techrecovery | Resume letter (Last Post)

lions-tambua.livejournal.com posting in

Have to agree to a LOT of parts of that letter....

I dont know (but iam very interested!) in how things work in the USA
Here in Europe, the IT gives more about the QUALIFICATION of an Person, than about his RESUME, Degrees or certificates.

You can easily make an ECDL, MSCE, RHCT, etc... (Btw, i have NONE of them because i didnt bothered making them. Most of the stuff you have to learn for it is to recite some written things you'll forget in any way 2 months later. Skills like LOGICAL CONCLUTIONS, abstract thinking, handling customers (helpdesk), handling co-worker (IT-Dep.), understanding the reasons of problem (why did the harddrive went offline ? it doesnt always have to be a defective harddrive!) these are things you dont learn ANYWHERE. Thats where EXPERIENCE comes in handy.

I have no degrees
i have no programmer-skills
but iam 25 years and have 20 years of computer experience. (believe it or not :)
With 5 years i got my first PC (80286) with MS-DOS 3.1
i spent a lot of time bugging around with problems like memory-allocation (the known 1mb-problem) and games that might need more than 1mb.
thats when i started writing .bat files with 6 years.
in the meanwhile i write whole backup-jobs, compilation jobs, cronjob-started system checks, log-job, etc (under linux) with such scripts. but i've never got an exam for that. why should i ?

If an Employer feels like you might know more than you can proof with certificates, an good employer is the one who checks that himself. 1:1 talk is the primary source of finding out who is REALLY educated and the right one for the job.

1)
My cousin f.e. made the ECDL and MSCE once. She doesnt even know how to replace an harddrive or how to configure a BIOS. also she has NO clue what an DHCP or DNS is. She mixes Programs up with Operating Systems.
well, why ? because thats not part of the MSCE!

2)
I have an good friend who is RHCT, he knows nearly every command the bash provides, but he has NO CLUE whats the difference between an Hub and an Switch

3)
my mother (she's 55 now) has worked with computers since she's 20
she finished one of the first IT-Schools in Europe. she spent 25 years as programmer and the last 10 years self-employed. she knows EVERYTHING about BASIC, PASCAL, Asambler-Code-Programming, Unix, Networks, Windows, PCs.... well.. everything... at least everything you could know 10 years ago.
she's missing all the NEW stuff. which programms will work with XP SP2 ? which hardware can be used under Windows 2003 or Linux. What is IPv6 ? the basic Linux commands. (her unix skills are BEFORE the comands where inverted) etc...

She also dont have an MSCE or ECDL... but she TEACHES those who are about to make these certifications.
So who of those persons would you want to employ ?

think about it before saying, "Certifications are Mendatory!" :)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

trayce.livejournal.com

My partner never finished high school, and didn't do terribly well at things like maths while there (out of lack of interest, not being dense).

He's now 23 and without any quals or training he's now senior programmer at a major well known games company. Thats his 2nd gaming job (first was lead artist at a smaller startup) and before that he ran his own gaming biz with a friend.

If you love what you do obsessively and really can prove you are good at it - and admiteddly, if you can find someone to help you get a foot in the door - you will go as far as you're prepared to work and prove yourself.

However with an attitude like that resume guy had, where he starts out convinced the world has it in for him, swearing and effing and blaming, even if he was king canute coder, no one would hire him because his attitude screams I WILL HAVE ISSUES AND BE A BIG PROBLEM FOR YOUR TEAM.

From:

lions-tambua.livejournal.com

i can live with THAT feedback, according to THAT person :) just too true.
but its sad to see that a lot of people just look, "what certificates ?" "ah! MSCE! youre taken!"
and then they complain that they got exactly THAT kind of people who say to themself:
"hm, i know nothing, iam not able to do anything right, iam not getting a job anywhere, well, lets make an MSCE, learn half an year for it and then get some high paid job"

everything i know, i learned by myself with LOT of time, trying, reading, trying, doing, reading, trying again, reading again, reading more, troubleshooting, thinking, trying and finally finishing and thinking, "oh man. the solution was easier than i thought" and from that time i KNOW how to do it.

well, right at the moment iam hanging in the sendmail configuration. have to see/read/try and hope that it will work soon :) at least iam already getting the "+OK..." :)

From:

ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com

Quite a few of the retail hardware shops love to advertise A+ certification, etc. on their windows and hire accordingly, even though they know the cert is crap. The public going into the store doesn't. Apparently neither does your garden variety HR department that believes the marketing hype and doesn't know how to evaluate an IT candidate's education/experience and doesn't know how to find somebody in their department to ask.

From:

lions-tambua.livejournal.com

*nods* thats why i LOVE to work in IT :)
no stupid customers who ask say,

"My Mouse doesnt work. i need an new one! but i dont think you can help me. i dont see an certificate that you've studied IT on the university"

From:

cirobi.livejournal.com

certifications definitely aren't manditory but they often open more doors to more opportunities than you might get if you didn't have them. i have a 4-yr computer science degree and several years of IT experience. i could EASILY step into any tech shop and jump into troubleshooting/diagnosing/repairing a PC. will many places go for it? not really. was sending out my resume for jobs and the one place responded saying "well, you certainly seem qualified but you don't have any certifications. please look into this tech school to get some, it'd help." getting certs and having official schooling definitely can't hurt in job searching. in the USA these days it seems that either you have to get really lucky, know someone in a company, have a ton of experience or have certs and a post-secondary degree of some sort in order to get some of the non-helpdesk, non-outsourceable jobs. i'm now taking classes and studying for certification exams to get my food in the door for jobs and several of the people in my classes are there because they've been outsourced and certs/updated knowledge to get non-helpdesk jobs. *shudders* i personally would rather put in the time/money now to get those pretty pieces of paper that say i'm certified and avoid that world of oursourcing. =p

From:

annamaryse.livejournal.com

In a lot of corporate jobs, they care more about the degrees than the skill of the people, from what I've seen. For programmers who are self-taught sometimes that can be bent, but a lot of corporate entities would rather have some skills and good degree (their interpretation is that if you have the degree you can learn) and some will not interview you without the degree... and it has to be from a 'leading school'... none of those ITT TECH type places. It's silly and wrong IMHO but that's how business runs these days.

From:

lions-tambua.livejournal.com

iam REALLY glad that i work in europe these days :)
as told, i have NO degree, no certifications, no proof of what my skills are....

i already worked as:
Project-Leader for an few-thousand Euro (>20.000,--) Network-Renewal-Project in an manufactory
IT-Admin in an University (neuro- and Bio-psychologic department)
Onsite-Engineer for Servers
Sys-Admin for webservers
Tech-Support for Server, Storage and Network products

Man.. they could have taken anyone, but they needed SKILLS :)
and thats what i heard in EVERY SINGLE interview, there have been a lot of others applying for that job, iam one of the few without any degrees or certificates but i was of the VERY few who had the right answers to the right questions.

*shakes head* where do we go, if certifications take over the part of an good interview ???

From:

major-error.livejournal.com

Preaching....choir....yeah.

It also depends on the market you're trying to work in. When there is an excess of qualified people in an area, it becomes exceedingly difficult to get a job you may be qualified for--the extra pieces of paper tend to help.
29, with 12 years of trial-and-error experience, going to school for a piece of paper that could get me into management...

From:

kingogre.livejournal.com

Yep yep, I've been in tech support for 8 years now, back in the .com day's I ran a global national helpdesk for dailup and DSL, along with interfacing with VP's and whatnot and all I had was the experience from that one job and didn't sit on the laurels. Now.. with the glut of IT in this state, (3 state colleges and ye tons of IT schools) it's very difficult to find a job that pays decent and isn't one of the tech mills. Finally found a semi decent place but it's sure not the norm.

From:

sheryls.livejournal.com

I think with degrees more than anything it's "I’m willing to do what it takes to have this sort of career" - same with certs. If that's what it takes and you don’t want to do it - then they don’t want you.

Also most degrees make you take classes other than what you're studying, which some companies see as "I know how to spell, i know how to communicate, and I’ve read a book that wasn’t published by O'Reilly." Many big corporations value diversity.

I agree with you, though, that the institution shouldn't matter - a degree is a degree, I think. You spent the money and time. *shrug*

I’m not saying its fair - it's just the way it is. i got my degree because that's what it took to get a job - so I can pay off the student loans I accrued getting a degree :D

From:

lions-tambua.livejournal.com

oh. iam not talking about fair or unfair :)
iam just talking about "not beeing objective"

as told, i know a lot of people who have different certificates and have FAR less technical skills then a lot of friends of mine who have NO certifications.

From:

loosechanj.livejournal.com

Wow. Damn.

From:

fuzzyr.livejournal.com

A few notes (take this as constructive):

First and foremost, spelling is important in all your communication. Lack of (or presence of) certifications is nothing compared to a well-written resume. One should practice proper grammar and spelling in everything, even non-formal communication, such as LJ.

"EXPERIENCE comes in handy."

Yes, very true. Having the experience to back up your resume is crucial. However, when you're getting started, having a few of those useless certifications is very helpful.

"If an Employer feels like you might know more than you can proof with certificates, an good employer is the one who checks that himself. 1:1 talk is the primary source of finding out who is REALLY educated and the right one for the job."

Think about it from the other direction: you are an employer who gets 20 resumes for a single job. You look at the resumes, and see one who has experience matching the job, and none of the others do. You would take them right away. Easy. Now, instead, you have 20 resumes, all about the same, none with quite the job experience you are looking for, but two or three have a certification close to what you're looking for. That'll help you decide who to bring in for in-person interviews. It's not the only thing that hiring managers look for, but it can only help you.

"1)
My cousin f.e. made the ECDL and MSCE once. She doesnt even know how to replace an harddrive or how to configure a BIOS. also she has NO clue what an DHCP or DNS is. She mixes Programs up with Operating Systems.
well, why ? because thats not part of the MSCE!"

Yes, and it's not fair to expect her to know something not in her experience or certifications. It would be nice, but it's not as if she should know it.

"2)
I have an good friend who is RHCT, he knows nearly every command the bash provides, but he has NO CLUE whats the difference between an Hub and an Switch"

Right. RedHat is not the same as CCNA. You get the certification matching what your expected career path will require.

"3)
my mother (she's 55 now) has worked with computers since she's 20
she finished one of the first IT-Schools in Europe. she spent 25 years as programmer and the last 10 years self-employed. she knows EVERYTHING about BASIC, PASCAL, Asambler-Code-Programming, Unix, Networks, Windows, PCs.... well.. everything... at least everything you could know 10 years ago.
she's missing all the NEW stuff. which programms will work with XP SP2 ? which hardware can be used under Windows 2003 or Linux. What is IPv6 ? the basic Linux commands. (her unix skills are BEFORE the comands where inverted) etc...

She also dont have an MSCE or ECDL... but she TEACHES those who are about to make these certifications.
So who of those persons would you want to employ ?"

Depends on what I'm hiring for.

"think about it before saying, "Certifications are Mendatory!" :)"

I would never say "Certifications are Mendatory!" (or mandatory). I'm just saying that they're a distinguishing feature on otherwise identical resumes.