[TriLUG] Certifications (was RHCE)

[Marc]

I have let my MCSE and CCNA expire.  I will never pursue another M$
cert again, not just because of my disdain for the 'white collar mob',
but also because the marginal value of pursuing their cert does not
have value for me.  That is, for me to get certified in the latest
(whatever it is) microsoft, I would have to probably spend several
thousand dollars minimum, and I don't think it is recoupable for me;
companies aren't gonna offer me a dime more to have that than to not
have it.

Also the value of a Microsoft certification in the workplace, seems to
be based on other things that have nothing to do with knowledge.  I
think this is because MS technologies lend themselves to quick 'pat'
answers that are vendor-focused, and not scientifically based.  E.g.,
A windows admin doesn't worry about ASCII to EBCDIC character
conversion issues.  If there are any issues with that, I guess you
have to 'apply service packs' or other non-scientific techniques.  I
know a guy who went through a 1 week bootcamp on MS recently, and now
is the main windows monkey at a place where the main criteria is that
 1) you must be off-the-chart extremely extroverted 2)  know how to
harrass and intimidate users all the time, and 3) lie about things
that you don't understand, like the linux filesystem etc.  As a former
police trainee, he already met those criteria for this mainly windows
shop, and was thus a shoe-in for the job.

Oddly enough, I have experience back to NT 4.0, so one would think
that companies would value that, and want to train and develop a
person with new skills and certs, over time, for things that are in
the same continuous 'track', like NT to 2K to server 2003 etc.

I regularly read 'Certification' magazine, because it is free, and
sometimes it actually has stuff worth reading.  They beat this
recertification topic to death.  These days employers want you to be
current with everything and somehow that was paid for by either you or
your previous employer, but never the current one.  These days a
windows OS is like dropping in on a soap opera a couple of weeks
later, I can still understand what is happening, I might just need to
look around a bit to see where they put stuff nowadays with whatever
os it is.

Regardless of who the person is, I always say look at the marginal
returns of getting certified.  Are you going to see real dollars in
doing this?  If so, go for it!  I think this is the best approach for
pretty much anyone.   Also the certs that I have which do not expire
(comptia ones) I have gotten the most value out of, and learned the
most from.  The cert that is the most valuable for me is Certified
Technical Trainer, since I had quite a bit to do for that, and that
stuff stuck with me unlike a lot of other certification content.  Like
someone else said, the CISSP and RHCE are probably really great to
get.  Actually I should qualify that to say that I am not as focused
on Red Hat as I used to be since recent interactions with the company
have led me to question their stability (another conversation).
Regardless, I cannot justify eating the cost of these at this point,
so it is slow going for me.

Marc