Certification Schmertification!

If I know the information why do I need training?

75-90%of jobs around the globe will require postsecondary education or training.  And if you’re applying for one of them and don’t have it, you will not be hired. A new, forecast by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce[i], forecasts that by 2018, 63% of all jobs will require at least some post-secondary education. This means that some college or professional training after high school is now the norm and in the future will be a requirement for almost every job. In IT, this is even more critical because not all IT jobs require a college degree, especially entry level jobs. But, they do require certifications to prove that you have had this post-secondary training and actually know your stuff.

Are certifications really that important to employers?

The short answer is yes. Especially in Information Technology, certifications prove that you are proficient in a very specific skill and can be a big benefit to employers. For example, companies who hire Cisco Certified Network Administrators (CCNA) receive a discount on hardware and help save money by increasing productivity and lowering costs to an organization. According to the IDC research[ii], each new certification on a team leads to increased productivity and the following benefits:

• Unscheduled downtime was 20% lower in organizations with more certified professionals
• Budgets spent on external support for network management were 20% lower
• Budgets spent on external support for network security were 30% lower

For these reasons employers want to hire candidates with certifications. 91% of hiring managers consider certifications part of the hiring criteria.[iii] 86% of hiring managers indicate IT certifications are a high or medium priority during the candidate evaluation process and 80% verify certifications during the hiring process.[iv]

IT is an industry where technological advances create new jobs and new software and programming languages evolve quickly. If you are hanging on to old technology or skills you will very quickly become outdated and left behind. Most employers want to hire candidates with the latest skills in the specific technology and software they have implemented. They also won’t just take your word for it, they want proof. This means two things: certifications and experience.

Employers want both and they have plenty of candidates to choose from. A study by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), found that a hiring mistake could cost up to five times the bad hire’s annual salary. So why take a chance on hiring someone who isn’t certified? In a survey of 700 IT networking professionals, 60% said certification led to a new job.[v]

Why should I take the test?

Several people have asked me this question—especially people who have found employment and think they no longer have the time to devote to study. Some students have found work while they were in training or soon after taking training but this is a small percentage and no job lasts forever. What happens if you get laid off or when you are looking to advance in your career? Many job seekers put their training classes on their resume but when an employer inevitably asks if you actually earned the certification, you will have to say no and may miss out on a great opportunity.

What good does it do you to look at someone else who got a job without actually taking the test and say, “Well he/she did it, I shouldn’t have to take it either”? Just wishing that completing the class counted as an actual certification doesn’t make it so, and it doesn’t reflect the reality that employers actually want you to have taken the test. Actually completing a certification says two things to an employer: you know the specific information well enough to pass the certification exam and that when you start something you finish it and can be counted on.

I strongly encourage anyone who has taken training to MAKE the time to study and take the exam soon because the longer you wait, the harder the test will be to pass. In three years no employer will care that you took a class three years ago but if you have the certification, it might still be valid. In addition, if your training was paid for by a grant or scholarship, like WIA, you will not get a free ride again so don’t waste it.