We got a resume once where the guy listed "2-day workshop on personal grooming, Karachi, Pakistan" under his "education" section. I think that trumps the Kentrox certification. :-) -Bill
On Sep 4, 2014, at 0:58, "William Herrin" <bill@herrin.us> wrote:
On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 5:00 AM, Isaac Adams <isaacnanog@gmail.com> wrote: I am trying to work out a strategy for vendor certification in our company. As a general rule, do you all fund employees certification and if so what kind of levels do you try to maintain as good practice?
For example. NOC staff should be JNCIA and engineering JNCIP to JNCIE?
Clearly certification does not usually reflect ability but it does help people feel valued and to maintain a basic level of competence.
Hi Isaac,
Personally, I use certifications as more of a weed-out factor. List lots of certifications on your resume? No interview for you. Particularly that guy who used what should have been valuable space on his resume to report having taken a 3-day certification course in configuring Kentrox CSU/DSUs. Yikes!
Seriously though, certs stink of a cogs-in-the-machine approach to business, which is the opposite of making folks feel individually valued. Gee, I can tell from talking to you that you're smarter than half our engineers but if you want to respond to the red lights in the NOC you'll have to go get a CCNA.
If you want them to feel valued, give them an education reimbursement program for any job-relevant training, college coursework, etc. Any who want to spend it on certs, so be it. Any who want to spend it professional conferences like NANOG, well, those are the ones you keep.
Regards, Bill Herrin
-- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?