I'm currently debating whether to spend the time and money to get more certifications. I currently have an A+ cert, but I'm thinking about Net+ and some version of a Linux cert, and possibly others later on.

However, perusing Slashdot and other sites it appears as though many people, both people looking for jobs and people doing the hiring, seem to think certs are relatively worthless. About the only common idea is that certs offer a sort of base-line expected level of knowledge. Experience speaks louder than having a certificate (which is kind of a no brainer).

However, the glut of MSCE "paper-certs" (people who passed using a brain dump site rather than actually having the knowledge) has lowered the desire of looking for people with certs. AAMOF, several people have mentioned that they either don't put their certifications on resumes or put them on the bottom to emphasize their experience.

Does anyone have an opinion, one way or the other? If you like certs, which certificates do you recommend getting?

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A couple of months later, what have you decided?

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I'm not going to worry about certifications. I'm not planning on being in a field that requires certs when I get out of the Navy, e.g. databases or networking, so I can't really see the justification to spend the time and money on it. Even if the Navy will reimburse me for the tests, they aren't really applicable.

Programmers don't have any certifications that I've found, except for Java. I'd rather spend my time making programs to develop my programming skills and get some experience.

There's also the problem that, except for CompTIA, most certifications require you to renew it every few years. Most opinions I've read indicate that this is just to keep the money rolling in rather than actually making you a better tech. Unless you have a job that requires you to have a certain level of certification, it's not worth the time to do it.

All things being equal, a certification may make the difference when it comes to a job offer. But practical experience means more than a piece of paper for many companies; if you have the paper but don't know how to put your knowledge to practice, you're effectively worthless to the company.

On the other hand, I'm also actively considering becoming a college professor or a similar computer tech instructor position and many of the places I've looked at want experience. Certifications aren't mentioned at all; obviously they could help but practical experience counts for much more. Being able to relate to people and discuss technical terms on whatever level is required is much better than having a list of certs, especially since most instructors are required to have a broad range of knowledge. I feel my degrees and real-life knowledge mean a lot more than a couple of certifications.

On a final note, anecdotes on Slashdot indicate that many companies don't seem to care for certifications because of the glut of "paper knowledge", i.e. people who learned how to pass the test via brain-dump sites but have never actually done any real-world work in the subject. The MSCE is a prime example of this; the money for having one isn't nearly as much as it once was because so many people got certified in the 90s.

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Just to add something else, most companies nowadays want to see people with management skills. The technical knowledge is assumed (or can be learned relatively easily) but being able to move out of the engineering mind-set and think in business terms is what's desired.

Often, tech people just don't have the management or people skills to move out of the tech field. However, many companies want to move the techies into management positions because they can make business decisions based on technical information. That's one thing my boss always mentions: she doesn't have the technical knowledge anymore and has to rely on us "little people" to explain how the tech stuff works. Being able to understand the tech stuff and use the knowledge to make business decisions is a very valuable skill that few people apparently have.

My boss said that if I got a job as a government civilian, she would expect me to be hired at the GS-13 or 14 level (equivalent to an Army Lt. Colonel or Navy Commander rank). She bases this strictly on my ability to understand a broad range of technical items yet I can talk to both our programmers and tech people and "unskilled" management on whatever level is required. Apparently there just aren't that many people she's dealt with who can do that; most of the people are either strictly engineers who can't keep the technical "mumbo-jumbo" out of a conversation or they're managers who can make business decisions but don't actually understand they technology they're in charge of.

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