Certifications vs Experience

There’s an argument within the IT industry if certifications or experience are more valuable ? Certifications are normally vendor exams that that cover a technology or device of a given vendor such as Microsoft MCSA or Cisco CCNA, experience is on the job training that you accumulate over the years.  

I believe certifications do have their place in the IT industry, mainly when you first start working in IT, certifications can help build a base knowledge on the fundamentals of a technology plus learning fundamentals before you enter the workforce can help accelerate your on-the-job training. Could you create your own lab and do your own study, yes but IT certs provide some structure and prove to a potentially employer that you can some base line knowledge and show an interest in the field. There are some high end certs that are very highly regarded and are worth the amount of time and energy. In the networking world, CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert) certification is considered the top dog cert and CCIE’s can earn some serious money, though the certification is incredibly hard to pass with only 1 in 4 passing the exam.

I do find certification at the higher levels of experience has diminishing returns as most of your knowledge and understanding comes from on-the-job experience. When I started learning CCNA everything was new and complex, all my IT knowledge was limited to the exam material, 15 years later 95% of my knowledge now comes from on-the-job experience. An example is that deploying BGP is relativity the same across all vendors, so having to learning BGP with a vendor cert can be of little value. IT certs don’t train you on navigating business politics and people, people that work in IT are sometimes highly opinionated and having the skill set to work with others in a big part of the IT industry depending on your goals.

Also most IT certs require you to renew the certification after 2-3 years, this means having to relearn the exam material and potential having to relearn a topic that is of little or no use to you. The cert renewal process can also feel like a cash grab from the vendors as most IT certs are around $400-$800 which you have to pay even if you fail.

Experience can also have downsides, mainly if you are working with the same technology and don’t get exposer to new products or technology, you can become stagnant in your skillset. You may also pick up bad habits such as deploying or configuring technology not to industry best practice. IT Certs do give vendor best practice when configuring devices especially with vendor proprietary technologies like HA/High Available designs.