Interesting discussion, In my humble opinion I believe both certification and experience are very important and that is the reason we at EACOSS have taken the certification issue very seriously and are selling it as a service.
As an employer, there are many challenges when it comes to IT and they get worse if you are not an IT person, so if some one has a certification with a reputation that means the person has certain knowledge and follows some kind of standards that all people with similar or the same certification follow. You will realize that many of us jump into IT from very different professions, I for instance trained in accounts decided to sell IT from the moment I finished college, what happens now is that I have a very high level of understanding in the use of IT but can only say this through my experience which I claim to have, imagine I had a reputable certification to back this up! I therefore believe certification and experience are complementary and the Interview will then crown it all, especially when it is practical and some IT people are part of the panel. My fifty cents... Richard -- East African Center for Open Source Software General Manager - East Africa & Zambia Plot 9 - 21 Port Bell Road Nakawa P. O. Box 26192 Kampala - Uganda Telephone +256 414 223802 Mobile +256 772 725252 "The new ICT Advisory, Innovations & Training Centre" 2009/11/29 Bernard Wanyama <[email protected]> > Daniel, > > In all cases, you need to interview the fellows and decide who meets > your requirements. > Beyond the interview, you need to set certification targets for your > employees and support them if finances allow. > > That way, after two years, you have people with certification and > experience. Then you get ready to start afresh. > > Kind regards, > Bernard > > > 2009/11/29 Mark Tinka <[email protected]>: > > On Saturday 28 November 2009 09:39:14 pm Daniel Bwente > > wrote: > > > >> I do agree from the HR / Employer perspective there are > >> many variables to consider as you rightly put it, how > >> about from the employee / Young Sister side, what would > >> you have them put emphasis on as they pursue and build a > >> career in ICT, What career guidance should we bequeath > >> them? > > > > My recommendation would be to continue reading as you work. > > I cannot explicitly prefer one over the other. They > > compliment each other greatly. > > > > For instance, experience might teach a network engineer to > > configure OSPF or IS-IS without issue assuming default > > Ethernet interface configurations on routers. However, what > > the engineer might not know is that when he tries to fix an > > MTU problem for a customer on a transit core interface (by > > changing the physical interface MTU from the Ethernet > > default of 1,500 bytes to, say, 1,400 bytes), OSPF breaks. > > What the engineer doesn't know is what experience will teach > > him, painfully. Had he read about the rules that govern > > adjacency formation of link state routing protocols, he'd > > know that MTU mismatch will lead to failure of the same. Had > > he taken the time to read up and study on this, he wouldn't > > have had to learn it the hard way (and very likely, avoid > > risking his job or his company's service reputation). > > > > As you can see from the above, I'm not merely saying > > certification is the best form of "reading". Even after > > certification, you need to maintain your edge, because > > certification renewals only occur once every 2 - 3 years, > > but a lot can happen in the Networking industry within that > > span of time (and I can't take, for an excuse, "I didn't > > cover that during my certification and it only appeared in > > the renewal 3 years later"). > > > > There are tons of reading sources online; either from IETF > > documents, vendor publications, books, mailing lists, blogs, > > workshops, conferences, e.t.c. It's a wealth of information > > and knowledge. Mix that with practical application, and > > you're good to go. > > > > That would be my recommendation to an up & coming network or > > systems engineer. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Mark. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > LUG mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/lug > > %LUG is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ > > > > The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including > attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. > > --------------------------------------- > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > LUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/lug > %LUG is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ > > The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including > attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. > --------------------------------------- > >
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