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If there is any point whatsoever to IT certifications it is to act as a minimum level legitimizer for those willing to acknowledge a lack of experience. Claimin

by loteck 9y ago

If there is any point whatsoever to IT certifications it is to act as a minimum level legitimizer for those willing to acknowledge a lack of experience. Claiming certs have no value is to claim knowledge has no value.

zer01 9y ago
> is to act as a minimum level legitimizer for those willing to acknowledge a lack of experience True, but there are a lot of bullshit certifications out there that either 1.) vastly over project the actual knowledge people glean from it (CISSP and friends) or 2.) are unrecognized to the point that they're useless.
- loteck 9y ago
  The certs aren't bullshit, it's how they are used by companies that makes them appear to be bullshit. What logically follows from my grandparent post is that people who can demonstrate vast experience shouldn't be asked to hold beginner certs. But companies do this all the time. It perpetuates a false impression that a beginner cert is actually aligned with advanced knowledge, which sets up people to complain about "bullshit certs" on internet forums.
dsacco 9y ago
> Claiming certs have no value is to claim knowledge has no value. No it isn’t, because it’s not intended to be literal. Instead, it’s shorthand for saying, “certifications have approximately negligible positive utility compared to learning alternatives, and net negative utility after time and monetary investments are considered compared to alternatives.” It’s like functions in the local versus global scale: for the most part, a certification is has an imperceptible impact on overall career trajectory. To abuse terminology a bit, of available opportunities with similar time and monetary costs, certifications are not among the those capable of changing the global scale of your career. I’ve been responsible for making hiring decisions in infosec positions. I consider certifications like CISSP to be a weakly negative signal in an inexperienced candidate and no signal either way in an experienced candidate. It’s useless to say that certain things have value if their value is absolutely dominated by similarly accessible alternatives. I know more than a handful of people who have started successful infosec careers with no certification or degree because they invested in themselves in more meaningful ways that the really well paying companies care about.

by loteck 9y ago

zer01 9y ago

> is to act as a minimum level legitimizer for those willing to acknowledge a lack of experience True, but there are a lot of bullshit certifications out there that either 1.) vastly over project the actual knowledge people glean from it (CISSP and friends) or 2.) are unrecognized to the point that they're useless.

loteck 9y ago
The certs aren't bullshit, it's how they are used by companies that makes them appear to be bullshit. What logically follows from my grandparent post is that people who can demonstrate vast experience shouldn't be asked to hold beginner certs. But companies do this all the time. It perpetuates a false impression that a beginner cert is actually aligned with advanced knowledge, which sets up people to complain about "bullshit certs" on internet forums.

dsacco 9y ago

> Claiming certs have no value is to claim knowledge has no value. No it isn’t, because it’s not intended to be literal. Instead, it’s shorthand for saying, “certifications have approximately negligible positive utility compared to learning alternatives, and net negative utility after time and monetary investments are considered compared to alternatives.” It’s like functions in the local versus global scale: for the most part, a certification is has an imperceptible impact on overall career trajectory. To abuse terminology a bit, of available opportunities with similar time and monetary costs, certifications are not among the those capable of changing the global scale of your career. I’ve been responsible for making hiring decisions in infosec positions. I consider certifications like CISSP to be a weakly negative signal in an inexperienced candidate and no signal either way in an experienced candidate. It’s useless to say that certain things have value if their value is absolutely dominated by similarly accessible alternatives. I know more than a handful of people who have started successful infosec careers with no certification or degree because they invested in themselves in more meaningful ways that the really well paying companies care about.