With 15 years of "large IT org" experience and only a few minor technical certifications and MANY weeklong courses (no specific computing degree) I think I can contribute a bit to this conversation...
I think more and more the learning of "technical skills" is something that any business thinks should come cheap. And I have a tendency to agree. IT systems have become endemic to society and business. Everyone has *some* knowledge about computers or has the ability to easily learn about them. Maybe 15 years ago this wasn't the case. You took a few good Sun courses (15K investment) and a bank would pay you 120K to run them (nice return for little money). That has changed. It's has been my experience that employers want employees who can "add business value". For myself, that is and has been a hard one to explain (and a hard road to travel as I expect it has been for many "technical" type folks) but I *think* it's sort of like being able to peer into the core of what's happening in your division or department and a) find place to improve efficiency (ie. save money) and b) find projects which will improve the company's bottom line (ie. make money). That said, here is what I feel would help anyone immensely... Project management is a must. And I mean real PMBOK stuff. Not just that you've taken part in projects but that you can lead from the start to finish a project which any PM and manager/director/VP can understand and get behind (and also have it end successfully). Also, the "soft" skills everyone has been talking about HAVE become a necessity. How are you with other people, change, leadership, approachability - stuff like that. And since IT is now considered a part of the capability of a business to actually make money (and not an expense), you need business acumen for whatever industry you're in to help the achieve that corps specific goals. For me, these types of things are now the HARD part of IT and not something that is taught in the technical degrees to the degree they should (forgive the pun!). And to be honest, I think they are difficult for technical folks to understand. At least they were and to a large extent still are for me. I also don't think we who truly have been and stayed in the mix through the last decade of tumultuous IT changes have yet to fully explain this phenomena either. But I think this is getting closer. Finally (and to be a bit brutally honest), I now would rather have someone with a bit of "IT skills" but a lot of soft skills at my side then the old stereotypical IT fella who just sits at his desk chewing mallomars and living on caffeine any day... Just having IT "skills" is like being a janitor in the IT world now (no offence, please - the analogy is more to liken someone who mops floors in a building as opposed to the engineer who really maintains the building - and I know sometimes they are one in the same but I hope you get my drift). Being able to contribute to the business side makes all the difference. Best Regards, Jeff -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matt Lawrence Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 9:53 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [lopsa-discuss] CISSP? On Fri, 21 Aug 2009, Luke S Crawford wrote: > And certifications are not? all other things being equal, listing a > certification usually makes me think less of a canidate (I mean, unless > I'm looking for a job where rote memorization and following the script > is what the customer wants; especially in large corporations, sometimes > following the script is extremely important. In those cases, yeah, go > certification.) So the fact that someone has a certification means they are less capable than someone who doesn't? I don't get it. I certainly respect some of the Cisco certifications and I think fairly highly of someone with a RHCA. If those sorts of things are a negative in your shop, it sounds like a place I really wouldn't want to work. I do know that I have had to clean up far too many disasters caused by cowboy sysadmins who thought they were a lot smarter than they really were. Mainly ones who didn't believe that they needed to do any planning and just made it up as they went along. I'm confident that I already know most of the materiel that will be covered in a six day "boot camp" course, but I don't know it all. Maybe a CISSP will help me get security issues across to the PHBs who have no technical clue. -- Matt It's not what I know that counts. It's what I can remember in time to use. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.63/2317 - Release Date: 08/21/09 06:04:00 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
