John, And I promised myself I wouldn't get drawn into the perennial debate, but here it goes.
Perhaps I am not getting my principal point across, but I do not wish to devalue or overrate any piece of paper. The fact is that you cannot rate a person based on some "benchmark," unless you are a "(del monte fruit) processing" unit like a large Fortune Company 500 HR shop. The idea is that of being fair, on judging matters and people on a case by case basis, and not treat them like chiquita bananas for the packing. As an independent consultant working on term contracts, I have been turned down offers due to the competitor having the "degree," (CS degree) but I have been called back to clean my competitor's trash of a job. One had a CS degree specializing in mainframe analysis, but apparently he had no idea how to do an upgrade on a Windows domain; and the customers paid for it twice. With due respect to those who genuinely eanred their degrees (as well as those who genuinely earned their certs), the holder of the degree can also be - as is a good percentage of the time - someone who failed calculus 5 times, took between 3-4 years to "earn" his AA (going full time), stumbled through chem with a d- in his junior year, got through the basic requirements by only fullfilling the most basic requirements, jumbled through class in a disorganized and semi-conscious state, skipped the majority of lectures, paid for most of his english and sociology term papers, and then earned his "degree." He then was dumped into a company only to be discovered to be the moron that he is. I had a coworker that fit precisely this profile. He went further and got himself an MCSE, and his "study method" was that of going to the test at the minimum required increments between failures, repeatedly. In other words, he took the workstation 4.0 test 6 times until he remembered all the questions. He then skimmed by and got 10 points higher than the minimum, and VOILA!, a certified "degree holder," the "ideal package" with the "soft and hard skills" blah blah. College apparently did not give him the "soft skills" that you mention! Should we go ahead and propagate myths on "good ole' frat boys or sorority chicks" who got the "degree" through thrashing the system? Hey, there are "papers BSs as well, load of them, pushing paper, badly, all over the labor market. Lynch 'em!" Moreover, a degree and the knowledge it gives gets OUTDATED as the market shifts (as was the case with the competing consultant above), and thus the supplement - if one must measure the person with a piece of paper or "lapel pin," can only be the vendor cert. Some of the smarter recruiters and HR people that I have dealt with were FULLY aware and alert about this. They were SPECIFICALLY looking for those who had updated their vendor certs, but they mistrusted that criterion enough to throw in a hefty tech interview as well. I thank God at this point that I have the energy to avoid the two-dimensional sorts of HR departments and work independently. The hypocrisy involved, the lack of professional integrity one has to deal with when working in a half-wit "HR screened" department causes for too many brain cells to slough off. Aging should be a natural and timely process. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of John A. Kilpatrick Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 12:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Prolonged Batchlers Vs. CCNP ? [7:69483] On 5/24/03 6:53 PM, in article [EMAIL PROTECTED], ""Jack Nalbandian"" wrote: > My opinion on the matter remains the same: a bachelors is > functionally overrated by the typical manager. It depends on what you think the degree says. It doesn't say "I know the Cisco CLI like the back of my hand." But to me it does say that the person knows how to follow things through, has to have some fundamental planning and time management skills, and knows how to approach problems in a creative way. The majority of certifications out there don't really focus on problem solving - and I don't mean just troubleshooting. I remember a friend of mine who was reading the Cisco BGP book and asked me about the BGP FSM. He could figure it out, but had never seen a FSM or digraph before. It's a small example, but I had a couple of classes that went in to graphing theory and wow, it was used in real life. > The CCNP or other forms of > certification ARE known to the IT managers from my experience, but the > reason that they are waning in influence is precisely due to the "paper > whatever" myth that is being perpetuated, by of all people, techies! All myths have a foundation in reality. There are PLENTY of paper CCNPs and MCSEs. The CCNA is pretty much an all paper certification. I've met a bunch of them. A 1 or 2 week "academy" and then a few tests isn't the same thing as 4 years of study. To me if I was choosing between someone with just a cert and just a BS, same experience, then I'd pick the BS. > The point is that you do not have to knock down one in order to praise the > other. Certifications, especially those earned by individuals due to actual > need for knowledge in their career, should also be rewarded with > acknowlegement. And they are. You can put CCNP, MCSE+I and a whole bunch of alphabet soup on your resume and business cards. And many managers and HR departments like to see them, just as they like to see a BS. Most would like to see you have both of them. > I repeat, it aids in the > perpetuation of a myth that "all certs are earned through braindump > memorization." It is certainly not the case for a good many in the field. Yes, but it is the case for enough folks that it has started to cheapen the certs, just as grade inflation has damaged many universities. (For example, Stanford may be more prestigious than Berkeley, but at Stanford you can drop a class up to the day of the final. At Berkeley the deadline is 2 weeks. And the median grades at Berkeley are much lower. So I'd give more value to a degree from there.) This sort of thinking is why I've decided to skip the CCNP and just work on the CCIE. As long as Cisco keeps it insanely difficult with the lab exam being the majority of the work required it will be valuable. -- John A. Kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] Email| http://www.hypergeek.net/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Text pages| ICQ: 19147504 remember: no obstacles/only challenges Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=69905&t=69483 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
