Common Misconceptions About Zero Trust Security for Applications

Why Certifications Are No Longer a Reliable Benchmark for Vetting Candidates

Many hiring managers look for vendor certifications when vetting candidates for IT positions. Unfortunately, certifications are no longer a reliable benchmark for evaluating a candidate’s skills.

Years ago, most certifications required physical interaction with the vendor’s equipment. Today, most certification programs only require the candidate to pass a written test. Several vendors have lowered the barrier to entry for certifications for economic reasons.

Let’s say a company sells a network switch for $50,000, and makes a 5 percent to 10 percent margin on the sale. The customer won’t replace that switch for five years. Now let’s say the same company writes a certification exam for people who want to work on those switches. It costs $50,000 to create the exam, and the company partners with a third party to administer it. Every person who passes the test is going to pay the company $1,600 a year to renew their certification.

You can see very quickly that there’s more revenue to be made from certifying people than from selling the equipment. And the company has a financial incentive to make the test easier so that more people pay for renewals.

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The Illusion of Available Talent

This model also makes it seem easier to find IT talent. If there are only 100 people who know how to operate a piece of equipment, those individuals are going to charge a pretty penny for their time. On the other hand, if hundreds of people are certified, the value of each individual goes down because their expertise is more widely available in the marketplace.

The problem is that the vendors aren’t raising the individual’s level of knowledge when they increase the number of certified engineers. They are reducing the barrier to entry so they can sell more certifications.

Microsoft began slipping into that perspective with its certification program about 20 years ago, but has taken a different approach to increasing the number of people who understand its products. All of Microsoft’s training materials, including virtual labs, are freely available online. There is still a certification program, but the only cost is a testing fee and there are no renewals. If a new product or major version comes out, you can learn about it for free and get tested.

The Value of Hands-On Learning

With this in mind, hiring managers should take certifications with a grain of salt. The exception is when hiring individuals coming out of college for entry-level positions. Colleges are good at teaching the theory of how to do things, but they can’t teach practical diagnostic skills. The only way to learn that is to interact with the equipment and learn how to diagnose problems.

In our experience, however, we have found that self-taught individuals are more capable of diagnosing issues. Self-taught individuals had to figure it out themselves, whereas individuals who took a course were told the answers and didn’t always understand the “why” behind those answers. They studied for the test, passed it and moved on. The self-taught individual had to work a lot harder to understand why and how the equipment works.

What did Edison say about inventing the lightbulb? “I have not failed 10,000 times — I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”

In today’s tight job market with IT skills in high demand, hiring managers need reliable indicators of a candidate’s capabilities. Unfortunately, vendor certifications no longer have the value they once had. If you are struggling to find and vet candidates, DeSeMa’s talent appraisal services can eliminate the guesswork and ensure that the individual you hire can do the job.

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