A certification is one of the most valuable weapons in your job-hunting arsenal. A college degree and some experience -- and maybe a brother-in-law who's the hiring manager -- doesn't hurt either. But companies eager to hire specialists turn to certified candidates, in hopes that those candidates will be able to hit the ground running, and will require no training period. Although a bachelor's degree in computer science is always a plus, it doesn't necessarily prove that you know how to run a Microsoft network. An MCSE does.

The most popular certifications, by far, are those from Microsoft and Cisco, but hundreds of designations are available for every conceivable specialty. For a comprehensive listing of certifications, consult Anne Martinez's book, Get Certified & Get Ahead (McGraw-Hill).

"In IT certification, what you're going to get is some immediate bang for your buck in terms of salary increase," said Amit Yoran, CEO of information security provider Riptech and adjunct professor at George Washington University. However, Yoran still stresses the importance of having a college degree to accompany the certification.

Why certify? Doug Kendzierski, associate vice provost at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), said, "We're in a market in which demand has never outpaced supply by such a tremendous disparity." Certification is a way to prove to a potential employer that you have a specific set of skills, thereby making their hiring decision a little bit easier.

What's the hottest certification?

"Two areas of focus I see as very attractive is any sort of networking-based technologies, and the other is software engineering disciplines," said Yoran. Beyond the most common certifications (Microsoft, Cisco, Novell), though, there are plenty of other designations that may be just as valuable. If you want a career in Linux, get the RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) certification. If you want to cash in on the increasing concern over network security, the SANS GIAC (System Administration, Networking, and Security Global Incident Analysis Center) certificate will show potential employers that you can protect the corporate goodies. To gain even more leverage, combine this vendor-neutral security certification with a vendor-specific one. Almost every firewall-equipment vendor has its own certification program, and a generic security certification combined with a CCSE (Check Point Certified Security Engineer) or a Cisco Security Specialist certificate would make for a quick path to employment.

Of course, the venerable MCSE still carries a lot of weight, perhaps more than ever since Microsoft made the test more scenario-based and less theoretical. The test is definitely more difficult, but that makes it more valuable in the marketplace. According to Mike Smith, senior product marketing manager for IT training and courseware development company Wave Technologies International, "They don't just say, 'Here, answer this question.' Microsoft has case studies, where they say, 'Here's a scenario, read these three pages and answer these seven questions.' They'll give you a diagram of pieces to a network puzzle and say, 'Put this together, tell me where your routers go, where your servers go, where your desktops are going to be and tell me the flow of your cabling.' You're not going to come up with that on your own."

Vendor-specific or vendor-neutral?

"If you take a networking essentials exam, you don't learn networking essentials, you learn Microsoft's view of networking essentials," said Yoran. This is a useful approach if you are going to run a Microsoft network, but according to Yoran, "the academic approach is a much purer one." If you have a vendor-specific certification, you understand a specific piece of proprietary technology, and that is often what employers want. But in the long run, confining yourself to a single vendor-specific certification may limit your advancement options. "You're taking a near-term gain with a long-term detriment," said Yoran.

Combining a vendor-specific certification with a vendor-neutral one will expand your horizons and position your value beyond a specific piece of technology. "Somebody who is just starting out has no choice but to start at a vendor-neutral platform," said Kendzierski, "because what they need is a full survey of technology that is not rooted in a particular product." You should pursue a certification in a specific vendor's technology after you get that theoretical background, either through a vendor-neutral certification or college education.

The cost factor

You can easily spend thousands -- even tens of thousands -- of dollars on a combined training/certification program, although the testing alone usually only costs a couple hundred. The best deal is still http://www.brainbench.com/xml/bb/homepage.xml target=new>Brainbench, a Web-based testing center that offers certificates for just about anything you can think of and is well-known and respected throughout the IT industry. Some tests are still available for free, but most cost $19.95.

ITworld.com

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