Choosing a Computer Certification

Choosing the right certification is essential to your IT career success.

Tutorial

Getting certified is one way to get ahead in your career. There are several certification options you can focus on, each one with its pros and cons.

Vendor or Vendor Neutral?

The first decision to make is whether or not you want to get a certification from a specific vendor or whether a vendor neutral certification is right for you. A specific vendor certification ties you in to their products, though in some situations this isn't bad - think Microsoft or Cisco. When a vendor has such a significant market share and their technology is desired, being certified on their platform isn't too bad. The problem may be the chances their technology will become obsolete, all those certified Novell engineers have probably moved on to other platforms and areas of IT.

Matching Certification to My Experience

If you are starting out in the IT field, you may want to focus on the CompTIA certifications. CompTIA is a non-profit industry association which provides several vendor neutral certifications. The most popular are the A+ certification, Server+, Network+, Linux+, and Security+. These certifications will help you demonstrate your knowledge, though some of them are very easy to become "paper certified" in - certified without the hands on knowledge of the concepts.

If you are further along in your career, you may want to look at other certifications like Microsoft's MCSE or Red Hat's RHCE. These vendor specific certifications will help you demonstrate your knowledge of the Windows Server platform or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Resistance to Certification

You will find some IT managers who do not believe in certification. They saw too many "paper MCSEs" over the years - certified individuals who could not perform basic tasks - and became jaded to the process. Microsoft has answered these issues by increasing the difficulty level of its exams. Other vendors, like Red Hat, include live problems where you are required to solve an issue on a real system and network. These changes have helped improve the quality of certified individuals over the years.

As an IT manager, I always looked on certification highly - it is one component of a package of skills we are looking for. If I had two candidates which were otherwise equal, I would hire a certified individual over a non-certified one. Since real environments are always so specialized, you cannot expect anyone to come in and immediately know everything, so certification just gives some individuals a better understanding of the technology and shows they have commitment to the IT field.

Choosing the Right Certification

We recommend you review ExamPractice.com, one of the sites in That Network, to help select the right certification for you. Once you have selected one, review practice materials on ExamPractice and Learnthat.com to practice for your exams.