Re: cert discussion

[Hal Miller <hal@tera.tera.com>]

Hal Pomeranz writes:
> WL> I belive Hal (and the board) was referring to requiring certification
> WL> for SAGE membership.  As in, you would not need to be certified just
> WL> to be a member of SAGE.
> 
> Well forgive me Hal, Bill, and the Board, but I suspect more people are
> going to be worried about their future employment than whether or not
> they're going to be a member of SAGE.

Concur.

> The bottom line is that any
> certification program will be used to at least pre-qualify "acceptable"
> applicants.

As I said earlier, I use buzzwords of this kind (including degree, etc.)
only to decide affirmatively to look in more depth, not to reject.  If I
don't see the buzzwords jumping out at me, I look the CV over more closely
to see whether experience and capability appear to be there.  In either
event when I see something I like, it goes into the pile for further
review later.  If I see nothing I like, it's gone.  Then I go back for the
second (of many) pass.

> As such, it will become a requirement for practicing
> System Administrators.

Here I don't follow the logic.  If I were to reject any CV that didn't
have a specific buzzword (and I'll admit there are folks out there that
do this, particularly those unfamiliar with the technical details of
what a sysadmin does), then it would seem to be a requirement.  I don't
see a SAGE certification program making this problem any worse than it
already is, and in fact may help: it may pass through HR to real hiring
managers some resumes that might not have made it before, for example
those that don't have degrees but have lots of experience.

> That doesn't necessarily mean that SAGE shouldn't pursue certification,
> but the membership ought to be clear about what they're signing up for.

Again, I concur, particularly with the latter part.
-- 
HM