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Playing Your Certification Hand
Tom's latest eBook has been released on Amazon: "The 7 Myths of IT Integrations". Tom is also a Program Director for a large Midwest corporation and has been an adjunct faculty member at Walsh College. He has managed global web initiatives, data center moves and large multi-million dollar programs.
How many certifications do you have? How many should you have? Are they really important? Should they be?
While certifications have been around in the IT industry for quite a while, they have been around even longer in many other industries and professions. While a certification is not as mandatory for an IT job as it is for, say, a nursing job, there is still plenty of emphasis placed on them in the industry. How important a certification is really depends on what you are trying to achieve and which certification you’re pursuing. Much like the right combination of cards in a poker game can win the hand, the exact same cards won’t necessarily win in every game.
So what should you keep in mind before you place your bet and the dealer cuts the certification deck?
Suits and Tricks
A quick scan on the internet will yield hundreds of IT certifications. Everything from Apple (ACSA, Apple Certified Systems Administrator) to Zend (ZCE, Zend Certified Engineer), Microsoft (MCP) to Cisco (CCNA), Juniper (JNCIA) to Red Hat (RHCT) to Sybase (CSP) and a host of others.
Some certifications are clearly geared toward network skills like a CCNA or a CNE. There is a group of certifications for showing your server engineering proficiency like the MCSE (Microsoft) or the SCSA (Sun Solaris). If you are a security prodigy, you will find a menu of …
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