The Hidden Benefit of Computer Certification

by Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933

The web is covered with stories regarding the benefits of professional computer certification, and most of them are backed up with salary surveys and the like. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with making more money and having better job prospects, there’s one benefit of certification that many candidates forget about.

Confidence.

You can’t pay your rent with confidence; you can’t pay for gas with confidence; you can’t pay for ANYTHING with confidence, right? So who cares, right?

Wrong. The confidence you build from truly earning a certification, whether it’s an MCSE, CCNA, or CCIE, cannot be purchased, borrowed, or stolen. It has to be earned.

What do I mean by truly earned? First, I’m referring to those little documents out there generally referred to as braindumps. If you buy one of these things and happen to skate by a certification exam, did you learn anything? No. Did you learn anything? No. Are you going to be effective on the job? No. As I tell my students, when you’re standing in front of a server or router that isn’t working, and all eyes are on you to troubleshoot the problem, the correct answer is not B. There is no multiple choice.

Secondly, I’m referring to the hope that the certification you earn was earned by taking a demanding exam.

Now, you’re probably thinking okay, Chris has lost his mind. I should HOPE the test is demanding?

Yes, you should. There’s nothing more useless than earning a certification that’s easy to get. There’s no feeling of pride, of achievement; furthermore, if everyone else has that certification, what value does it have?

I can speak from experience on this one. Those of you relatively new to the field may never have used NT 4.0, but the MCSE NT 4.0 was the certification that ended up causing a lot of damage to the value of professional certifications. EVERYBODY had one. The tests were repetitive and far too simple, there were no simulation questions, and the exams required no real hands-on experience.

As a result, my MCSE NT 4.0 had little value. I also felt no sense of pride in achieving it.

Thankfully, exam vendors and authors seem to have learned their lesson. Cisco exams are not easy to pass, and the initial Cisco certification, the CCNA, demands hands-on knowledge and experience. Microsoft is (finally) adding simulator questions to their certification exams as well, and the MCSE exams have gotten tougher as well.

So if you should happen to fail an exam along the way to the top and almost all of us do just keep in mind that if the exams were not demanding, they would have no value.

After all, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it!

About The Author

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage. The Bryant Advantage sells the world’s most comprehensive CCNA Study Guide in PDF format for only $15 and is the ONLY company specializing in CCNA and CCNP rack rentals, allowing candidates for these certifications to gain vital hands-on experience with full racks of Cisco routers and switches with labs and prices designed just for them. Lots of FREE CCNA and CCNP tutorials and articles, too! Visit his site at www.thebryantadvantage.com today!

Turn About on Certification

by Richard Lowe

On October 11th I was reading my email as usual when I opened one which stated something so unbelievable that I had to read it three times. I will admit the news was nothing compared to the events going on in the rest of the world (the September 11th terrorist attack and aftermath). However, it was very welcome nonetheless.

Microsoft has changed their policy on retiring certifications.

If you will remember, Microsoft had announced that the Windows NT 4.0 certifications were being retired on December 31st, 2001. This meant that everyone who had slaved for months or even years to pass their exams had to rush to take the new exams for the newest operating system (Windows 2000).

Needless to say, this announcement caused quite a stir in much of the computer industry. There were hundreds of thousands of MCSEs, and all of them were effected by this decision. What made it even worse was the fact that most of us were not even upgrading to Windows 2000 anytime in the near future. Thus, we had to get certified yet we didn’t really need to get certified to do our jobs.

There were quite a few annoucements. The two regarding MCSE’s state exactly what I had suggested in a previous article “Microsoft’s W2K MCSE Policy”, so I was very happy indeed.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Microsoft/W2KMCSEcertification.htm

…on Windows NT 4.0, which designates the related certification as based on Windows NT 4.0. This designation applies to the following certifications: MCP, MCSE, MCSE+I, MCP+I, and MCP+Site Building. Thus, this MCSE would formally be called “MCSE on Windows NT 4.0.”

…on Microsoft Windows 2000, which designates the related certification as based on Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, or Windows Server .NET. This designation applies to the following certifications: MCP, MCSE, MCSA, and MCDBA (except for the latter, it’s called “MCDBA on SQL Server 2000″ instead). Here, this MCSE would formally be called “MCSE on Microsoft Windows 2000.”

The bottom line is simple. Those of us who have the MCSE certification do not need to worry about losing it. It also makes things much easier for me as an employer – now I will be able to look at a certification and get a little more information. Instead of just finding out someone is an expert on Microsoft operating systems, I will now find out exactly which operating system.

Microsoft also added a new certification, called MCSA, or Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator. This certification is great news, as it provides something between MCP and MCSE. Why is this necessary? The MCSE for Windows 2000 is a very tough exam and it might take someone (especially those of us who work for a living) quite some time to get it done.

The MCSA certification requires three core exams and one elective. The certification is actually very well designed, and should serve as a useful guide for employers.

Why the change? Well, I think there are a number of reasons. The biggest reason? The terrorist attack and its effect on the economy. My peers and I have seen, in just a month, our budgets disappear, especially for things like upgrades and certifications. My boss put it very well to me last week, “if you have the choice between upgrading and laying people off, what are you going to do?” The answer is obvious. At my company, we have
postponed upgrading until next year at least, which means we do not need to get certified.

Another big reason is that MCSEs have jobs, and I don’t know about you, but I have trouble finding time to take the classes and tests to continue certification. It’s hard enough just to keep the wife happy, write some articles, and maintain the job. So the certification, testing and learning will wait.

On top of that, Microsoft has been very unsuccessful in trying to force the computer industry to upgrade to Windows 2000 and beyond. Yes, my company did install Windows 2000 on all of our laptops, but we’ve found Windows NT 4.0 works very well on our other servers and workstations. We have no intention or need to upgrade our hundreds of systems for the next several years, unless there is a valid business reason.

Even more importantly, even though we may upgrade our systems to Windows 2000, we have no intention of installing Active Directory anytime soon. Why not? This is a huge change, and we simply don’t want to support it at this time.

Finally, the industry backlash on Microsoft has been huge, and the power of 400,000+ MCSE’s and their supervisors should not be underestimated.

Personally, I am happy that Microsoft has made this change. Now I can concentrate on important issues like polishing our disaster site, upgrading our security measures, ensuring our backups work properly, and making our systems work better for our users.

About the Author

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at www.internet-tips.net – Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

Certification for Freelancers and Home-Based Business Owners

by Sean Dunagan When we think of technical certification, most of us think of the seemingly endless jumble of letters that follow the names of information technology experts: MCSE, MCSA, A+, CCNA, etc. These certifications serve as standardized, objective validations that the person holding them possesses a certain set of skills and a certain level [...]

Read the full article →

Ten Great Careers for Computer Geeks

by Max Stein The universal acceptance of computers into our daily lives, both at work and at home, has decreased the image of computer users as being geeks. The word geek itself has evolved a bit – going from meaning a socially inept person who gets along better with computers than people, to someone who [...]

Read the full article →

IT Skills and Certification

by Danny Taylor With the ever increasingly changing IT workplace, many IT managers are looking for more than certification from their prospective and current employees. However, we may not all like it, but it’s a sad fact that in today’s IT market, certification is still essential. Professionals with years of experience are failing to get [...]

Read the full article →

Five Questions to Ask a Computer Training School Before Signing Up

by Chris Bryant As with any field, there are good technical training schools, and bad ones. When you sign up with one of these schools, you’ve made a significant investment in time and money. You deserve to know everything about the school and your job prospects after leaving that school before you put down your [...]

Read the full article →

9 Ways to Get an MCSE or CNE Without Wasting $5000+

by Richard Stooker 1. Buy good certification books. Yes, I know how thick they are – the tests do cover that much material, so what can you do? A teacher is not going to talk that much without wearing out their throat, so in the final analysis you are going to spend a lot of [...]

Read the full article →

5 Top Certification Mistakes To Avoid

by Jide Awe In the Information Technology (IT) industry, certification has become a globally recognized tool for professional development. Globally there is a huge need for qualified IT specialists. This has resulted in a mad or is it gold rush into certification. Certification is now a buzzword in IT. Unfortunately, many who go through the [...]

Read the full article →

MCSE 70-290 Certification Primer

by Geetu Ahuja Microsoft certifications are one of the most widely acclaimed, pursued, and achieved technical certifications in the IT industry. The demand for Microsoft Certified Professionals in the job market is increasing every year. Microsoft offers a number of certification levels depending on specific areas of proficiency and nature of job. Some of the [...]

Read the full article →

Why Get a Microsoft MCSE Certification?

by John Gall In the years of the dot com boom and bust, the Microsoft MCSE Certification has gotten its eye blackened over an over. Paper Microsoft MCSEs who were excellent at finding brain dumps and passing exams gave the Microsoft MCSE Certification a bad name. What used to be a guarantee of a nice [...]

Read the full article →