Joel Gridley wrote:
> My two bits
> -Employers who base hiring solely on certs are risking hiring junior level
> people who barely got the paper.
agree...
>
> -Employers who do not use certs at all in hiring must commit the IS/IT/MIS
> manager to doing a lot of the initial 'weeding out' processes,
agree...
> which is not at all cost effective.
Really? It's not cost effective to trust a *real* interview where actual
knowledge is probed? I disagree. It is cost effective to hire someone
that has the right skills for the right job.
>
> -Applicants who disregard certification limit themselves to those job
> openings where the employer is not asking for one,
good.
> or where the employer has is techno-savvy enough to understand the
> applicant's abilities.
This is where I'd rather be any day! Do you want you're boss to not
understand
what's going on? (then again, maybe you do)
>
> -Certification is not something that should be "all or nothing".
But that's the way they're used.
> They weren't meant to replace established hiring and job-seeking practices,
> they were designed to standardize things a bit.
You just said earlier that it's not "cost-effective" to do "established
hiring" practices.
>
>
> Joel Gridley
> Site Patrol/Firewall Specialist "Be the packet"
> GTE Internetworking
> Burlington, MA
>
now my two cents...
I truly encourage everyone out there on the list to use the certifications
with a grain of salt. There are three different kinds of learners in this
world.
Kinestic - hands on learner
Auditory - they hear it, they learn it
Visual - read it, they learn it
Now, which one do you think the "certifications" tends to highlight?
In the teaching environment, our system of learning caters highly to the
Visual learner. The Kinestic and Auditory have to "work" much harder
to achieve the same results in a testing situation. It's not that either kind
is "smarter" than the other, all can achieve the same goals with the right
motivation.
Bottom line, there are *many* tools out there to help us evaluate whether
someone has the right skills for the right job. Unfortunately, most (bad
generalization I know) *screeners* out there that don't have the in-depth
knowledge to evaluate someone rely heavily on the certifications, which means
the Visual learners have a definite advantage. (read a book, take a test)
Disclaimer: I know that there are a rare "few" certs that actually require
some
sort of measured evaluation of a manual procedure. This is not for those.
For those of you wondering, I personally am a Kinestic learner. Fortunately,
I had the benefit of finding this out early in life. A very kind person
taught me
how to work around my *handicap* and still be able to pull B's through school.
So there's my two cents worth. I hope everyone gives some thought to this.
Michael Sorbera
Network Engineer/Webmaster
Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union
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