Certified Internet Webmaster - CIW - why CIW does not suck!

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why CIW does not suck!

idiotprogram

2002-07-28, 12:34 pm

Another thread asked why CIW when employers haven't heard of the certification. SInce my answer was somewhat long, I put it as a separate post.

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Maybe the implication behind the question was why not a Microsoft cert? After all, it is more well-known. My answer is:

1. Except for MSCE, A+, Oracle and Sun certifications, nobody has heard of any certification. But that is not a reason to avoid getting a CIW. CIW is a map for what you should be learning. Anyway, if you want employers to know what CIW certifications mean, just provide links on your online resume to the specific test on ciwcertified.com. Info is only a click away.

2. State and federal agencies tend to be impressed by any kind of certifications. Don't ask me why.

3. Right now I believe Master CIW Admin is pretty cutting edge and tests very relevant stuff. It tests on Win/UNIX interoperability which I think counts for something.

4. If you have a "Security" certification, I suspect that might impress a few people even if nobody knows the name.

5. Two months ago Prosoft announced (in Austin) that it was going to be delisted from the NASDAQ if it didn't bring its stock prices to $1 a share by mid-August. (it's about 29 cents a share now). Leaving aside the question of why a certification/training company would want to be publicly traded ( pretty stupid idea if you ask me), I called them ask and asked hey, what's the deal. They said, the company is nowhere near going broke, but delisting would simply mean less capital for expansion. Even if they did fold, Prosoft only owns the CIW training aspect, not the exam itself. The certification itself would simply be resold to another test company (comptia maybe?) to manage the process. Right now Prosoft is probably under a tight budget and probably doesn't do a lot of promotion. (BTW, I'm working on an article about vendor-neutral certifications and will say very kind words about CIW).

http://www.austinxl.com/article.php?sid=2721

6. Your certification is a way of "branding" your IT training. If your education is MSCE, it means you are content to go with the default option and that you are (by many people's estimation) too dim-witted to understand that MSCE is not as useful as people claim it to be. The "CIW brand" means that you want to learn protocols, not vendors; you want to learn interoperability, not suck up to a single provider.

7. Practically speaking, MSCE/A certifications are expensive. Training is expensive. Books are expensive. Licenses are expensive. CIW basically tests the same level of proficiency without the necessity to pay the Microsoft premium on all these things. If you have the money to spare, then go right ahead. The Microsoft training material and schools tend to be pretty great. But getting a CIW indicates that you have given considerable thought to what and how you should be learning and you are not to kind of person to squander resources. I have nothing against Microsoft certifications. I'm sure some really talented people have them. But CIW could be a way of distinguishing oneself from a crowd of job applications where every third person has the MSCE.

8. For me, I am a tech writer/trainer and the job requirements are a little different. I need to show mastery of the technologies, not necessarily years of experience using them as a sys admin. For my purposes CIW is just what I need. Also, it is easier and cheaper to be a CIW trainer than a MSCE trainer. (Prosoft is probably a bit desperate right now).

9. CIW as a political act. Technical institutes have a dreary uniformity. The big money makers at tech institutes seem to be the MSCE boot camps with their pricetag for several thousand dollars. To start one of these programs at a training institute is expensive and time-consuming. It also means prices for students are expensive as well. The net result is that technical institutes lack the resources and flexibility to offer more vendor-neutral classes. Technical institutes don't have any special love for Microsoft, but they don't see any special groundswell of support for alternate certifications. From an objective standpoint, CIW is every bit as good as the MS certs and in some way better. If more people went for certifications not centered around one vendor, maybe the technical institutes could offer other kinds of certifications and training programs with cheaper material and better prices.

10. I tend to think that vendor-neutral certifications tend to stay around longer. Remember MS's decision to require old MSCE's to recertify themselves? Because the knowledge tested by vendor neutral certs tend to be more general, they are less likely to change over time (although it is true, for example, that A+ includes a bit of stuff about old MS Win 95/8 stuff).

11. Pardon me for ranting about MS, but the MSCE learning objectives assume that the sys admin won't need to devise original solutions with their knowledge; instead it teaches "basic usage" and how to run a MS only solution using "approved" components. In the MS world, this usually means components that cost a lot of money. With vendor-neutral certs like CIW, the assumption is that the sys admin is not simply pushing buttons but choosing components and devising solutions regardless of platform. A lot of the creative products in the open source world are not Windows-ready, and it would be a shame if MSCE results in sys admins emphasizing commercial solutions instead of noncommercial ones.

After saying all that, I'm not saying CIW is perfect and in fact, objective tests like this generally suck at determining who would make a great sys admin. But to reject CIW because of market share seems to imply that MSCE is the smarter choice. And I have a lot of problems with that.

Robert Nagle
Linux Afficionado, Technical Writer & Trainer
Houston Texas
www.idiotprogrammer.com

techbear

2002-08-04, 9:44 am

CIW does not suck. I am currently working towards the exam certification myself.

If people do not understand what a certification is about, it gives a candidate during the interview process to educate a prospective employer about the benefits of the certification. This gives any job candidate the opportunity to show a competitive advantage and why he or she is a better candidate for the job position.

Some employer's could care less about the certifications, however, through education it can make one a more valued employee.

During the time I was obtaining my MCSE W2K, my boss, stated that it wasn't going to do me any good here. However, since certified, he now has some "bragging" rights that he uses with other companies, including prospective customers.

zbrewer

2002-08-05, 7:24 am

As an MCP and CIW Professional (I'm taking the Security Pro test next week), I can tell you that I found the CIW tests to be a nice foundation of both Linux, Microsoft, and basic skills that any decent tech should know.

It's easy to criticize a test that you actually have to study for (no braindumps and little exam material out there).

Mr. Linux Guy

2002-08-06, 9:03 am

Nice to see some fellow Linux enthusiasts doing something a bit off the beaten path.

ruscorp

2002-08-06, 10:00 am

I like CIW because it tests an admin's interoperability skills. I plan to follow through with the CIW all the way up to master.

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