To certify, or not to certify; that is the question

On the first day of my classes I usually ask if there are any students that are taking the training to prepare for a certification exam and in a lot of the cases I get a rousing chorus of ‘maybes’ or ‘I don’t knows’. Now I am not going to say that certification is going to get you a 5 figure raise or a great job just because you passed your first Microsoft exam, but there are some real advantages to getting that certification when you get the chance.

First off, if you haven’t noticed, the job market is pretty tight right now (at least here in Ohio) so you need to have something that sets you apart from all of the other applicants for that same position. If you have that certificate that indicates that you have been able apply the best practices of Microsoft or Cisco or any of the other vendors that offer certification exams, then you have something that will at least get you through that first cut with the hiring manager. Let me give you an example, I was talking to a neighbor of mine that happens to be the HR manager at one of the larger local companies and he told me that the first thing that he looks for in an applicant is a recent college degree or certifications in the field for the position that they are trying to fill. The reason that he does this is that he likes his job…if the applicant does not pan out then at least he can say that on paper, the applicant should have been able to do the job (paper certifications are part of a future post).

Getting certified is not just about landing the job, but it can also be about improving what you are already doing. I had one of my old students stop in this week to take a test and while he was waiting for everything to be set up we started talking about what he had been doing (he was a student of mine back in 2001 and at the time did not have a job in IT). During the conversation I asked him if he thought that his training and subsequent certification was in any way helpful in getting him a job in IT and I was crushed to hear his answer of “No”, but I felt a bit better when he continued with, “but it did get me 3 raises in a 15 month period”. As this student passed more exams he was rewarded by his company and given more responsibility on the network. This company also has decided to fund this student’s Cisco training and certification process…they seem to have really seen a benefit to their employees getting training and certification.

Now as not to paint a rose-colored outlook on the whole certification process, there was an article on the Monster.com website that showed that certifications did not help increase the salary of 143 certified IT positions (as a matter of fact they actually declined in some cases) as compared to 127 noncertified skills. This data was from 2006, so take the information with a grain of salt, but the article did go on to say that even though certifications did not always raise your salary, it did help get applicants the jobs in the first place.
So what does this all mean to you as you search for that job in IT, or that big raise? Even though premium that employers are will to pay for certifications may be on the decline in some areas, it is still a good way to set yourself apart from your peers when it comes to getting a job, or maybe even a raise in these very tough times.