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Introduction |
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Sound education A decent starting point for an IT degree -- part-time or full-time -- is your neighbourhood university. |
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Another entry point Apart from universities, private institutions and TAFEs offer more practical IT courses. |
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Where to next? ERP (enterprise resource planning) development and administration are most in demand. How can you obtain these skills, and more? |
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The tale of two CVs Analysts and IT professionals -- past and present -- share their views on whether certification is better than experience. |
Tale of two CVs
Experience versus certification ... which is the winner? It really depends on who you ask.
There are several schools of thought on the better route for IT professionals.
David Mitchell, software practice leader at research firm Ovum, says although certification is important, there is a growing demand in all markets -- including Australia -- for in-depth practical experience.
There are areas of the market where certification is a pre-requisite but in most cases practical and "referenceable" experience will be preferred for many roles, Mitchell says.
"Salary differentials are more a case of experienced versus non-experienced rather than certified versus non-certified. At an equivalent qualification or certification level an experienced IT professional will likely earn up to two times that of an inexperienced colleague, based on around four to five more years of practical experience. After that, disparities begin to flatten out."
One interesting observation by Ovum was the level of faith vendors placed in their own certifications. "Vendors frequently do not look for certification for their own pre-sales, sales, support, and consulting staff. The certification and training arms of the vendors are frequently quite distant from the product sales and support teams, and operate as standalone profit centres."
In fact, American management consultancy Foote Partners released a report in May entitled As Certifications Lose Their Luster, What Next? and David Foote, its president and chief research officer, said in a statement: "What fascinates me is that when we asked several vendors recently if they use their own certifications internally to qualify their own employees' technical skills, the answer was largely 'no'."
How now brown cow?
There are many different routes to take for workers in the IT industry and aspiring technology professionals.
"I wouldn't recommend one route over another. I know of people that have been successful in their IT careers from degree backgrounds as diverse as computer science, moral philosophy, chemistry, geography, anthropology, ancient history, and modern languages," says Ovum's Mitchell.
If someone is looking to develop a career as a technical developer, then Mitchell recommends vendor-based certification, but warns that it should be treated with an amount of care. "I usually recommend that technical professionals ensure that they have a minimum of two core technical competencies, since the market moves so quickly and new skills requirements emerge. It's important, on this basis, to be able to assimilate new technical skills as and when the demands arise in the market.
"I know of many employers who look at a candidate's ability to learn and develop new skills as much as they look at their current certification or competency."
Budding consultants should start with a large system integrator or management consulting organisation, he adds.
If the desire is to work around one of the major business application vendors, there are various paths, Mitchell says.
"One is to join the vendor at an early career stage, go through their training and certification and training programmes and then aim for promotions. Another is to work in industry, in an end-user organisation, and then move into a vendor or implementation consultancy at a later stage.
"I generally find that people with good domain-specific business skills are highly valued within these environments. For example, someone with knowledge of supply chain management that has managed an operational supply chain is highly valued in a supply chain software group, probably more than someone from a pure supply chain software background.
And if you have ambitions to be become a CIO (chief information officer), then a general management qualification is more important than pure technical education, according to Mitchell. "CIOs are increasingly coming from diverse management backgrounds and it is their general management ability that helps them to succeed. Here, I'd recommend an MBA from one of the good business schools."
Certification: The good
To Andy Fry, having the right set of certification played a big part in gaining Australian residency. "I have quite a rare combination of certifications -- MCSE 2003 (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) and RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer). This has assisted me greatly in emigrating from the UK to Australia, as it supported my claims to being uniquely skilled," the senior systems consultant (Information Technology Services) at the University of Adelaide tells ZDNet Australia.
"I also think it helped me gain employment here at the University," he adds.
Ovum's Mitchell is a fan of multiple skill-sets. "Multi-skilling is seen as an important differentiator in the technical job markets that we observe, whether that be Windows and Linux, or Windows and Oracle, or Oracle plus Linux, or VMware plus SAP.
"It's the multi-skilling and technical flexibility that we see as the determining factor rather than the precise combination of two skills. Having said that we are seeing a high demand globally for Oracle/SAP/PeopleSoft, VMware, Microsoft, and J2EE skills."
Meanwhile, Anthony Berni believes certification "gives you the edge" with some customers and can work in your favour when tendering for business. "In my line of work, which is field service, certification can mean the difference between your client having faith in what you do, and the reason they chose you instead of a competitor," Berni, who has a few feathers under his cap including MCSE, Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) and HP ASE.
"There definitely is a perception amongst clients (including government) that having certified engineers is preferable to the opposite," he adds.
But in the end, it's really up to the individual. "If your employer supports staff training (and they should) a cert is a good end result to show for the time and effort into keeping up your skills.
"I have benefited from getting industry certifications both in my job and personally. I have picked out technologies and subjects that interest me and have relevance with our clients. I then worked on those certs.
"I learnt the subject matter, sat the exam, felt great afterwards and waited for the kit from whoever (Citrix, HP) ... the industry does value certifications ... your clients will and so will your peers," Berni says.
Certification: The bad
University of Adelaide's Fry says he's aware some people armed with certifications are simply not up to scratch. "I do know people who have a myriad of certifications, who proved not to be up to the tasks I have
requested them to complete within the project timescales and without external help."
One example he highlighted was MCSE holders. "The Microsoft certification is not entirely realistic in the way the exams are conducted. You are only asked to remember stuff, rather than actually perform tasks.
"Compare this to the Red Hat exams which are practical and functional. Having experienced both exams I would be highly likely to give an RHCE a job based on his certification. An MCSE ... I would ask to perform some testing before I would consider him for a role. It is possible to pass the MCSE without hands-on knowledge of Windows.
"This is entirely unacceptable and has devalued the certification greatly. Whilst Microsoft has made it more difficult to obtain MCSE2003 than 2000, until the exam is more practical it will never prove what a candidate is capable of," Fry says.
Ovum's Mitchell doesn't name names but has heard rumblings from enterprise users who've raised concerns about the quality of certain qualifications. "Some certification programs do not have a large enough practical component in my view.
"There is large difference between knowing the answer to a series of questions and being able to perform different tasks in a practical and operational environment. This is especially important when it comes to certifications for operationally focused duties such as system management, database management, or network administration. Vendors need to ensure that courses have a large enough practical component and the certification process relies on candidates being able to demonstrate their skills in practice, as well as on paper," Mitchell says.
Veteran IT professional from Victoria Ernst Zimmer isn't surprised of talk that industry certification has lost its lustre.
"Certification is somewhat losing its value within organisations in the broader corporate context.
"Today's corporate IT staff and management must be as accountable towards the business success as the rest of the organisation comprising other functional units such as production, finance, and logistics," Zimmer says.
He highlights the importance of mentoring and says a good mentor within the organisation will go a long way in helping IT professionals. "I have been in the IT/telecommunications business for nearly 40 years and I can assure you that your chances of getting ahead are heavily dependent on support from a mentor who is able to advertise and articulate your value and achievements to senior management."
He strongly suggests IT workers between 30 and 40 years of age consider an MBA in technology management or something similar.
And if you plan to move into management, best buck up on your knowledge and expertise in financial management, economic decision making, and legal and contract administration skills (including negotiation), Zimmer says.
In his younger days, he believed that performance and knowledge was "everything", but he soon realised his folly. "Despite the arguments about 'equal opportunities', 'merits', 'performance' and so on, one the main factors of success in pursuit of a 'sign-posted career path' is 'who you know' and not necessarily 'what you know'.
"Unfortunately humans basically still possess 'monkey brains' with a thin veneer of cultivation. It is the tribal connection, the cronyism and the nepotism that often determines outcomes and not necessarily only shear individual performance and knowledge."
IT professionals these days, according to Zimmer, should, of course, have the technical competence required to build networks, test and maintain IT equipment and/or software and networks within the organisation but "this does not necessarily imply that one has to have the latest IT certification" to get the job done.
Ken McAvoy, another industry veteran (also from Victoria), says both degree qualifications and industry certifications are less important today then they once were.
"This is partly because of the time and cost it takes to get them and the biggest factor is that by the time they are obtained the useability factor is almost always more than 50 percent expired ... ie the hirer is aware a new version of Windows is due so they are already looking for people with an apparent edge in Vista rather than, say, solid Windows 2000 certs.
"There have been some employment agencies lately highlighting the demise of educational opportunities for a whole array of industries in Australia in favour of using cheap overseas labour -- whether they be on
work visas or students holidaying in Australia. One company involved in welding steel components for trucks sacked 35 locally employed Aussies recently but retained the 35 Chinese workers here on temporary work
visas. If that is not the most worrying trend about how Australia is being changed possibly forever, well I am blind, deaf and dumb."-- Fran Foo 
