The Value of Professional Certification

There are a lot of mixed messages on the web, particularly in IT, about the value of professional certifications. Some claim they have little value other than satisfying HR but I disagree. I recently gained professional certification for VMWare (VMWare Certified Professional (VCP)) and I have found the experience extremely valuable.

What not to do

I have talked to several people who have expressed the opinion that certification will not help with their jobs and the only reason they want to do it is because it is required. The best way to pass they claim is to download (illegal) transcripts of past exam questions, learn all the answers by route and hope enough of those same questions turn up in your actual exam that together with what you know you can pass.

If you do things this way then it is true, Professional certification will be nothing but a piece of paper to satisfy HR for you. Not only does this strategy reduce the value of the certification for the candidate it reduces for others holding the certification.

There is Another Way

Now it is true that not everything I am required to know to gain a VCP are things I use in my job everyday. Before my exam I had to build a home Virtual lab and experiment with several features that we don't have available in our work environment. I really enjoyed this and learned a lot. It gave me the opportunity to really experiment and learn about things in a way that you can't do in a production environment.

I also spent a lot of time reading; revising my course materials and the more detailed documents provided by VMWare on their website. I developed a much better integrated understanding of how VMWare solutions fit together. In the process I learned a number of things I never thought of before starting to prepare for my certification that are already helping me improve the way I do things in my job.

On top of this reaching out to people during my study, for example for help with aspects of setting up my home lab and discussions of best practices, has deepened my professional relationships with several people and allowed me to make new, valuable, contacts. Furthermore knowing that you really put some effort into your certification, people respect you for it.

I have written here about VMWare certification, which if you are working in that space, I highly recommend. However there are also many other valuable certifications out their from vendors such a Microsoft, Citrix and Cisco to name but a few. If you are considering going for a professional certification I highly recommend it; there are many benefits and not all of them are what you might think of at the beginning.