Frankly speaking, I'm not very keen on certifications.

When I am in hiring mode and interviewing technical people, I have found that people with a lot of certifications on paper are less likely to be very good at the job than someone who has bone fide real project and application development experience.

I've seen candidates, in the past, with a resume full of certifications, and not a single verifiable project of any substance, ever completed. It's really annoying.

A few years ago I travelled to "a particular country" and interviewed folks for a technical position developing vBulletin mods for us using PHP. Many people had lots of certifications and listed vBulletin and PHP on their resume; but when I asked them to execute the most simplest task on the white board, all failed.

That is why the trend for years with busy hiring managers has not been "certifications" but verifiable contributions to significant projects, including open source projects.

I know many hiring managers that will not hire any new (not well experienced) developer or system admin who does not have strong contributions to open source or similar projects on their resume.


My experience is that certifications are nearly "worthless" on a resume; but having strong completed, verifiable projects in a portfolio, even if volunteer (free) open source contributions is very strong on a resume.

In other words, if you want to easily get a job in a technical field, get real hands on experience even it if means working for free as a volunteer for an open source or similar project. You will get a lot of good references (from your team members) and verifiable coding and admin experience. You will more-than-likely get your name on the code you help write. This is much, much more important that a resume full of "alphabet soup" certifications and acronyms.

Think of it like this:

You want to be a pro football player. First, you starting playing with your family when very young; and then you join your school teams. It's when you are playing for your "school teams" (or non-paid leagues) where you get your experience and develop your reputation. The best of these go on to be pro footballers.

The same thing is true for system admin and developers. Play on teams, especially volunteer teams, when you want to learn. Become experienced and you will have such a strong reputation, companies will beg to hire you as a pro. If you cannot produce as a volunteer, who is going to hire you as a pro? Furthermore, volunteerism shows you are generous, social and a contributor to society as a whole.

No one hires a pro football player who studied football and is "certified" as a footballer who has not played much. They hire winners with experience.

The same is true for strong technical professionals.