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techlists@comcast.net wrote:

This IS a "holy war" kind of question! :-)

Most people have strong opinions about this topic and tend to be very black and white about "this way is the best!".

In the real world, different things impress different employers. Some employers give a lot of credibility to certifications, some don't.

If you're trying to get a break into a certain niche, every little bit helps. The RCHE cert does require hands on effort, so it's not looked at as a "paper certification". Your IT background is pretty decent anyway, so it's not like you're really starting from scratch. Especially the Solaris and HP experience is relevant to administering Linux.

Btw, I got started with CentOS for the same reason as you. I wanted to pursue the RHCE and couldn't afford to fork out the cash for a Redhat license. (Are you listening Redhat? CentOS is bringing you business because it helps IT people get experience and eventually certification with your product!)

PG

I agree with your remarks. My first and only IT job, where I still am today, was given to me because I was hired to help do a network upgrade with new Windows PCs. I have an MCSA (Yippie) and was the reason for initial contact with my company.

My boss is an advocate of open source, and so after my hiring he kept me from creeping further over into the dark side of things. I'm still in charge of maintaining the 'Doze clients, but I also assist with admin duties on the network and dealing with all the servers which are all Linux with the exception of one 'Doze server, and an AIX box. We maintain several Red Hat machines, but the rest are CentOS based, which is how I entered into the CentOS list here.

With that said, I completely agree with PG here. Every employer is completely different. My employer doesn't really respond a lot to certifications, particularly my boss. He's more interested in knowing what I can do for the company. Don't get me wrong, they like to see that I'm learning things, and recently have paid for a few online classes for things such as HTML and an upcoming SQL class, but for the most part they just want the problems to be solved and the network to remain up.

They are more interested in the skills that you can apply in real work environments, and they absolutely love if an employee takes initiative and learns on their own time as well. My boss does a wonderful job of remembering these kinds of things come review time. (I know you're reading this, and no, I'm not intentionally sucking up.;))

Without sounding like I'm rambling, I think you really have to take each employer and situation differently. Some managers are paper pushers only and have no real world experience themselves, and therefor they look at the paper certs and think the person automatically knows what they are doing. Whereas, like mine, some don't really care and are more interested in performance, and what you can do for them to solve problems.

I haven't taken the RHCE yet, but I really do plan on it someday just for personal satisfaction. I know in my situation it will be taken only for that, and not because my employer requires it to be taken.

Here's just my opinion from an IT shop that doesn't really look at the paper. :)

Max