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Old 7th January 2009
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by qmemo View Post
what's worth to own what's not from a "salary" point of view!
It fundamentally depends upon your career goals.

IMO, certifications are more important when seeking a new position where past experience doesn't show the specific experiences employers are wanting, ie. if I was seeking a job in the networking field & I didn't have anything on my resume indicating relevant experience, then having a related certification might help land the job.

I have also seen that the further away managers are from a specific field, the more likely they are to be pacified by seeing third-party validation of skills & knowledge. In other words, if I was looking for a database contract with a local insurance broker, since they would most likely have little domain knowledge related to databases, they may be more reassured that I could complete whatever they needed if I could show that I had a related certification.

Yet, your question fundamentally asks if getting a certification directly translates into commanding more money. Although the certification industry would like to market their products in such a way, I personally believe that finding a job and/or career is much more complex than saying that just because I have a certification, I will definitely make more money than the next guy who doesn't.

What is more important is possessing the necessary knowledge & experience. Yes, certifications can help on these fronts, but they are not a guarantee.

Having said that, the reputation of the various Cisco & Red Hat certifications are generally good. They apparently have been doing a good job in verifying that certificate holders have relevant knowledge.

Last edited by ocicat; 7th January 2009 at 09:34 PM.
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