CompTIA Reneges, Reconsiders on Lifetime Certifications 245
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.
CompTIA (Score:5, Insightful)
CompTIA certs are the community college diplomas of the IT certification industry. Who cares, unless you're going for an internship or level-1 helpdesk position?
Re:CompTIA (Score:5, Interesting)
After I took it I found out that an NT guy with zero Linux experience passed it simply by studying for it.
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.
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That accurately describes most college IT degrees, actually.
Re:CompTIA (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
That accurately describes most college degrees, most of the time they are necessary to get past HR screening, but tell you nothing about the qualifications of the individual in question.
Re:CompTIA (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
That accurately describes most college degrees, most of the time they are necessary to get past HR screening, but tell you nothing about the qualifications of the individual in question.
College is about having goals, meeting deadlines, and dealing well (i.e. obediently) with authority figures, your willingness to allow them to determine the use of your time, your ability to follow their detailed instructions, and your willingness to be a cog in a large institution. Those are the qualifications employers find desirable. They likely know that in this industry, a degree does not necessarily indicate skill or ability and that many of the most skilled developers and technicians never went to college. What they do know is that it demonstrates you are willing and able to jump through hoops of the sort that they find useful.
Re:CompTIA (Score:5, Insightful)
This is such horseshit. I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational. It's like the whole "mentor/student" concept has a been a hideous gaffe for what, 4000 years?
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You are only partially right and the GP post is indeed very insightful. For most people, myself included, there were always the few very enticing intellectual "carrots" to offset the very many "sticks" in the academic environment. For every exciting subject, where I had a lot of fun and where I could indeed participate in a mentor/student dynamics with excellent professors, there were at least 5 "jump-through-the-hoops-and-keep-your-mouth-shut", compulsory, no opt-out, (and frankly utterly pointless) subjec
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Re:CompTIA (Score:5, Interesting)
This is such horseshit. I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational. It's like the whole "mentor/student" concept has a been a hideous gaffe for what, 4000 years?
My university experience matches yours. My work experience matches the GP.
Re:CompTIA (Score:4, Interesting)
Without altering its meaning, this can be rephrased as, "my perspective is different from yours, therefore yours is horseshit." How nice, you've elected yourself the arbiter of validity on a matter of opinion.
I'm fond of the way Samuel Clemens summed it up: "I never allowed my schooling to interfere with my education." If you are able to pursue knowledge and understanding for its own sake, on your own when no one is looking, because it enriches your life, you have found a much purer guiding principle than appeasing a professor, making a grade, or obtaining a job. If you cannot do these things or cannot do them effectively outside of an institution and hierarchical authority structure, then what sort of student are you? If you can and are doing these things on your own and take personal responsibility for your own education, knowing that no one has your interests at heart quite like you do, then the only thing left to prove to any employer is that you are not too much of a wolf, that you can also play the sheep who can follow orders.
A decent mentor will teach you what he knows and will probably enjoy feeling like someone is dependent on their guidance. It's a common way of feeling self-important. A great mentor will show you that you are capable of teaching yourself and will equip you to be your own mentor.
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College (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational.
Oh boy, I'll tell you exactly the type. It's the person who fucks up and attends a yokel school on full scholarship instead of signing away his soul borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to the ivy league, due to his family members being complete horses' asses unable to engage in any type of long-range planning whatsoever and unwilling to contribute to any kind of worthwhile education.
It's the person who spends every class surrounded by jocks and precious minorities with the IQ's of eggplants, i
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This is such horseshit. I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational.
Basically anyone who dislikes fluff. I have no need for further math, science, or English, I've had that for 13 years in school. I just want the skills I need for IT. I don't need a stupid philosophy class.
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You could easily replace "College" with "The Army" in your description. But i don't think ex-Army guys with 4 years in are expected to be picked up as a techie making 50k US$. HR will still ask, what is your Degree in? oh, no degree, do you have x many years of experience? "Yeah, i'm a good shot"
There has to be something else employers want with college graduates than what you listed.
My take on University life (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me relate my university experience. I'm not 100% sure about US tertiary education terminology, maybe a Danish university is what you call College?
College is about having goals
Yes. My goals. Learning (about) Computer Science in order to become a better programmer. Getting straight A's on my exams. Learning the material.
meeting deadlines
Or asking kindly and slightly embarrassed for an extension, sometimes. You know, negotiate with the people who are dependent on your work (either for grading it or for linking with your code). Or, sometimes, ye
Re:CompTIA (Score:4, Informative)
As an engineering major, I'll assume that I fit in to the exception to your 'most' qualifier.
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Re:CompTIA (Score:5, Insightful)
In pursuit of my engineering degree, I learned useful things I would not have "discovered" on my own. I understand how things work under the hood. I also learned finance and communication skills.
A diploma from a real college means something.
(oh and I got to build robots!)
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last i checked, Engineering wasn't considered IT.
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last i checked, Engineering wasn't considered IT.
Well, most people can't tell the difference between EE, CS/Soft. Engineering or IT Computing. We are all IT, the "tech guys" you know?
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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.
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Re:CompTIA (Score:5, Funny)
And what good is an MBA?
You avoid standing with the Liberal Arts undegrads in the unemployment line, i.e. you get your own special Hell.
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You avoid standing with the Liberal Arts undegrads in the unemployment line, i.e. you get your own special Hell.
You mean Dante made one [wikipedia.org] especially for MBAs? Sounds okay to me!
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They are the guys that are running said companies for the most part.
Re:CompTIA (Score:4, Insightful)
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Really. Try it. You'll learn loads, believe it or not.
Just because you're smart doesn't mean that learning the formal fundamentals in a couple of business oriented areas won't make you smarter.
As for being able to think intelligently, you either are able to or you're not. But, by having a larger pool of stock knowledge you can think intelligently in more areas.
Re:CompTIA (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't you mean accountants & PhDs in Economics?
Maybe you are right, but I don't work in banking. The MBAs I know are mostly small to medium business owners.
re: CompTIA certs. (Worthless?) (Score:3)
I got my A+ a long time ago, because I was out of work and looking for another I.T. job, and figured "Why not? It's not real expensive to get compared to most of the certs. out there, and it's something else to put on my resume to show I'm still trying to keep up with things." As I recall, I was a little surprised it asked so many questions that related to old/obsolete computer systems. (EG. It had questions about which IRQ and I/O address was the default for COM1 and COM2. With anything resembling a "
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And who is checking these things? I've been putting A+ and Network+ on my resume for 10 yrs and no one has ever doubted me and, as far as I know, I've never lost a job because of it. I took the classes and found them to be dreadfully easy "this is ram, it goes in your computer..." or "this is a token ring [wikipedia.org], a form of network that's not often used". So I didn't f
Where's your Evidence? (Score:2, Funny)
What company do you recommend? Personally, I've found CompTIA certs a useful part of my portfolio of credentials. Not the only part, of course, but worth the money. I've heard people complain that all certifications are worthless, or some are, but I've never seen any evidence. Where's your evidence? Or is this less about evidence and more about polishing your knob?
Re:Where's your Evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Certifications which mean something tend to vary by specialization. Cisco certifications mean something if you work in networking. GIAC or ISC2 certifications mean something if you work in security.
CompTIA certifications don't command respect anywhere, except maybe to differentiate yourself from the other entry-level candidates with no experience. After your first job, mentioning your CompTIA cert is like talking about where you went to middle school. Who cares?
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So, what? Leave them off entirely? It's been, oh, seven years since I last took a CompTIA cert. I feel old now. I've got five of the damn things, and a pile more other certs since then, so do you really recommend not mentioning them at all?
And, dare I ask again, what are you basing this on? Not to be a dick, but without some kind of evidence, it sounds like you are playing little dominance heirarchy games, "look at me! I'm so much better than CompTIA certs, if you have them, what a loser!" So, seriously, b
Re:Nice Ad hom (Score:4, Insightful)
Which just about proves my point in it's entirety.
"not to be a dick..."
TY
I always get a laugh at how crazy and defensive you get when you're obviously and irrefutably wrong and shown so,like you were here.
He does have a point man. You are insulting his skills by calling his "computer G.E.D" and by ridiculing his justified defensiveness.
He is still not shown to be wrong in any manner that could be construed as obvious or irrefutable. His question remains unanswered: where is the evidence? I personally and professionally do not think CompTIA certs are necessarily a joke, nor that people who possess them have no significant skills whatsoever.
I have a B.S. in Computer Science, pursued a MS up to my thesis, and currently pursuing a MS in Comp.Eng. I have 15 years of software development experience, both on the commercial and defense sectors, ranging from SysAdmin to programmer to soft. engineer, from developing back-end e-commerce sites to implementations of network protocols to grad research. That certainly gives me a proven insight when assessing the value proposition of certain types of certificates.
Is one CompTia cert a joke? Depends on the individual. Likewise I can say based on professional experience that a B.S. degree (or even a M.S. degree) can be a joke at the hands of a mediocre individual.
On the other hand, when you meet a technician that has been working on the field for years and has a stack of certs like the ones some e-start wannabes like to laugh at, chances are that person knows his shit inside out (as opposed to many compsci dilettantes who have no clue how little they know.)
If there is objective and measurable evidence that indeed we can unequivocally generalize and dismiss people with these type of certs (read "objective and measurable evidence" not feel-good dick-waging), then let's hear it. On another note, I do not see what the problem is with certs having an expiration date. In a technology field, certs should be hold for re-examination and renewal (or they should be versioned like the java certs.)
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I've tangled with him before, but I'd rather be momentarily irritated by someone than risk shutting them out completely. That's also why I browse at -1. You never know what kinds of jewels you might find in a festering pile of crap.
That number no longer in service (Score:2)
LOL, really now. That's pathetic. 'You have reached a number that is disconnected or no longer in service.' Give it a try, go ahead. Anyone? Anyone? No, as I thought, only the pathological liar ifwm is still here. Just you and me, buddy.
Still, I'm impressed. You managed to unbore me for about 10 seconds.
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Evidence is mostly anecdotal, but I bet you could find enough to justify an opinion that certs are worthless on the job; they're only helpful to get the interview.
Thanks to braindumps people can just memorize the questions so you'll have MCSEs wondering why DHCP isn't working and they forgot to authorize the server.
Only certs that mean anything are the ones that give you a practical situation and other people grading you, like the CCIEs.
Re:Where's your Evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I don't give a great God damn how useful my certs are on my job. I already know I can do my job. I don't need a cert to prove that to myself. I thought the whole point of certs was to help get a foot in the door.
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I thought the whole point of certs was to help get a foot in the door.
Except people use their certs as an excuse for their idiocy. I've dealt with these people. "I'm an MCSE! I know what I'm doing!" and they clearly don't.
So if you know your job more power to you. You're one of the few.
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The point of a cert is the certify (prove) that you completely understand the identified topic. BTW you sound really angry about these cert things. If they helped you then great. But most people look at it not from the "getting a job" perspective but an educational one. Some people want something to use them as a bullet on a resume', some people want to tackle/master a given subject. If you don't care about your resume' then obviously a lot of these certs would look useless and a waste of time/money.
Reading comprehension: you fail it (Score:2)
Let me explain it, for those who have gone 'full retard.' I said, "I've found CompTIA certs a useful part of my portfolio of credentials" meaning, I have found those credentials helpful in getting my foot in the door. Chirst on a fucking pogo stick, some people are dumb.
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First you say
"I've found CompTIA certs a useful part of my portfolio of credentials"
then you say
"Well, I don't give a great God damn how useful my certs are on my job"
Of course, that bit of mental contortionism makes perfect sense to you, but you also think CompTIA certs aren't worthless...
He's saying the later as he's been pushed by people who insult his credentials for no valid reason (by many who post and nit-pick anonymously without providing any evidence of their own credentials.)
As of yet, all the quasi-evidence some posters present here regarding the uselessness of these certs are just mixtures of e-insults combined with personal anecdotes of running into mediocre people.
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Thanks to braindumps people can just memorize the questions so you'll have MCSEs wondering why DHCP isn't working and they forgot to authorize the server.
Thanks, man. I've been fighting with this DHCP issue for, like, three weeks now.
Pathetic ifwm sockpuppet (Score:2)
Wow. First comment, huh, ifwm sockpuppet? http://slashdot.org/~Durks [slashdot.org]
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You bore me.
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God damn, man, are you that desperate for attention? Let it go already, you're only hurting yourself at this point.
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Somebody on the internet is obviously WRONG and this fight cannot end until you two determine who it is!
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To some extent, yes, but I think the A+ is a nice little course....or at least it was a decade or so ago when I took it.
Learning about the history of processors and such is good. You get to start with primitive 8086 (possibly earlier...I don't remember) level chips and see how and why they progressed to the levels that they are today. A lot of people I know who are "Computer Technicians" or "Network Admins" are sorely deficient in their knowledge of what is going on with hardware, what a bus is, what the
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For a career endorsement? Well I suppose it's nice that it would only take up two characters on a resume- though I'm pretty sure I don't have it listed on mine.
They probably ought to decertify me, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
I got my A+ about a decade ago. Tech bubble burst and I couldn't get a job doing A+ work around here. Then I didn't own a computer for a few years and I haven't done anything with Windows in years at this point. They probably ought to de-certify me, quite frankly. On the other hand, I'm not applying for any A+ jobs anymore, so I suppose the question, in my case, is moot.
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but the key is that you could. with lifetime certs, I'd hope any employer would ask for certificate and date earned. that would indicate something if there was no intervening work, training, or schooling related to the cert.
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The very concept of a lifetime certification is lame. I used to be something of an expert on Unix system administration — there's even a widely book on the subject that acknowledges me as a source. But that was almost 30 years ago, I haven't kept up with the topic (especially networking), and even newbie Linux geeks know more about it than I do.
If I applied for a Unix or Linux sysadmin job, they'd ask me a few key questions and then laugh me out of the office. Any smart employer (which is, admittedly
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For most certs, I would agree, but the A+ is a joke. Actually, that's not fair; the A+ is a capability exam, like if you can pass the A+ then I'd be willing to interview you for an IT position as help desk or something else entry-level. Passing the A+ shows that you have the ability and the willingness to learn things about tech. I'd still expect you to have the skills that I put in the ad for the position, but personal experience and practice may be perfectly suitable.
More advanced positions, on the other
Non-renewing certs are worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
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No one other than an intern gets hired off of a simple certification.
The general progression is that you get a cert and find work in the field. Then, you have two sections on your resume; certifications and experience.
If someone has a CCNA and 4 years working on switches and routers, why should he go back and take the CCNA again? Just so he can verify he knows RIP or CIDR? Two or three simple questions can determine that at interview time.
The people who work in IT generally stay up on current tech better
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IT isn't like Ancient Literature.
I dunno. Have you ever taken a peek at some JCL or COBOL card decks?
Sanskrit, Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform programmers are still around.
I haven't seen an SNA critter around these parts in a long time, though.
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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 answ
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You didn't put a question mark at the end, and didn't treat it like a real question, when you were slamming certs, but I'll answer anyway:
Consultants.
I got my MCSE and CCNA and CCDA before ever taking a Comptia test. But I worked for a consulting company, and they needed people that could work on the state's stuff. You had to have A+ to touch a workstation owned by the state. Period. Same with Networ
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Regardless of renewal requirements for a cert, I think most careers have a point where interviewers no longer give a crap about entry level certs or degrees, although there may be more advanced ones that apply to a particular track. If a potential employer insisted that I have an A+ to interview for a job with my current experience, I'd buy myself a nice lunch with the $100+ that I saved on skipping the test and laugh all the way to the next interview. :)
Renewing would be hard (Score:2, Insightful)
that would be so much bullshit (Score:3, Funny)
Certs already have a natural shelf life. Stuff like A+ and Security+ get you in the industry's door. Microsoft certs naturally expire as new products come out. You don't have to say MCSE NT is expired, employers will ask you for your MCSE 2008. And of course you'll try to explain to them that there's no MCSE anymore, it's an MCITP and they'll say "Yeah, well you go and get your MCSE 2008 and get back to us."
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Agreed, with one small caveat:
I haven't had to bother with any sort of Microsoft certification since I got (courtesy of a way-previous employer) the Windows 2000 MCSE knocked-out... in 2001. I still have an ancient Exchange 5.5 MCP loafing around in my file cabinet at home, though I just finished building an enterprise-grade Exchange 2007 infrastructure from scratch. When it comes to *nix? I usually just ask them for a sandboxed shell prompt and/or ask them where their test is so I can get it out of the way
In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
They have taken this policy change and turned it into an advertisement.
"If you act THIS YEAR, your certification will be good FOR LIFE! Act NOW!"
They can imply that certifications earned this year will have more value than certifications earned after 1 Jan 2011, because the ones earned this year never expire. Neither cert will be worth bupkus a year after it's granted, but one that never expires probably feels more valuable than one that does, even if the actual knowledge really does expire.
wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Experience (Score:2, Informative)
My 1337 386 skillz are still valid! (Score:5, Funny)
(not really, Im lame cause I never got my A+, just a job as a sysadmin)
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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).
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And that's just stupid. The last job I got where I had access to those who applied for it, there were over 100 applications (I suspect that the job I have now was created for me personally and they interviewed one and only one person, but I'm not sure). If you are in there with claims of experience and no certs to back up your abilities, they'll push you to the sid
The new meaning of "Lifetime Certification" (Score:3, Funny)
It used to be that CompTIA's cert never needed renewal.
Then someone realized that a "lifetime" technology certification is as valuable as 25-year-old bread, CompTIA changed to say you'd need re-certification periodically.
But, of course, that didn't fly with the armies of A+ drones who paid good money for their "lifetime" certification.
CompTIA's new position is, once again, the A+ is good for "lifetime". However, they're sticking to the position that technology moves too fast for an old cert to be still good.
The compromise position? Once enough time and progress has elapsed since your cert was issued, CompTIA's elite certification ninja team assassinates you. Your cert was, therefore, good for your "lifetime".
Microsoft had this same problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Being a Windows systems guy, I've kept my Microsoft certifications current over the years. (Say what you will...it gets you past the first resume filter if you ever find yourself in need of a job.) Back when the NT 4.0 certifications were rolling over into the Win2K versions, Microsoft introduced the concept of an expiring cert. Personally, I think part of this was due to the fact that Microsoft significantly increased the difficulty level of the Win2K exams to reduce piracy and try to revalue the credential.
People who had the NT 4.0 certifications freaked, saying that Microsoft had no right to invalidate their credentials. Microsoft reversed the decision, and made the certifications last as long as support for the product did. They still stop offering exams for new people, but people who have the cert keep it.
Does this matter? In my mind, no way. I can think of only one place NT 4.0 skills might be valuable today, and it involves embedded systems with no typical Windows user interface. (The New York subway system uses NT 4 for their fare collection machines.) Most places aren't using it for the general file-and-print server work that the certification was aimed at.
I think it's just the perception of value. Even in 2010, there are a lot of people paying certification mills...I mean, training schools...many thousands of dollars for certification classes so they can "break into the lucrative field of IT." Community colleges regularly integrate the A+, Microsoft and Cisco cert classes into their degree programs. Some of those thousands of dollars are still being paid for long after the cert is achieved. People just don't want to feel they're holding worthless paper. In reality though, things change way too fast to declare that someone is "certified for life" on PC hardware. I find that if I take a couple months to focus on some piece of software, I turn around and hardware platforms have completely changed while I wasn't looking. Imagine an A+ cert holder from 1995 put in front of a quad-core machine with SAS drives, a huge video card that's basically a mini-computer, and other interfaces that didn't even exist in 1995.
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I think it's just the perception of value. Even in 2010, there are a lot of people paying certification mills...I mean, training schools...many thousands of dollars for certification classes so they can "break into the lucrative field of IT." Community colleges regularly integrate the A+, Microsoft and Cisco cert classes into their degree programs. Some of those thousands of dollars are still being paid for long after the cert is achieved. People just don't want to feel they're holding worthless paper. In reality though, things change way too fast to declare that someone is "certified for life" on PC hardware. I find that if I take a couple months to focus on some piece of software, I turn around and hardware platforms have completely changed while I wasn't looking. Imagine an A+ cert holder from 1995 put in front of a quad-core machine with SAS drives, a huge video card that's basically a mini-computer, and other interfaces that didn't even exist in 1995.
A doctor takes continuing education credits to keep up with the field but this doesn't mean his undergraduate degree expires. For anyone doing IT, the A+ knowledge will be kept current by being in the field. And for specific newer tech, there are certs to get up to speed on that. The VMware stuff is getting really hot right now, for example. A previous employer paid for A+. The class itself was a very thorough review of the PC from soup to nuts. It would help bring a young amateur up to speed in the field.
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Without continuing education their board certification will be revoked and they will no longer be licensed to practice on anything living. So while the undergrad degree may go away, its rather worthless in general when you tell someone you used to be a doctor but you didn't bother keeping up with modern medicine so you can't do anything anymore.
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Which is why, at the end of the day, for a lot of IT topics, the only reasonable measure of competency is experience. I have no certifications, but I've put together heterogeneous networks of Windows and *nix boxes over LANs and VPNs, built iptables routers, swapped out damned near everything right down to the motherboard, pulled paper jammed into places in printers that one wouldn't think it possible to even get paper into, programmed in various languages, and am now into the wondrous world of virtualizat
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I can think of only one place NT 4.0 skills might be valuable today
Come work in the NHS, where many trusts still run NT4 domains and Exchange 5.5...I really, really wish I was joking.
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You have GOT to explain how you came to this conclusion ...
A+ (Score:2, Interesting)
Most certificates are self-expiring (Score:2)
I'm a CNE.
A+, Net+, Security+ (Score:2)
I work as a contractor for a defense agency. Part of the requirements to work here include getting an A+ and/or Network+ and a Security+ cert. If I get deeper in this, I'll have to get a CISSP. Just more hoops to jump through to keep my job.
Yeah, and so? (Score:2)
OK, I'm retired now and my job as an IBM FE, did require me to have certain certs as part of my job, but (IMHO) the single most useless and easy to get cert was the A+.
The certification industry is just a big kick back (Score:2)
The certification industry is just a big kick back to m$ and others most of questions have little to do the real world and some of the M$ seem to live in a world of there own software being free and the kinds of setups they have cost to much for many places to have.
Im sick of comp sci asshats telling me a+ is crap (Score:2)
Just because you have a computer science degree doesnt mean you know how to fix a computer. Memorization is not glamorous but a technician who knows his s--t by heart
is a better tech than someone who is winging it. When I went to get my current job, yes having an a+ certification distinguished me from the warm bodies
that were applying for the job. An a+ cert is the difference between $7.50 an hour working as a stock boy vs $12-15 an hour + benefits working as a full time tech.
No the a+ is not for 100k job a
CompTIA Almost Became Irrelevant! (Score:2)
My CompTIA Certification Story
I got my CompTIA A+ [comptia.org] certification working as a repair technician in Computer City (defunct now) in 1999. Their two tests were pretty good at determining if you had basic skills to be junior computer repair technician. Their test was valued by employers who wanted some kind of a basic measure of people who did not have a college diploma or a vocational certification from DeVry to determine if they should even bother interviewing you for basic computer support jobs in repair or
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I hate to break it to you, but both are irrelevant to anyone with a clue, which includes almost everyone outside of HR and upper/ignorant management.
Re:wow ... (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to jump through far more arbitrary hoops for a degree, even a measly four year. That's what employers want to see. Not particular skills, but arbitrary hoop-jumping ability.
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You have to jump through far more arbitrary hoops for a degree..
And at some universities they even light those hoops on fire!
Getting certification is more like a single hoop that is large and very close to the ground. Many people can just side step through it with little or no difficulty.
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Who are you and why are you talking all sane-like? We don't take kindly to your type 'round here, stranger...
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I bought mine online, not really hard anymore.
No one bothers to check to see if they are legit at most companies so as long as you find a school that does 'online education' and isn't the university of phoenix, you can just buy one with a little cash and a few hours a semester to blow through the crap they give you.
The only people that care are HR, because they are too stupid to realize their litmus test has been worthless for 10 years or so. Which ironically, they also seem to be the most worthless people
Re:wow ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It takes longer and costs more.
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Explain to me how getting a degree is any different?
You don't have to blow an obscene amount of money and years of your life just to get the same entry-level job?
Eventually, even certs are fairly worthless. They'll prove you had a verifiable start, but I'm very sure that my old MCP in Exchange 5.5 wasn't what my current employer was looking at when they hired me on.
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The most useful part of getting a degree isn't so much the course itself, but the skills and knowledge that you pick up around the course, the interactions with other students and lecturers and, of course, the parties.
While I rarely use any of my degree course material (BEng Computer Systems) in my job (Sysadmin), I do use a lot of the stuff I learned while at Uni.
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Yes, but they do need to show they have a degree from an ABET certified college in order to design vehicle engines, aeroplanes, pacemakers, or power plants.
Thankfully not everyone desires to work for the geek squad after completing a 4-year degree.
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Those people should move to places were it is cheaper. The US education system is just a nice way to keep the poor poor and the rich rich.
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Desktop level work is done by highschool grads, you know the helpdesk folks.
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Not that long ago, but I went to a pretty serious college. Even undergrad IT labs were an 80-100 hour a week commitment. On the other hand I know of plenty of folks who attended other colleges and cannot even use wireshark or diagram a packet or know how netmasks work. Also many of them seem to get 0 programming experience. I had C, C++ and java classes, plus unix scripting courses.