Certification v. Experience

Since I'm interviewing with companies maybe I can shed some light on the subject. So far most of the companies I have talked to know that experience is the priority, you can never have enough. Certifications compliment that experience, they fill in those little things that you may never experience, the basic things and some advanced depending on if you went to a class and how well you were taught or taught yourself. Plus they say that you can read something and apply that to what you are doing. College education, according to the companies, isn't as important as certifications which isn't as important as experience. The MCSE Certification is based on what idealy should happen when you setup an NT server, experience tells you what really happens.

Have fun all and get back to work :-)

tony

Hmmm...looks like a contest of my "d#@k is bigger than yours" Here's the deal - experience is key but if I wasn't in a class to become an MCSE I never would have had the chance to show my experience and get the job I have at one of the bigger software companies in the world. All of you that think one is better than the other can keep your mediocre jobs at CompUSA or Computer Renaissance.

I'll have to go with experience!!! I don't need a damn certification to tell me that I'm good & I am that damn good!

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MiGeL

"If wishes were fishes, then the world would be an ocean."

In my humble opinion It does not matter how much experience or what qualifications you have. You always have your colleagues or resources like this Bulletin Board to help you when needed, everybody needs help now and again.
Nobody knows everything (they can pretend to).
I personally have been working with computers in one way or another for 16 years and it is only down to experience what I know. Currently I have two graduates from Brighton Colledge of Technology doing work experience for there assignment. They are very knowledgeable in all aspects of computing, but find it different in the REAL WORLD when dealing with customers and Business procedures. I sometimes question myself how much I know when I talk to some of the Graduates I meet. I always know I can get any answer to any problem by ASKING someone else or posting a message.
A good place to test your knowledge is at
www.brainbench.com

I'm not asking for you to prove your skills, just use it as an aid for yourself.



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Do you have trouble deciding - Please press Yes or No.

I would just like to say that I am 19 and I am a LAN technician at a large company. I make more money than my parents(both of which have degrees)and all I have is a diploma. My work is paying for me to take my A+ test as well as my CNE, but the fact that I don't have a degree or certification didn't keep me from getting the job because I have had lots of experience.

I would like to add; It is not only what you know, it's who you know.

I look at it this way guys. Get all the experience you can get. Never turn down a challenging job and see it through to the end. Show all your clients and bosses that your "the man" and can get the job done no matter how much of a pain in the *** it is.

Then back up that experience and stubborn dedication to your work with as many certs as you can get.

I agree that experience is the most important thing, but how are potential employers supposed to know how good you really are. After all, if they knew anything about computers, they wouldn't need you....... https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2000/09/1.gif

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:)

WildTech

**I'd rather be lucky than smart!!**

WARNING! If the company you work for relies heavily on the advice of the average MSCE, then you need to go elsewhere...in my experience, the average MSCE is arrogant, inexperienced and unwilling to take word of someone who's been there...give me experience every time (ouch...does that sound a bit bitter?)

Quote:

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Originally posted by CJK:
For those of you who think MCSE's know alot, think again. Experience dictates how much you know. Granted going for your MCSE is a good thing to do and you do learn valuable knowedge, text book knowledge and real world knowledge are two different things. How many of you ran into a problem that was covered in one of your MCSE books? Mostly none. So the books and studying for the track help with BASIC KNOWLEDGE but nothing more, that is why employers want EXPERIENCED people not just those with MCSE's which I've known personally never to get a job in the IT proffesion and end up doing something else because they don't get instant prominence. Just a warning to all you who didn't know this before.

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There is a way out, and you can guys can help.

There are certifications that are actually worth a tinkers dime and I would accept those over most of "certifications" being passed off today. A group of people who call themselves the Electronic Technicians Association have a journeyman program that has been in place and updated since the sixites. To get one of these you have to do three things:

1. Graduate from an ETA certified school
2. Pass an entry level "associate" test.
3. After you gain at least 4 years of experience pass the journeyman test in your specialty.

The tests themselves are much harder than the average certification exam, so getting in is not some walk in the park.

The site is posted on windrivers, just look under the certifications section.

Read, learn, and enjoy!

I sat in on an interview eariler this year for a systems administrator position for a company I was working for, and during the interview, one of the other admins asked the canidate (who was a recent gradute of an MCSE) what and how the windows browser service works and what it does for a windows network. He could not answer the question at all. (which he should have had to know to pass the tests..)

Problem: TOO many schools are accepting just ANYONE that can pass a simple test that ask (uh what is a mouse?, or have you ever used Windows95?)... gimme a break... These tech schools are flooding the market with MCSE's that couldn't tell the differnece between a failed driver, or a failing hard drive if a machine kept crashing all the time.

example: Between jobs a few years ago, I had interviewed with a company in Satellite Beach, FL. The CEO and his best tech interviewed me. They gave me a scenario and asked how I'd solve it. They described a 'mission critical' server that they had built, and it kept crashing once or twice a day (now mind you this is in a county adminstration office). I asked them exactly what hardware was in the machine they had built (mind you this was an NT 4.0 server). After they told me what was in it, I told them first thing I'd do was rip out the IOMEGA ZIP drive and throw it in the ocean! and get a real tape drive to do backups. Needless to say I didn't get the job, but I knew someone that worked there, and after about 3 months, they ended up replacing the server. (everyone in that office needed one of those SIGNS) "I'M STUPID" https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2000/09/1.gif

It's actually very simple. Certifications should be the platform of your knwoledge base. If one has an A+, their real-world experiences should be above and beyond that. Real world knowledge should supercede certifications, but certifications are one of the only ways to test real-world knowledge. The value of certification is being eroded by people studying to meet the standard of a cert, rather than studying to fill in their gaps of knowledge from real-world experience.

In MOST cases certification=experience! Granted, there are some paper MCSE's out there and other certified techs who just had a good study guide, but the certification itself doesn't make you any smarter than you were before you had it, it just certifies that you know it. And while a paper MCSE may not have a lot of real world experience, I (who don't have an MCSE yet) could ramble all day to a big company employer about how much I konw about the same work and I'd probably get blown off, even with the experience under my belt. So which is more important? It depends on who's writing the check!!!

zachwarren: i'm A+ certified and i can tell you exactly what blue boxing, black boxing, wardialing, and phreaking are. https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2000/09/1.gif you get my respect for dating back to the C64 tho, since i only date back to the 8088 (fear XT's).

anyway, on a different note, i don't think A+ is a measure of how much someone knows at all, and the only reason i took it was to get the credential, not because i believed in it. all the job postings i've seen want experience first and foremost, and "A+ is an asset". well, i got the certification, and it didn't get me anywhere. and i don't even know of anyone else my age (19) who has it. the only people i know who go for the certification are adults with minimum wage jobs who take the classes at the local college thinking they're gonna cash in on the "IT revolution". guess what? most of them fail. they lack the applied knowledge to pass the test, and the motivation to rip apart their computers for no good reason and figure out *why* things work the way they do. of the ones that do pass, most are the type who are just really good and passing tests (storing and regurgitating information). we had this one MCSE (Minesweeper Consultant and Solitare Expert) where i used to work who had to get the other tech i worked with to fix his Windows NT problems ALL THE TIME (the other tech wasn't MCSE either).

on another note, those tech schools crack me up. they always show a little video clip of some guy happily and easily inserting some peripheral card into a PC. they need to show the other side of it and have some guy slicing his hand open on a metal case. that's my $0.02.

P.S. Tusi2 hit the nail right on the head!

ihave 4 years experience and have shown engineers a few tricks that raised their eyebrows! ihave even taught packard bells helpline "techies" a lesson!
but not having those pieces of paper makes it hard to get going in this field and im afraid to say thats never gonna change.
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