Re: Certification or College degrees?

["Stephen Sprunk" <ssprunk () cisco com>]

Thus spake "Stephen Kowalchuk" <skowalchuk () diamonex com>
> Certification in the IT industry has become a nightmare
> because people who are less than clueful have abused it in
> the hiring and compensation processes.

Picture yourself as a job-seeker three years ago.  Every recruiter you call
hangs up on you because you don't have a CCNA.  What's the obvious
conclusion?  CCNA == job.

Try getting an accounting job without being a CPA; it's possible in some
states, but it's not easy.

> And industry certification is the worst of these offenders.
> Cisco, Microsoft and Novell (among others) have effectively
> created long-standing revenue streams out of the ridiculous
> complexity of their products.  Some of that complexity is
> justified, without question.  And some of it is deliberate to
> drive the need for "certified" professionals.

Perhaps Microsoft or Novell has done that, I can't speak to their practices.
Cisco only created its certification programs at the request of customers.

I've also never seen any evidence whatsoever that Cisco intentionally makes
it products difficult to learn or use.  If they end up that way, it's
usually budgetary or time constraints.

>  A vicious cycle -- these "professionals" pay exhorbitant fees
> for 3-day or 5-day drench sessions where they come away
> with 1% retention and must be hired shortly thereafter to
> actually use anything they retained.  Their expectation:  high
> pay rates and a career track.

Seems like they're getting suckered by the training community (not Cisco,
which doesn't do training).

> The smart will get smarter, and the not-so-smart will get the
> shaft.  Either way, the IT industry will milk it til there is no
> money in it, then move on.  The cerificate-holder will be left
> with a lot of paper and marginally less social legitimacy out
> of it.

I think P.T. Barnum had something to say about that.

> (1) the tendency for private companies to create their
> products in ways that bastardize open standards and
> create complex, proprietary systems in order to keep up
> barriers to competition;

What is one person's barrier to competition is another's first-to-market
advantage or value-add.

Standards committees are slow and the results often suck.  If you built a
router that only implemented RFCs in "Standard" status, you'd be about 10
years in the past on features, wouldn't interoperate with anyone on the
market, and probably wouldn't sell a single unit.  Is that the other
vendors' fault?

> If I were a Microsoft bridge builder, I know how to build
> bridges using Microsoft concrete and Microsoft cable, but
> unless it's all the same stuff I cannot apply my bridge-
> building skills to non-Microsoft venues.

It's interesting to note which industries use interchangeable products that
provide uniform functionality vs. which use highly specialized proprietary
systems.  It's also interesting to observe the economic impacts to customers
in each industry type.

If you want uniform products across all vendors, that means you're going to
get the lowest common denominator, and most of the "gotta have" features
your favorite vendor has implemented will go away.  Your entire business
model might evaporate if it's based on one of these non-standard features.

> The narrow scope of industry certification will be its undoing,
> unless one can create industry certifications that exemplify
> industry-wide best practices.

That's the goal of the higher-level Cisco certs.  The lower-level ones are
purely skills-based.

S