CompTIA Reneges, Reconsiders on Lifetime Certifications

garg0yle writes "Recently, it was reported that IT certification house CompTIA had changed their A+, Network+, and Security+ certifications — rather than being 'for life,' there would now be a recertification requirement through continuing-education credits (and an accompanying fee). Needless to say, this made a lot of people very unhappy, and today it was announced that CompTIA has reversed their decision. Basically, any certification obtained before 2011 will still be 'for life.'" Ars notes the coincidence that CompTIA contacted them about the change of heart an hour after Ars's story about CompTIA's initial switcheroo went live.

Re:CompTIA

[TheRealFixer]

CompTIA certs only impress people who don't know anything, and are helpful to get you through the HR screening by pasting it on your resume.

That accurately describes most college IT degrees, actually.

Experience

[SirBigSpur]

I have always considered experience more important than CompTIA certs. Not to take away from the ability to get these certifications but I found the 3 years of IT experience in internships I had accumulated before graduating with my BS in CIS to be a more valuable asset.

Re:My 1337 386 skillz are still valid!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just pulled out my A+ card dated 4/7/98.
Still valid.
And yes the test I took was on DOS/Win 3.1.

(In 1998 they still didn't have the Windows 95 test available).

Re:CompTIA

[L3370]

possibly because they were looking for someone that can lend extra hand, not necessarily someone with experience?

Decent salary or not, I'd venture the say you were one of the more economical candidates too. People with years of experience demand to be compensated for that experience, whether they deserve it or not.

Re:Non-renewing certs are worthless

[jollyreaper]

While I agree, the Comptia certs are typically looked on as entry level certifications. They're a starting board before moving down more useful certification tracks, the best of which do require continuing education. Turning the Comptia certs into a renewing structure seems rather silly. Who would bother renewing them in the midst of the constant cycle of the more advanced certification. Let's look at the initial move by Comptia for what it really is... a grab for money. Comptia should leave the A + Net+ and Sec + alone and push advanced follow up tracks that DO require renewal and continuing education. It'd be a lot easier to earn professional respect for newer specialized certs meeting those conditions than to change the community view (whether good or bad) of the + certs. After all, "certifications" are more often about perspective and appearance than actual education.

More importantly, skills that aren't used don't just rust, they rot. Even if you pass your Microsoft exams, if you're not doing it every day you'll simply forget things.

This is one of the reasons why I think certs don't quite work the way industry wants them to -- you can get the cert and it doesn't mean you know what you're doing and it doesn't mean you retain anything a few years later. But doing like Cisco and making you retake the same frickin' exam after your previous cert expires is not the right answer. I find the exams arbitrary and stupid right from the start. The studying part is useful but the exams themselves, ugh. You can study out of Microsoft's own books and be blindsided on the exams.

Re:CompTIA

[jank1887]

As an engineering major, I'll assume that I fit in to the exception to your 'most' qualifier.