After 12 years in the police force, I decided I wanted to make a career change into IT. The only problem was I had no experience to speak of and no qualifications.
I made a plan and put myself on a PC assembly course that had recently been created (it was back in 1999). It was the CompTIA A+ and gave me hands on experience, as well as a great grounding in basic theory for operating systems and networking.
I absolutely loved the course and studied the CompTIA Network+ next. I just bought some books, studied from home, and passed the exam after a few weeks.
I started looking around for help desk type roles and found a company that valued personality over experience, and after two interviews, I was accepted and started work on one of their help desks at Yellow Pages. The rest is a story for another day.
Over the years, I've worked with hundreds of IT people, from basic help desk support up to world class network architects (multiple CCIE exams passed), engineers working on top secret government networks, and IT managers for multinationals.
Many of these people were very well qualified, but some had no certifications at all. This brings me to the point of this post. Do you actually need to pass an IT exam in order to get a job in IT? The short answer is clearly no because there are people doing just that. But let me tell you a story.
My father drove a car for years without having taken his driving test. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, we drove all over the UK on holidays, and he drove to work every day for 30 years and never had an accident. It wasn't until I was a grown man I found out he had never passed his driving test so was driving illegally and without insurance.
He Passed
We made him take his driving test, and of course, he passed with flying colors.
The moral of the story is that you can do a job without the piece of paper but, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. The IT people I've met who have no qualifications are staunch in their defense. They angrily shout to anyone who will listen:
- “I can do the job already”
- “It’s just a piece of paper”
- “There is nothing you can teach me”
I wonder, would they get on a plane if the pilot hadn't passed an exam proving he could fly, even if he was using the above arguments?
You can get a job in IT with no qualifications, but it would almost always be by word-of-mouth recommendation or if you are self employed and the customer doesn't know what an MCSE or CCNA actually is. But what does that say about you and your attitude toward your profession?
For the rest of us, the piece of paper does several things:
- Gets our resume past the HR department
- Gives us valuable knowledge
- Shows that the vendors think our skills are sufficient
- Increases our hands on skills
- Keeps us up-to-date with industry trends
- Exposes us to the latest technologies
- Proves we are motivated to learn
From the point of view of potential employers, employing certified people does the following:
- Gets them discounts from vendors
- Cuts down support calls to the vendors
- Increases prestige of the company
- Improves network performance
- Minimizes outages and issues
Not Just Paper
You see, an IT cert isn't just a piece of paper. It’s actually a statement from the vendor saying that they are satisfied you are capable of doing the job they have tested you on. In the case of the Cisco CCNA, you can do the following:
- Install and troubleshoot small networks
- Create VLANs
- Design a small network using IPv4 or IPv6
- Configure and troubleshoot routing protocols
- Connect the LAN to the WAN
You may have to pass a technical interview to get the job, but if you studied hard for the actual exam, then this should be no problem. It all comes down to your personality and if you are a good fit for the role.
I always say to the people who insist they can do the job without the certificate, “if you are so good, why not turn up and sit the exam?” They put so much effort into explaining why they don’t need to, they might as well just take it. It would be quicker!
For the rest of us, a career in IT means a commitment to continual improvement with a mix of technical and non-technical courses (such as ITIL and project management).
What do you think?
If you are looking to get a break into the IT profession or progress ahead in your career then please check out my ‘Land Your First IT Job‘ course.
Paul Browning
Having a cert got me my first real IT job in London years ago. I now have a wife and hopefully a family in the near future but I’ve hit my earning ceiling so I’ll need to step up my game, ‘level up’ my skills and upgrade my pay packet and the only way to do that in my opinion is by adding certifications and hence adding knowledge, ability and confidence.
I have A+, Net+, Sec+ and CCENT, working on CCNA and MTA currently. Most of the jobs in the area where I live are requiring experience that I don’t have to get a job. They do like having the certs. but the job market is not robust enough yet for entry level or people with modest experience to get hired easily. I have experience in repair and refurbishing desktops and laptops as well as teaching basic repair. I have done no call center work and would not be a preference. I also have some physical limitations that enter into what I could consider.
There have been some jobs I might have submitted a resume to but they are a further drive from where I live making a commute difficult and very time consuming for entry level money. In the meantime I continue to study some and keep and eye on the job market.
While I do see the value in having IT certifications to which I have many vendor certifications,
I have been in the Networking industry for 25 years and re-certified more times than i can remember
and have worked with some great people who were better than CCIE’s, JNCIE ,ECE, ACMX, CSSIP to name but a few and did not have the certifications.
Now the issues we have in the industry is not only with the actual vendor exams being a good money earner for the IT vendors ( like the exam questions being ambiguous multiple choice answers) companies now have raised the bar by now asking for degrees in IT
rather than IT vendor certifications. The reason companies are doing this because they do not want to keep paying for employees to re-certify every two or three years. And also talking to friends in the industry some employers are even making employees re-certify on their own dime, so times are changing.
Here is question for you?
At school you sat your exams and if you passed you have that certificate for life, no re-certs. It should be the same for IT exams,
because companies do send you on expensive IT vendor training courses. Now all they have to do is assess you on the course, like they do for other industries so you are kept up to date with new technologies.
I started in IT nearly 20 years ago without certification but I did have a fair amount of knowledge from curiosity, tearing into how a FAT table works, how a compiled .com works compared to .exe, etc. I knew I did not have a degree or certifications and started at the lowest level and rapidly gained hands on knowledge, leading to more training, then certs.
My take on certs:
Certs are not essential nor is a college degree to enter the IT field. From my experience a degree or cert does not make anyone qualified for an IT job, it is their ability to effectively use the knowledge they have and rapidly acquire knowledge they don’t have, when needed. With that thought I consider an IT degree or certification only entry level qualification, with proven experience you will rapidly progress in your career.
Back to the original question. Having certifications are a valuable resource to determine if an individual should be considered for employment, not qualifying the individual but, and indicator they might be a good employ. Further investigation by the organization is needed before making an offer. The certs or a degree validate you have a base knowledge, your experience will validate the knowledge. If you don’t have the experience, most likely you will have to start at an entry level position, the same as the person without the certs. Certs just speed up the process.
Certifications can’t be ignored.
its something u must have, but more to get past the HR filters.
what is most important, is establishing good relationships with people throughout your career.
You dont have to be a walking library nor have to be the most popular guy on earth, but you have to have the ability to learn an environment and its equipment, and work well with others.
its simple in theory.
working past difficult co-workers/bosses is going to be the biggest challenge at 99% of the places you work.
everything i’ve said, applies to most industries. Whether u are configuring a router or serving a drink at the bar, its the same principles.
I agree with Ray. The job market (at least here in Florida) is by no means “robust enough” in the IT sector. Additionally, most job listings for ANY IT position include/ask for very irrelevant skills. I recently saw a posting for an entry level networking job that required Java and SQL scripting. Company HR and recruiting managers just through in a TON of IT skill as requirements in job listings that have no correlation to the job. I maintain ALL my CompTIA, Microsoft and Cisco certifications because I love the industry and want to be the best I can. IT certifications seem to have little bearing on getting a job because, at the end of it, there is ALWAYS someone with more certifications. So, since we are in a employer favored IT job market, employers get’s to pick from thousands of applicants for 1 job.” He who has the gold makes the rules”
I totally agree that certs are important!!! My company found out that I have been prepping for the CCNA exam, and offered me a new job because of it. It is a short term position for 4-12 mos, and involves Cisco routers & switches, yay! I would never have been offered this position without the existing certifications that I have and the knowledge I have obtained through CCNA study. Of course, having an existing relationship with the company and the client helped, but I would hate to be dependent upon an existing relationship to get a new job.
We are no longer in a world where we get a job for life. Companies close, merge, move, change of focus, etc. and we have to find new employment. And the best way to prove competence is through certifications. It is like the teenager, who recently told me that “he didn’t need to go to college, he already has a good job” (construction). This short-sighted viewpoint from the teenager is the same short-sighted thinking used by IT workers to avoid sitting for exams.
My certs got me into my first enterprise IT job. I had worked at some repair centers and had done plenty of freelancing, but I found out afterward that I was hired based on my certs and my personality. I got my CCNA (with the help of the 60 days program) several years ago at this company and was given a promotion and a substantial raise as a result. I will be up for a promotion within the next 6 months, and one of the prerequisites for that position is another certification. I would say that getting the certs gives you experience, and if you need more to get a job, find a place to see if you can volunteer. Doing free work as a volunteer or intern can often open many doors down the road if you personality and work ethic back up your desire to learn.
I am ccna and ccnp (implementing route) certified along with bachelor’s degree in computer application and still can’t find the relevant job in it industry as they want a programmer well-versed with networking and database knowledge.