world experience" instead of people with certs or four year degrees when their skills are good enough and we have positive 3rd party comment on their performance in the workplace. Verification from a 3rd party that they have skills to perform their duties *and* many of the implicitly included skills of people with 4 year degrees is very nice.

Then why do certs exist, if they are so bad?

1) Profit for businesses. If not for the immediate courses and testing, then for the name recognition and "partnerships" that are created with businesses for pseudo-retooling/re-education of employees. (Product can better be sold when it appears there is a training program available for the product.)

2) For HR departments unable to afford the cost of a clue or person with a clue, who can actually read and understand the experience included on applications. For these HR departments, the HR officers have no clue what IOS, NFTS, ext3, TCP/IP, x86 assembly, KMA and RTFM, etc. mean. However, like any monkey, they can be trained to look for things like "4 year degree" "4 year degree in CS" "certification in blah." These HR officers use credentials, degrees and certs as filters to limit applications.

[astcell]

An old guy I know has a BA from 1960 in "Business Machines." That was before computers as we know them. It is still a degree!

Another thing an employer will notice is military experience. Almost all jopb applications have a section for military experience but hardly anyone fills it out. In fact I have seen more college grad sections completed on applications than prior service sections.

[valkyrie]

Sounds to me like you have a ton of advice...

From people, for the most part, who know and have thought out what they are talking about. Pezz brought up two very important points that I think would be advantageous for you to consider:

*Consider your industry. Who do you want to work for? Right now? In 5 years? In 10? What industries jazz you? Business understanding gives hiring managers a woody.

*Soft skills. Do you play well with others? Are you considerate? Are you willing to build long-term relationships and put in the effort required to build them?

And here is my offering:

*If you, as an IT person cannot translate the technical requirements into business need (that's for the guys who sign the checks), and do it in such a fashion that you do not alienate your strategic technical partners (that's for the guys who will be on your team implementing the solutions you suggest), you won't do very well in the field regardless of how many letters or numbers you have after your name. One can no longer depend on sales geeks to do this. It's a whole new world.

You've been given great advice by the folks on this thread. Go for the degree (and if you can make it a science degree, it gives you much more flexibility if you decide to do a complete career change or a lateral change into education or the legal fields).
But that degree will set you on the path to obtaining these soft skills as well. Let the certs worry about themselves until you are done with your upper level courses.

I can't speak for everyone here, but keep me posted on how you do. Who knows? I don't think anyone mentioned this, but most really great jobs are not found on the boards, they are found through relationships you have developed with others. I know that all the positions I have located in my career, save one, has been through the relationships I have developed with others in the industry.

I am not normally this verbose. I will shut up now.

Just my 2 cents

r0cketgrl

[LiteHedded]

these are all great suggestions and basically have just confirmed what i thought was true in the first place.

[pezz]

Do you have any more information on this? There's a certain "professor" (I think technically his job title is something like 'Interim Course Instructor') at my university who only has his BS in CS has been making life hell for every student in the department for quite some time because the department has been too lazy to find a real professor to fill his shoes...

Unless his title is specifically "Professor" he is perfectly legal.
Colleges often hire non-traditional persons to fulfill a position created to match budgeting through several different departments.

It would depend on exactly what he was hired for. Some colleges have the ability to hire positions that are "Instructors" who have several different hats to wear.
It is not at all a suprise that his title houses the word "interim". He probably defaulted into the position when someone left for a better offer/died/retired/etc...


In case you are not aware, most college and university pay grading systems (normally public state funded institutions) are not very giving when it comes to salaries.

To drive the point home, we have had an assistant professor(EET) position open for 2 semesters, req. of a M.S.EE degree, 10 month position, pay grade 15 (27,500 per year) We basically get 2 types of persons applying to that position, 1.) recent grads and 2.) those retired who want to teach.