NSBE Magazine - Winter 2015 - 70

SKILLS

I

'Certification Required'

If you are reading this, the odds are you
are either college-educated or studying
to be so. And although this may not be
news to many who are already in the field,
it is something that many still in school or
just finishing need to hear: your college is
not teaching you, or did not teach you, all
that you need to know for a career in the
IT field. In fact, for the majority of IT fields,
there is not even a college curriculum
offered, and, in some cases, there never will
be. So where does that leave someone who
wants to go into IT, one of the most stable,
fastest-growing and lucrative career fields?
Certifications.
Certifications are the tool to bridge the
information gap between college and the
real world. The main reason this gap exists
is the pace of curriculum development in
schools. That process will never match the
pace at which new technology is developed. Employers want people who have
hands-on experience working with the latest and greatest, people who can come in,
hit the ground running and start fixing the
employers' IT problems.
The essential skills of those problemsolvers are determined by the standard
bearers in each industry, the companies
that developed the technologies that
70

NSBE Magazine | Winter 2015

started or revolutionized the industry.
Think Microsoft, Cisco or Adobe, whose
products are literally required for many
businesses to function and remain
profitable. This leaves companies
desperate for employees who can work on
those products day in and day out.
This is where certifications step in.
Companies such as Cisco, Microsoft
and many others created standards:
measurements of a person's expertise
with their products. Certification of that
expertise is now a huge, multimillion-dollar
industry of its own, and the certification
process has opened a new avenue of
education outside of traditional colleges.
IT certifications are not only career
enhancements. They are requirements,
in some cases more important than your
degree. Employee recruiters will often do
keyword searches on resumes, and if they
don't see a certain certification listed,
they will often not look at that candidate
further. Lack of certification follows
employees through their entire careers in
the IT industry.
So take stock of your career goals. Find out
what company offers a certification in that
area. And start studying.



NSBE Magazine - Winter 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NSBE Magazine - Winter 2015

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