Are You Certified?

In this day and age where people are looking for quick and easy ways to make hiring decisions certifications are becoming more important. I know because I am out there trying to find a job.

-You don't have Project Management Institute (PMI) Certification?

-No I do not but I have managed teams that are twenty or more in size, and indirectly been responsible for projects involving sixty or more. I have been responsible for creating and managing project plans, reporting on milestones and for managing risks. I have created dashboards, I have reported to steering committees and internal audit teams. I have been responsible to a budget, to a schedule and to specific service levels and deliverables. I have managed stakeholders and third parties.

-But we are looking for someone with PMI Certification.

-You don't have ITIL certification?

-No I do not but I have managed teams that have delivered service and support to customers around the world. I have been responsible for managing teams that have delivered support to internal users as well as managed server environments for local teams. I have helped establish service plans and procedures for a large IT service organization and established innovative new service platforms. I also started my career working in a large call centre and have worked on service queues supporting customers running various hardware and service platforms. Finally I have managed to many different service levels and contract terms. These have been both in shared service desks as well as some dedicated to a particular customer.

-But we are looking for someone with ITIL certification.

A few days or weeks later comes the form letter stating something along the lines that "we have found someone that more closely fits our needs". Yep...I can read between the lines. I was not hired because I lacked the certification. Oh well. I guess my experience means nothing to those hiring managers. A certificate is clearly more important.

Listen, I get it. I have hired many IT professionals over the years and, yes, I have used filters to eliminate candidates. The ones I used tended to be more general however. Have you finished your education and received your degree or diploma. Then I would, for a senior role, expect a certain amount of years of experience. I was, however, able to make the small leap between judging work experience vs. what a certification says a person theoretically knows. That was the purpose of the interview and the conversation I had with candidates. By relying strictly on certification I would have missed some pretty strong candidates with exactly the experience I need.

All I can say is that I may have been happy working for these organizations in the short-term, but in the long-term, they likely would have driven me mad with their blind adherence to a process or procedure. Turns out they are unable to read between the lines - the thin line separating certification and theoretical from practical experience.

Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!