In this appendix, we provide information about the hiring likelihood related to various certification programs. Much of this information was elicited from technical recruiters whom we interviewed for a magazine story on the value of certification to recruiters. We also outline recruiters' rankings of certification programs (and the certifications they contain). We even address some of the most common questions we get from readers that have to do with the relative value of experience versus technical certification versus a college education.
Note
You might want to flip back to Chapter 11 and read through the last two sections—”Making It All Make Sense” and “Trends in the Certification Game”—which tie in to topics in this appendix.
Before we share the results of our research with technical recruiters, we feel compelled to explain what technical recruiters really do (in our humble opinion) and when they can be most helpful to job candidates. We mean this exposition to be completely straightforward and honest, so we must apologize in advance if we do the able and excellent technical recruiters in this world any disservice with the observations we've made on their roles in bringing employers together with potential employees.
To begin, it's important to understand that technical recruiters are a lot like real estate agents. That is, the amount of money they earn depends directly on the size of the sale they make. For technical recruiters, the bigger the salary of a person they place with a company, the bigger their payment for making that placement. In most cases, technical recruiters receive a percentage of the placed person's annual salary, which may be as low as 15% to 20% or as high as 50%. For someone earning $100,000 a year, the recruiter makes a lot of money, either way. For someone earning $40,000 a year, the recruiter may make $6,000 to $8,000 or $20,000. It's important to draw some morals from this. Here's a list of points to ponder:
Moral Number 1—. Technical recruiters tend to concentrate on more senior-level positions, typically at and over the $50,000-per-year level.
Moral Number 2—. Technical recruiters do not generally place many entry-level people, nor are they often called to fill entry-level positions.
Moral Number 3—. Expensive, senior talent is worth more to an organization than inexpensive, junior talent. Many companies that think nothing of paying big bucks to fill a key position will balk at spending an additional $10,000 to fill an entry- or junior-level position.
The majority of the readers who have asked us whether they should consult a technical recruiter are entering the IT marketplace for the first time or at a fairly junior level. Each and every time they ask, we have to gently explain the economics of technical recruiting and why it's unlikely that a technical recruiter will be able to help them out.
That's not to say that there's no hope for those on the more junior side of the IT employment spectrum. Just because recruiters—who, like real estate agents, make money off sales (placements) and listings—make more money from more senior people doesn't mean that they're entirely unwilling to help. It just means that they're unlikely to have found you your current job. But it's okay (in fact, it's a good idea) to acquaint yourself with these professionals because both you and they know that the job you're looking for now is unlikely to be the job you keep for life. When you do cross the line between junior and senior positions, your acquaintances in technical recruiting circles might become your new best friends.
Beyond technical recruiters, don't overlook the importance of job posting sites and more automated ways to interact with placement professionals. That's why sites such as www.monster.com, www.dice.com, www.computerwork.com, and www.jobanimal.com have a place in any reasonable job search. However, if you look closely at these sites, you'll see that even they favor intermediate- to senior-level positions simply because of the phobia against handling entry-level jobs that appears pervasive in the recruiting industry.
It's wise to include these job-placement sites as targets for your resumes, but it's not smart to count on any one of them to come through with a job, particularly if you're looking for an entry-level position. Job-placement Web sites do have some other advantages, however: They are often great sources for career advice, resume-writing clinics, job-hunting tips, and other bits of related wisdom. Even if they don't find you a job, they can still be useful sites to visit.
Let's talk next about what I learned from recruiters regarding their attitudes toward certification and how they rank certifications.
When asked about certifications, technical recruiters inevitably say that they're nice to have but that they don't tell the whole story about any candidate. In their follow-ups to this apparently inevitable remark, more than 80% of the recruiters we talked to went on to make the same two remarks:
Given a choice between a certification and job experience, recruiters believe that employers will choose experience every time.
More experience is clearly better than more certifications.
When pushed to the limit, recruiters concede that when two or more candidates have basically the same experience and educational background, employers will tend to prefer individuals who have certifications. However, as soon as you create scenarios for them to ponder where certification is weighed against experience, they go straight for the experience and leave the certifications behind.
Should you, a devoted chaser of IT certifications, be worried about this? We don't think so, simply because you yourself should recognize that when two candidates present themselves and one has a certification and less experience and the other has no certification but significantly more experience, employers will opt for the experienced candidate, as long as that person's experience is germane to the tasks at hand. It's always been that way, in every field, inside and outside IT.
Does this mean that you should forgo certification and get some experience instead? Not necessarily, especially if you want to learn the tools, technologies, concepts, and skills that certification can teach you. Don't forget that although obtaining a certification can't substitute for experience, it does involve learning, demonstrates a certain amount of motivation and follow-through, and shows that you're serious enough about the subject matter to get an official stamp of approval.
Does the relatively greater value of experience mean that certification has no value at all? Absolutely not, especially if you want to work in an environment where the certification sponsor's products, tools, or technologies are in everyday use. Certification is no magic bullet, and it's certainly no guarantee of employment in most cases (although there are some exceptions, as you'll see later in this section), but it does make a difference, especially when you have it and someone else (with similar experience or lack thereof) does not.
When faced with a list of nine popular certification programs, recruiters from 11 recruiting firms rated them in this predictable order:
Cisco
Oracle
Sun Java
Red Hat Linux
LPI Linux
Sair Linux and GNU
Microsoft
Novell
CompTIA
Many recruiters did not know the difference between Linux certifications but tended to rank them as a category above Microsoft, Novell, and CompTIA. We had to eliminate Prosoft CIW from the list because a large majority of recruiters (77%) had never heard of that program.
Before you're tempted to make much of these rankings and reorient your certification priorities, remember Moral Number 1. These rankings clearly reflect which positions make the most money and which are therefore most likely to involve the services of technical recruiters.
In fact, we performed the same exercise with a list of technical certifications that included CCIE, MCSE, MCNE, several Oracle certifications, all Sun Java certifications, RHCE, and the CompTIA certifications, and the results stacked up in exactly the same order: by earnings potential of the positions involved. If earnings makes the difference to you, take heed of these results. However, if the number of available positions, degree of experience required, and effort involved in obtaining the certification make a difference, don't let these rankings sway your inclinations too much.
In this final section of the appendix, we address the two questions we're asked most frequently by readers in one form or another (although we can't claim to represent these questions exactly for all readers, they do capture the most pressing concerns in the reader base):
Is an IT certification worth more than a college degree to employers?
What's more important to employers: an IT certification or experience working with the products?
We tackle these questions in order and share the results of some recent research with you as well as our opinions on these subjects. Before we respond to these questions, we feel compelled to state some of our own biases on these topics so that you'll be able to understand the context in which our answers appear:
We think that IT certifications represent a great way to show interest and initiative in technical subject areas.
We think that ongoing education and study are part of working in the IT profession.
We think that there's a big difference between a general education, such as getting a college degree, and obtaining an IT certification.
Many certifications do not test for real-world skills and abilities, so the value of certification versus experience is often one-sided in favor of experience.
Let's now go on to address the two questions.
The most common variant of this question is, “Should I get my degree or get an IT certification instead?” To a very small extent, the answer to this question is “That depends on the certification.” For extremely high-level and demanding certifications, such as Cisco's CCIE or the high-end consulting certifications from companies such as IBM, the learning and preparation effort required to get the certification is pretty comparable to the learning and effort required to get a college degree. That said, many such certifications expire with time; on the other hand, when you have a college degree, it might go out of date, but the college or university will not take it away from you and tell you to come back to earn another one.
For just about any other kind of IT certification, we believe that a college degree (particularly a bachelor's or a more advanced degree) is worth more to employers than an IT certification. Our research in talking to a group of more than 100 IT employers across a broad spectrum of industries tells us that they think so, too. Again, this doesn't mean that certification has no value; it just puts its relative value against a college degree in perspective for most IT certifications. (Parents everywhere who've paid for college can now heave a huge sigh of relief.)
If you find yourself asking this question and are forced to choose between certification and a college degree, we recommend that you choose the degree (but you could always take it in an IT-related subject to better prepare yourself for your chosen field of effort). Another explanation for the importance of a degree, distilled from our interviews with employers, is that obtaining a degree is as much about demonstrating general learning skills and developing good study habits as it is about mastering any particular subject matter. Especially in technical fields, most experts and educators agree that personal knowledge bases must be refreshed every 5 to 10 years—if not more frequently. Employers look at college degrees and related honors or academic achievements as evidence that an individual can learn new material as needed as well as evidence of knowledge of whatever subject matter the person has studied.
However, even with a degree in computer science or MIS, you might still want to pursue IT certification also. That's why an increasing number of colleges and universities are offering—and in some cases requiring—IT certifications from Novell, Microsoft, Cisco, and so on for the students in such programs. That's because a college degree only demonstrates general familiarity with some subject matter or field of study, whereas most IT certifications are strongly focused on some particular field of study or on some particular vendor's products and technologies.
On the other hand, the majority of certifications either impose recertification or continuing education requirements to make sure certification holders keep their skills and knowledge sharp and current. But once you earn a college degree, it's yours for life—no retraining or retesting is required to keep it. In the final analysis, both a college degree and one or more technical certifications in areas relevant to job activities and performance create the most desirable combination for most employers.
One telltale variant of this question is, “I've got a certification but no experience, and I can't find a job. What should I do?” We'll answer this question along with our discussion of the experience versus certification issue in a bit.
Although this may come as a shock to many individuals who regard certifications as the key to improved employment and a bigger paycheck, every one of the more than 100 employers we talked to, and every one of the 18 or so technical recruiting firms that we interviewed, responded to this question by saying, “We always prefer relevant experience to technical certification.”
However, before you give up hope and decide not to pursue the IT certification you've been considering, let us quickly add some of the important ways that certification does make a difference to both employers and recruiters:
Both audiences (employers and recruiters) that we interviewed agreed that certification matters most for entry-level positions and for junior-level positions in general. The attitude here might be summarized as follows: “If I have to choose between two candidates who have similar backgrounds or degrees, and one is certified and the other is not, I will tend to choose the certified individual.”
For more senior-level positions, experience is much more important to these audiences than is certification. Most of the employers we interviewed said that for positions paying more than $75,000 a year, they are far more interested in a person's track record and their level of direct, hands-on experience and ability in dealing with the tools and technologies they must manage than they are in the certifications that such an individual may or may not hold.
All this said, there is a significant minority (about 25%) of organizations that require IT staff, both junior and senior, to obtain and maintain current technical certifications, not just to enter but also to stay in their jobs. The thinking here appears to be that a current technical certification, on the order of an MCSE, CNE, or CCNP, is evidence that these individuals are current in their fields of expertise and up-to-date on new and emerging technologies.
Finally, for someone who has obtained a technical certification and still can't get a job, let us explain that any experience is good experience. If you look around your community, you'll quickly learn that many churches, charities, school systems, and not-for-profit organizations welcome volunteers, even for IT-related positions and activities. You can probably find one of these organizations in your area that would welcome any kind of help it can get with its IT operations. This is a great way not only to get some valuable experience—and a letter of recommendation to go with it—but also to do some good for your community while improving your employment opportunities and skills at the same time. It's great to help others while at the same time helping yourself!
Another option to consider is an internship at a company as opposed to a salaried position. Internships provide a way for companies and prospective employees to try each other out and for employees to get a taste for what the work is like—albeit at a significantly lower rate of pay than the real thing. When you see that paycheck, just repeat the experience mantra “Any experience is good experience.”
We hope we've addressed your most common concerns and issues about finding a job with your certification. If not, please feel free to email us at [email protected] with your comments, criticisms, or questions. Just don't be surprised if you give us some ideas that show up in the next edition of this book!
