Re: Contract Rates & CISSP or not

[Crispin Cowan <crispin () wirex com>]

Drew - Home wrote:

> From: "Crispin Cowan" <crispin () wirex com>
>
> > In summary, I still look at CISSP's (and other certificates that don't 
> > start with "Bachelor's" or similar) as a negative mark, which I'm 
> > willing to overlook if the other factors are strong. I certainly will 
> > not pay extra for it.
> I don't necessarily disagree with you on this, but I feel that a different 
> perspective is in order.  Personally, I got my CISSP because it often 
> allows a higher billable rate for my employer, and for some less 
> cluefull clients, gives a feeling of confidence.  I did not get the CISSP
> to prove my competence to my peers or myself, and I do not make
> a big deal about having a CISSP.
I agree with that. Someone else said it here quite well: CISSP is a 
great qualifier for non-technical management to use in choosing an 
employee or a consultant.

>  But to say that having one makes 
> me (or anyone) somehow less attractive... well, I've heard the same
> about Ph.Ds  :)
Granted :-)  Flippancy asside, it is actually true: there are jobs that 
you should not hire a PhD for. If a candidate has a PhD, you know not 
only that they've gone through a particular educational process, but 
also that they have a personality that inclines them to go through such 
a process. It is truly said that a PhD is clinical evidence of 
obsessive-compuslive disorder :-)

> Anyone who makes a judgment, pro or con, based entirely on the 
> presence or absence of a certification is patently narrow minded.
> People should be assessed based on their merits and the totality 
> of their experience, not on some letters.
Also granted. But there are limits to the depth of investigation that 
can be invested in a candidate. At the resume' stage, the employer has 
little more than some acronyms and some heavily abstracted stories to go 
on, so you use what you've got. For some positions, CISSP and PhD are 
assets, and for others they are not.

Crispin

--
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html


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