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Will Being Certified Guarantee You a Job
In this economy one job sees many resumes. To compete, your resume has to be outstanding against the others. What makes a resume outstanding is experience, but if experience is something that you don't have much of what can you do? The most logical strategy is computer certifications. If you don't have experience than certifications are the next best thing to being there. But a certification is not going to guarantee you a job. Remember, companies that profit from certifications will often tell you anything that you want to hear to get your money. I've received letters from people that have spent thousands of dollars on certifications and haven't landed job one. Not only has this been disappointing and discouraging, but most borrowed the money and are now paying it back at a high interest rate, and after 2 years, still don't have a job. Why, because a certification alone is worthless. 

I met a man in the certification section of the book store that was looking at MCSE cert books wondering which would be the best one to start first. I ask him why he wanted to get certified and he explained that after 20 years as an accountant he lost his job and was in a free program by the government that gave free classes to become Microsoft Certified? Within minutes he explained that by getting an MCSE he would be able to obtain a new job making the same or more money. I didn't want to say anything discouraging but the chances are very unlikely that he'll do that. If you are a person that is computer obsessive, eager and dedicated enough to eat, breath and sleep computers your percentages are high enough that you will find the job you want in even a slow job market. If you think that just by getting an MCSE jobs will find you, than you made a very disparate decision and either spend your savings or borrowed a lot of money and wasted it at a certification boot camp or junior college that lied to you.  Still, there is a chance that after all of what I just said ,you might be one of the lucky few that get a job with only a certification as experience. But quite frankly, if you had that kind of luck you would have never lost your job in the first place. 

However, I do feel that percentages change dramatically if: you're under 35, very smart and understand that you are starting at the bottom and are expected to learn a lot more than the flash card answers you remembered to pass the tests. These are the only people being hired and that are keeping their jobs. So, if all you have are certifications and want to have a career in computers I suggest that you set up a mock network in your home and reinstall the Network operating system about a 100 times and learn to create accounts add users until you can do it with your eyes closed. Once you are able to do that, you'll have experience.

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TriProduct

Temporary Picture of JoeWhy I'm going to get my MCSE
by Joe Ritchey

I first thought about getting the MCSE back in May of 2001. At that time I decide against getting certified mainly because Microsoft had retired the NT certification. I was not ready to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on a certification that Microsoft would probably retire in a year. At this point Microsoft was offering the MCSE for Windows 2000 and Whistler (now Windows .NET server) was due to be released soon. Add to that the fact that most companies with established networks are running NT or Linux and are not about to go through hassle of upgrading or changing to Windows 2000.

    Then Microsoft reversed it's decision to retire the NT certification. This changed things for me considerable. Now I was more confident that I would not be wasting my time and money on a certification that would be worthless in a couple of months. Also by this I had a chance to become more familiar with Windows 2000, and I realized that Windows 2000 isn't that much different then Windows NT. For the most part Windows 2000 just add GUI interfaces to the same old NT tools. Windows 2000 even has some of the same security flaws as NT, (actually more; 74). Now it has come down to what will an MCSE do for my career. Microsoft will tell you that the MCSE will increase your worth as an IT professional, getting you more respect. Certifications do have their place, but in today market IT managers are looking for experience and are weary of certs, especially MCSE's. But an MCSE added to experience will command a significant salary increase and I find that very attractive. From my experience, respect is gained more from your skills and actions rather then a framed piece of paper on your wall. But respect doesn't pay the bills, and anything that increase my salary by the amount the MCSE does is worth putting my time into.

Why Re-certify?
By Doug Chick

Microsoft is making a lot of people angry with its announcement that it will retire the NT 4.0 MCSE exams on Dec. 31, 2000 and the NT 4.0 MCSE itself on Dec. 31, 2001. How much is a lot of people? Currently, there are 231,190 MCSEs in the world and 457,602 MCPs. And, although not all of them are angry at Microsoft's decision to retire the NT 4.0 MCSE, many of them are, especially those who recently made the significant investment of money and time it requires to become an MCSE. Microsoft justifies its decision to retire the certificate by saying that the replacement certification will strengthen the value of the MCSE. What's wrong with this? For a start, not every company is going to adopt Windows 2000 right away, and the rate of adoption might even be slowed down by alienated and angry MCSEs who have little desire to adopt the new product. When the NT 4.0 MCSE retires, there will still be a large install base of NT 4.0. NT 4.0 skills will still be in demand and, contrary to Microsoft's intent, the value of the retired NT 4.0 MCSE might rise.

If Microsoft is going to retire my NT 4 MCSE to make way for a bigger and better product, then it shouldn't be able to collect fees off the licenses anymore either. Clearly, Microsoft has proven (or at least Federal Prosecutors have) time and time again that it has no clear concept of what the ramifications are from biting the hands that feed it. Network Administrators, Managers and IS Directors are the decision makers behind the purchase of what software is going in their server rooms. This is how NT Server became popular in the first place. It wasn't that long ago that Network Admins were fed up with Novell's attitude and turned to the NT Operating system as an alterative to Netware. In fact, the main premise behind getting an MCSE instead of a CNE (Netware's server certification) was that there were too many paper CNEs. The same claim is now being used on the MCSE certification.

Of course, there's always the prospect of just renewing to Windows 2000 and giving up this "futile" battle that we can't possibly win, to which I say--No way! I spent too much time and money getting the MSCE 4, and I have no intention of getting re-certified until there are more Windows 2000 servers than NT 4 servers in existence.
The market should be the one that drives the retirement of certifications, not the Microsoft marketing department! There are a lot of companies that jumped on the old certification bandwagon and profited big, and yes, it didn't hurt our careers either. The popularity of the MCSE certification has been a virtual CASH COW for some companies, and it doesn't take a Harvard graduate to see that the only way these companies can ever recapture that gold mine is to start the entire process all over again. But re-certification costs certainly won't be at their expense.

There is undoubtedly a computer network administrator in virtually every computer-equipped company around the world. There are not tens of thousands, but millions of us. We are the server market: we should have a say about MCSE certification issues! I've received messages from MCSEs stating that Microsoft didn't even have the courtesy to respond to their e-mail. Why are we being ignored when we hold our companies' purchase orders?

In reality, once a certification retires, no one's going to remove it from his or her resume. If anything, a retired certification has age on it, and that adds value to it. I don't hate Microsoft; I don't even dislike Windows 2000. I think it's a great program...but I object to Microsoft using me and my MCSE to help boost sales. I think that Microsoft's argument is that retiring the old and bringing in the new certification will somehow make an MCSE more valuable. My question is: how valuable can a Windows 2000 server certification be if no one pursues it?

I'm not suggesting that all MCSEs and MCPs boycott the purchase of Windows 2000 until Microsoft re-thinks its position on retiring the NT 4 certification. (Or at least I think I'm not.) My position, and the positions of many others that have e-mailed me from a previous article on the same subject, is just how willing are we to replace or add a server to our server rooms with a software package that was responsible for ending our very expensive and very hard to obtain certifications? About as willing as all those CNEs out there who didn't replace Netware with NT--and there are still enough of them to keep Novell in business. There is also the matter of last year's push to upgrade from NT 3.51 to 4 because of the so-called Y2K scare (what a joke!). There are few companies likely to justify the expense of yet another upgrade. So my question to Microsoft is, who's your daddy? Who buys your software-- your stockholders, or thousands of upset NT 4 MCSEs and MCPs?

Doug Chick
Director of Information Systems
Retiring MCSE, MCP, CCNA
doug@dougchick.com
You may also read this same article at http://studyguides.cramsession.com/articles/features/000602.asp
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 Come on, Microsoft; Who's your Daddy? 

I don't know, perhaps I'm still a little bitter, but if you've read the Microsoft Press release Microsoft Enhances its Certification Program to Address Market Needs like I have, it might sound like Microsoft is throwing its dogs a bone.  (Or one million Dogs.)  I don't think that Microsoft reversed their decision to retire the NT4 MCSE because of a warm fussy feeling that suddenly sprang up in the middle of their chests, I believe that they came to the realization that although their stockholders do purchase stock, it's the network administrator that buy's product. So it must have been nothing more than a clear case of Microsoft remembering who there daddy is. Come on, Microsoft; Who's your Daddy? We're your Daddy! 

Yes, there are many of us, (including myself,) that are smiling like village idiots on dung cart race day, about Microsoft reversing it's decision to not retire NT 4 certifications. I'm not excited because I can still call myself an MCSE, I can't. The IIS 3 test retired a long time ago so I'm MCSE retired. I'm excited because Microsoft realized that they couldn't disregard us as they thought that could. And lets be honest; when MS announced the retirement of all the NT4 certs, how many people started installing Linux and vowed never to buy another MS product again…it was just me, wasn't it? I don't think so. I'm must have received 2000 e-mails from people telling me that they're going to start using Linux like they've been threatening to do for years anyways. Why, because it is the only tool of retaliation that we have. In fact, I love Window 2000, but I refused to use it.  

We are too large a force to be dictated too, even by Microsoft. (If not for them, many of us wouldn't even be in the computer industry.) But I feel, like many others, that they crossed the line and bit the hand that fed them. So, is everything back to normal? Anyone that's ever been married knows the answer to that. Are we using Microsoft because we have to, or because we have no other choice? I suppose for me it's because it's what I'm the most familiar with. I'm going to give Microsoft another chance, but for the moment I at least don't have to like it.

Doug Chick
MCSE, CCNA. 
Network Administrator

How valuable are paper MCSE's?  

  I'm beginning to see the term Paper MCSE everywhere I look on the Internet and I don't like it. The term is being used by many to devalue MCSE's with little or no experience, and I don't know why. Like many other catch phrases you've got to wonder what motivates such verbiage. I remember a few years back when the term paper network administrator was attached to the CNE certification to sell the MCSE, but this is a different IT market today and I don't think it's going to be as easy to fail to recognize that Tiger MCSE' s (Paper Tigers / Paper MCSE's) play a vital roll in staffing an IS department.

As a Director of Information Systems, when I look to fill a position in my department, I of course, first look for experience, or more precisely, Product Knowledge Experience. For example, if I need someone to manage and maintain a group of NT Servers, I look for someone with product knowledge in NT Server. (Or if the OS were Netware I'd look for someone with product knowledge in Netware.) This seems simple enough, but as any network manager or IS director will tell you, it's just not that simple. Finding experienced computer professionals in today's market is very difficult and the ones you do find will cost you money. You either have to steal them away from another company, find one that is discontent, or you settle for one that has plenty of experience but has a personality issue (i.e. complains all the time and can't get along with anyone.). Or you just can't find anyone at all. So, what do you do if you can't find experienced people to fill the job? (Experienced people being, those with product knowledge.) The next best thing is someone with a certification. A certification at the bare minimum represents someone with enough product knowledge to pass the test and was enthusiastic enough to learn. To me this is the best hire because you've let the person know that you are giving him/her a chance and that you expect him/her to take advantage of this by learning and working as hard as he/she can until up to speed.

How many people graduate with a degree in computer science that have any experience? I do know of a few, but were they are mostly programmers. If you look at what the universities are teaching in terms of network management and product knowledge, you still have someone that needs to be trained to maintain your unique company needs. And after a year of training you have a computer network trained, computer science major with an MCSE or product knowledge experience that just doubled his or her income, and the question isn't, are they going to look for another job, the question is just how long do you have before you have to make a counter -offer or start all over again. This is something with which an IS Director in the real world has to deal every day. In any IS department; everyone is on some sort of learning curve learning some new technology. It's said that, every IS Department turns over every fifteen months or so, from the entry-level people learning networking basics to the senior network engineer teaching him or herself how to use advanced networking devices. It is part of your job to learn. Like a POW in those old World War II flicks, it is your duty to escape-It is your duty to learn as much as you can so you can find a higher paying better position. The more acronyms that you can put on your resume, the more money you can make. I always say: to get a really good job in computer industry you need enough acronyms to satisfy a popular children's soup. A friend of mine that worked at Microsoft told me that when interviewing a potential candidate it is more important to test that person's ability to learn rather than what he/she knows right now, because what he/she knows right now might be obsolete in six months. So the value of a so-called paper MCSE is: Where else in any other industry can you draw from a pool of people that have the enthusiasm and energy to learn what has to be the most uninteresting, mind grueling information and quickly make themselves available for hire? I don't know of any, and I also don't know why Tiger MCSE's are getting so much criticism.

I read an article on the Internet where a network manager is quoted as saying that he would rather hire two people at 12.00 dollars an hour and train them, than overpay a paper MCSE. It's been in my experience that anytime you hire cheap and then train, once you've trained them they have product knowledge and now they can triple their income by simply finding another job. The jobs are out there, too. Clearly, that network manager must have a large turnover. Yep, that's the way it works in real life. Not only do I know what I'm talking about, but I have been the trainee, the trainer, the network manager, and the MCSE with and without experience. Don' t let anyone convince you otherwise. In this rapidly growing industry there are never too many MCSE's, paper or otherwise. When you can't find enough people to fill a position, some product knowledge looks a lot better than none at all.