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Greetings Kenneth,
I completely agree with the concept of
companies desiring to hire individuals with the capability to deliver systems or
software solutions ("talent") over someone simply bearing relevant credentials;
that makes sense, especially when the integrity of a credential has been
compromised. Pragmatically speaking, companies use the credentials for an
initial benchmark of talent. I have personally met (and had discourse at
length) with every one of the heads of Microsoft's training and education
departments and am quite familiar with their operations and philosophy. Their
specific intent with the MCP family of credentials is to provide some level of
benchmarking of ability (talent). Their ability to map their credential more
directly to levels of talent is limited by the fact that the testing is
"paper-based" and that the politics of changing that standard is a non-starter
because that would slow the influx of MCP's into the market place and ultimately
conflict with Microsoft's more fundamental goal of selling software. In terms of
the credential's directly mapping to "talent" (which, I believe we can all agree
would be a good thing) they have a perceived (and perhaps real) conflict of
interest.
On a slightly separate note, Microsoft, Cisco,
Oracle and SUN rely heavily on credentialing as a preliminary filter when hiring
for networking positions; i.e.. apply for a networking relevant job at Microsoft
and you will quickly discover as a RULE (to which there are, of course,
exceptions) Microsoft's selects talent from among the MCSE applicants. Other
major vendors, as mentioned above, use the same practice as do I. My rational is
simple. If you are truly talented, surely you can successfully navigate the
relevant test. Notice I used the verbiage "networking" positions;
programming credentials (MCSD, Sybase etc...) are not as mature and prevalent as
the networking credentials, and the practice I described above is not quite as
prevalent.....yet.
Some credentials quite directly indicate high
levels of competency. Among these are the CCIE, and in my opinion having
recently taken the class and test, the RHCE. The CCIE is "just" a credential,
but I would challenge you to show me a CCIE who is not *highly talented* and
knowledgeable in Cisco platform design, implementation and management. Having
directly compared it with many other industry credentials, (and while I will not
go into any specifics because I am under non-disclosure) I would submit that in
general Red Hat's RHCE is also a reliable metric of both Red Hat and GENERAL
Linux implementation proficiency. Because of its practical component, it is
unlikely to be easily compromised. I would point out that this is not Red Hat's
tier three or four credential, this is the opening ante in their credentialing
track. Like it or not, LPI's credentials (and manufacturers like Caldera
who have adopted them) will be competing with that benchmark level. With
that, I will now quit beating this dead horse. If it pragmatically must be
"paper-based" for now, I will endeavor to assist in the development of the best
one possible.
Thank You,
Stephen Holcomb
PS. Kenneth, GREAT ASCII art!! ; )
----Original Message -----
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- Certification - Knowing Facts vs. Having Problem Solving S... Andrew Eliasz
- Hiring talent and not Certificates.... Kenneth J. Lund
- Re: Hiring talent and not Certificates.... Chuck Mead
- Re: Hiring talent and not Certificates.... Stephen Holcomb
- Re: Hiring talent and not Certificates.... Jos Visser
