I've been watching the certification saga, both Linux and otherwise, for a while now.

There came a point where companies suddenly realised that no, the sales team couldn't just double up on engineering to handle all the PC issues, they really needed skilled professionals to handle the computer infrastructure that had moved outside of the computer room. They needed people who actually knew something about PC's, and the computer room guys were still busy with the mainframes.

For a while there in the late 90's, companies were scrambling to get people who could work on PC's, and they had no clue how to tell the bluffers from the pro's.

Then, for a window of maybe three to five years, certification really meant something. It meant the difference between whether or not you got the job. Novell certs were probably the first big tickets, but they were quickly replaced by Microsoft certs. After all, just about everybody knew something about Microsoft systems (or at least thought they did), but if you hired someone who was certified, you could point to that as due dillegence even if he turned out to be all paper and no knowledge.

That period didn't last though. More and more candidates turned out to know the MS Tests really well, but to be totally useless in the field. The certs became a nice thing to have in addition to proven work experience. They became somethign to earn to please the beancounters, or to qualify your company for certain Microsoft perks.

As far as I know, that's where they've stayed. I haven't seen a job in quite a while were a certification was the make-or-break qualification. Yes, certification is pretty much expected to go with a certain level of experience - you don't get a lot of Cisco background without grabbng a cert or two along the way.

More and more though, Certification is something you do within a position, not as a qualification for a new position, not as a ticket to the next job.

I think that's where it remains, and when someone asks "what's a good certification to go for?", I say "Whatever your employer will send you to". If you don't have the qualifications to get the job without the cert, if the prospective employer isn't convinced that certification is a formality, for you, and isn't willing to pay for it, I think it's a bad gamble.

I don't think there's a certification out there, whether it costs $300, or $3,000, or $15,000 that will, by itself, pay back the cost of earning it. It won't get you a job.

Certification ever really get you a job, you have to do that by convincing the people doing the hiring that you're the kind of guy they can work with.

Get the job first, then worry about the certification.