Which certification track to adopt? :confused:

[Claude Monet]

Ranchers,
Love to know your perspective based on current economic condition. Ideas/Suggestions most appreciated.
Thanks
[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: Claude Monet ]

[Claude Monet]

Comments?

[Harpreet Singh]

Claude,
I believe that following tracks is feeding certification industry for no reason. I think one should do certifications for one of the two reasons
1. When you want to learn something. Taking a test will help set a goal for yourself.
2. When the cert has become a defacto standard i.e. a stage where nobody cares what you learnt but they want to see the paper. I think SCJP has really come to that stage.
My $0.02
[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: Harpreet Singh ]

[jawa lal]

It looks like IT industry is saturated...We are doing certification without any carrier advantagous. I feel we must start going back to university ....shift from IT...IT industry is no more good for any one...we must do MBA may be.........

[Claude Monet]

Harpreet Singh
I agree with you regarding # 1. However I was looking for list of the "defacto" certifications SCJP2 is just one of them.
jawa lal
I like your approach of college, MBA would be a time consuming (2+ years) goal. How about PMI track?
Going back to the basic question, what would be �the criteria one should qualify� to decide next certification?

:roll:

[Harpreet Singh]

Claude,
In your opinion what are some of the other "must have" certs?
""Going back to the basic question, what would be “the criteria one should qualify” to decide next certification? ""
My criteria is whatever will get me a foothold in a new area.
As for MBA, my take is that market is flooded with MBAs at this point. Domain knowledge courses in addition to software knowledge will be the deal maker in future.

[Claude Monet]

Harpreet
"My criteria is whatever will get me a foothold in a new area."
I like your quote and agree with it. However how do you know what is a foothold in a new area. For example : In J2EE Application Server Area, should we be doing WebLogic 7.0 Certification or IBM 158 WebSphere Certification or IBM 483 or All three?

[Holmes Wong]

Hi, all:
I am also very confused here. One friends of mine has got 12 certs in total, but he still has not been able to land a job after one year. I think he is very capable and smart. If the market is good, he will get a good offer. But what he lacks is "experience". This is why I think taking cert exams is just a way of killing time for me, they only become valuable once the market is calling.
Sad but true.

[Theodore Casser]

Well...
The "next certification" one should take is the one that shows either experience in a given area, or a willingness to learn new skills. A certification in and of itself rarely will land you a job, so taking test after test in hopes of bulking up a thin resume rarely does much to help.
Now, that's not to discourage folks from taking certs while job hunting. Heaven knows that's what I did last year while unemployed for three months - between when I quit my job and landed my new one (which I don't recommend doing at any time, but did because I wasn't being paid), I took my SCWCD, IBM exam 488 (WebSphere AS 4.0, VJ based) and IBM exam 489 (WebSphere 4.0 admin). It wasn't a great solution but it accomplished two major goals: it showed potential employers that I was actually keeping busy while unemployed and I was proving experience with tools and technologies that I'd gathered at my prior job.
The problem with going for the 'latest and greatest' (or just getting 12 certs for the sake of having 12 certs) is that an applicant can look like they're either chasing whatever's hot at a given moment, or are spread too thin knowledge-wise. The best way, imho, to decide what cert track to follow is to figure out which one goes where you want to be in three years and move in that direction, which avoids those two problems.
Just my $0.02.

[Claude Monet]

Theodore
By principle, I agree with your thoughts. They're either chasing whatever's hot at a given moment is not the way to work with these certifications. It has been 2 years since I switched from MS to Java track. Now the .Net track seems promising than old MCSD track.
Three years is long way to plan in such a volatile market. Lot of things could make and break in three years. IHMO having backup plans to mitigate risks related to these makes more sense. Comments?

[SJ Adnams]

Maybe look at certs outside of IT.
Prince 2 gets mentioned a lot (project management)
and if you are in financial sector there are lots of certs too.
Simon