Having gone through Novell Certification in 1995 and maintained it for 5
years, I have finally realized that the only ones who benefit from
certification are the course providers, testing agencies, and vendors.
Every software upgrade requires new courses and tests. If I got
certified on all my abilities (MS, Lotus Notes, Cisco, Linux, Novell,
Solaris, etc.) I would spend all my money on a home lab, software,
hardware and tests. My time would not be focused on anything productive,
just the tests.
If I were an employer, my concern would not be whether someone could
churn out an answer for a test, but whether a candidate had the skills to
perform the role for which he was hired. Many times the correct answer
on a test, is not applicable to the real world.
If I had to choose between a person with 3 years experience and someone
with 1 year experience or less with a certification, I would choose the
experience every time.
Training is important, but certification has become an industry unto
itself and really unnecessary. Last March I was developing for RedHat
6.2, and just this week, RedHat released 7.2. Think of all the training
and test sittings they now need to sell.
". . . and everybody else are just cattle - MOO!"
-Fisher Stevens as "the plague" in Hackers-
On 24 Oct 2001, at 15:50, Ronan Herron wrote:
> I'm wondering how Linux Certification measures up in the opinion of the list
> members. Why? ,...well I just sat and passed the first exam on the road to
> LPIC certification (wa-heeey!), yet when I pick up Industry Journals,
> increasingly I see Red Hat Certification touted as the de facto Linux
> certification. And while I'm at it, I'm an ex-contractor looking for a
> job(hopefully with an Linux-using, Open Source- inclined Company, tall order
> perhaps?), hence LPIC 101 exam, if anyone has any suggestion feel free to
> mail me
>> RonanH
>> --
> Irish Linux Users' Group Social Events: social at linux.ie>http://www.linux.ie/mailman/listinfo/social for (un)subscription information.
> List maintainer: listmaster at linux.ie
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