Which IT cert for employability

Co. Clare Man

Most employers aren't excited 'bout seeing certifications from CompTIA (e.g. the A+ and the Network+) and Microsoft (e.g. the MTA and the MCA). Job-seekers certified as an MCSA or an MCSE are relatively rare, though and are held in much better regard by employers than those who are certified as an MCA or an MTA only. Relatively, few job applicants in IT have the CompTIA Linux+, however. The CompTIA Linux+ (as well as the certifications from the Linux Professional Institute) might prove useful to those job-seekers with no prior IT industry work experience and who wish to be differentiated from the many other job applicants who have no IT sector work experience.

Job-seekers holding certifications from CISCO are more appealing to IT employers. Quite a few computer networking personnel in Ireland don't hold even the CCNA, let alone the CCNP or the CCIE. Unless a person has used CISCO's products in previous employment, then he or she can totally forget about obtaining the CCNP or the CCIE.

The ICDL and the MOS are obviously only for those working with computers in non-technical roles. They might be useful for others, such as accounting technician apprentices and those who also have the IPASS.

I would definitely doubt the usefulness of a QQI Level 5 or 6 Major Award resulting from a Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) course in hardware or networking to those job candidates with little or no work experience in IT.

On an unrelated note, the Oracle Certified Foundations Associate, Java and the Oracle Certified Java Programmer (OCJP) are really only potentially useful for mature students who wish to study first-year software development or computer science at undergraduate level. The exam for the OCJP is really quite difficult to pass.

Griffith College have held in the past special-purpose-award part-time day & evening courses in coding/scripting/programming. Such courses would also be useful for the prospective mature students and would be much easier to complete than the exam for the OCJP.

However, the majority of prospective mature students would not have any of those certificates or courses. Another issue is that most course interviewers would not be familiar with what the certification exams from Oracle actually entail. They would better appreciate seeing a candidate having completed an entry-level coding/scripting/programming course from Griffith College.

tejula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/98431213#Comment_98431213

CCNA is actually more difficult to pass and is a good funnel if someone wants to go into Networking. CCNP is next level, but you'll likely not pass CCNP from scratch and it is better to start of with CCNA..