aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa a CERTIFICATION
Improve your job prospects through certification 
ITworld.com 6/13/00 

Certification programs give potential hires an edge. But check them out carefully before you buy –- the quality of the learning experience varies widely. 

There is most definitely a lack of skilled technical people out there -- but that doesn't mean that anybody calling herself or himself an IT specialist, network administrator, or engineer can walk into a dot-com and get a job. Companies may be hurting for people, but they all want the best.

One way to convince them that you're the best is to become certified in your field. From the employer's perspective, "certification lets you know that the employee you're interviewing meets a minimum standard," says Stephen Northcutt, spokesman for SANS GIAC (System Administration, Networking and Security Institute's Global Incident Analysis Center). SANS GIAC offers a certification program for computer security professionals. For the potential employee, adds Northcutt, "it gives them a huge edge. People like to see lots of initials."

And those initials often translate into higher salaries and more job opportunities. "For companies, it's a reduction of risk," says Brent Handler, CEO of IQDestination.com, "so when you hire somebody that has their certification, you have a greater chance of success on whichever application or mission-critical deliverable you're working on."

Decide what to get certified in Once you decide to get a certification, you'll need to decide what to get certified in. There are so many certifications out there, you're likely to find something that matches your field, whether it's security, network administration, help desk, or anything else. Besides general certifications, there are plenty of application-specific certifications available 
to certify individuals who use or want to use a specific application or piece of hardware. Besides the most obvious, which are the Microsoft, Cisco, and Novell certifications, many vendors of specialized equipment have or support certification programs of their own. NCR, for example, has a certification program surrounding its Teradata Warehouse database. The Teradata Certified Professional Program produces Certified Teradata Implementation Specialists, and from an employer's point of view, that is an excellent way to know whether or not a potential hire is qualified to run that complex application. The company expects to generate more than 2,500 certified professionals 
by the end of the year. The computer-based certification exams are administered at Sylvan Prometric testing centers around the world.

"The Internet is going to be a huge application for learning," IQDestination.com’s Handler says. His company works on an auction model, a la Priceline.com, in which students or companies submit a price and training sites bid against each other for that business. That obviously presents a major opportunity for cost savings. "A good example is a company in the Los Angeles area who saved 50 percent on four MCSEs," said Handler. "Four MCSEs that listed at $12,000 a piece -- they got them for $6,000 each." Handler says that the topic-specific courses -- certified training for Cisco, Microsoft, Novell, Lotus, Oracle, and Java -- are in most demand.

Another educational Website, Ed-x.com, focuses on aggregating distance learning and online educational opportunities from around the world. Along with the extensive database of online educational opportunities, students can also make use of the Website as a single educational portal from which they can buy textbooks and related software, apply for financial aid and loans, and even find tutoring.

Highly motivated students Ed-x.com founder Mark Hall says that students who take an online IT course tend to be highly motivated. When looking for a certification program, Hall advises that you should check out other students' success rates, along with the general requirements for the certificate. "One of the items that we offer on our site is the ability to look and see how other learners have rated each class and their comments. Some message boards host lively discussions."

If you want to join the fight against ugly Websites, you can take online courses from Sessions.edu, and get certification in graphic design, Web design, and advertising design. Heather Kosek, a graphic designer at Lockheed-Martin, is taking design courses online through Sessions.edu. Besides the convenience of doing the coursework on your own schedule, Heather says "it's easier to express yourself when you're by yourself just typing into a computer." And because Sessions.edu provides community areas and message boards, she doesn't lose the experience of socializing and comparing notes with other students that comes with attending a live class. Heather especially enjoys interacting with other students and faculty on the message board. "The upside here is the 
diversity of students," she says. "There are students from all over the world. You don't normally get that in normal classes at a local college."