The Certification-versus-Experience Conundrum – Part 3

The ability of a potential job candidate to gain experience, especially when they are fresh out of school, can be a difficult task. As I mentioned in the Part 1 and Part 2 segments of this series, job candidates often seek out certifications as a way to validate experience, even if they really don’t have the actual experience needed to be considered “truly” certified. After all, certifications were meant to validate prior experience, not the other way around - experience validating prior certifications. And jobs that require certifications are therefore requiring a certain amount of experience as a prerequisite qualification. So how is it then, that job candidates seeking even entry level jobs are feeling pressure to become certified and prove skills for which they really have no experience? Some have the knowledge and experience they gained in college or other post-secondary training. In some cases, these people have no real knowledge of the technology other than what they have read in books. I think that some of the answer to this part of our continuing conundrum can be found by first defining what we think of as experience in a traditional sense, and maybe looking at ways to gain job and technical experience in nontraditional ways.

If we look at the various traditional ways of gaining job experience, it is evident that the experience most valued is that which a person accumulates doing various jobs. But how does a person get experience if they are just starting out? Are there other ways that will prove to be just as valuable? I think that there are. I think that we can actually break the existing paradigms of how experience is actually gained. As I mentioned, we most often think of “experience” only in terms of what a person has gained while actually employed in a so called “real” job. However, if we seek to think of ways to make nontraditional settings, such as academics, volunteering, and even the job interview process as valuable ways to gain experience, then we can actually get a better picture of what a person has actually been exposed to. There are many different avenues for one to shape their own problem solving skills, and these nontraditional ways of gaining experience will be just as valuable in determining what people are able to bring to the table. Isn’t experience, after all, simply a way that we measure how much exposure a person has had to various tasks and problems, and how much time they have spent learning how to find solutions? If that is the case, then it is very important to understand that there are various ways to gain this experience, to learn how to solve problems and to get repetitive exposure to tasks in other ways. So let’s take a look at some of the other ways that a potential IT professional can build up their experience portfolio.

Students:

Your road to gaining real experience doesn’t just start the minute you graduate from tech school or college. Far from the truth! You need to start thinking about accumulating (and documenting) experiences before you even step into your first class. Assuming you are going to college or at least a vocational technical school of some sort, shop around for schools that will help you accumulate experience. Look for the schools that are going to give you the type of education that involves lots of hands on training, and has a reputation for making their students do a lot of research and writing. Yes, I said writing! Communications is a highly valuable skill in any workplace, and especially important in the IT workplace. The more experience you have writing and researching, the better off you will be. Schools that offer training as part of a Cisco Networking Academy, for example, are more likely to offer you an assurance that you will spend a great deal of time in labs, with real computers, routers, and switches. You will spend a number of months – actually up to two years, continuously putting your hands on current equipment, performing actual tasks, and preparing you for the first level of the Cisco certifications (CCNA). Additionally, the Cisco training involves doing a number of case studies, where you will be given a series of scenarios, and will be required to come up with a solution. Again, there is that “research and writing” part of your education from which you will gain valuable exposure. Many tech schools, colleges, and universities are part of the Cisco Networking Academy system – look into one that will offer this training.

Some additional ways to gain valuable experience: Colleges and universities are more and more requiring instructors to place a very heavy emphasis on writing and reporting. You are in school to learn about more than computers and networks; you are there to learn how to be good employees, and how to communicate both orally, and in writing. There are many other skills that fall under what are known as the SCANS skills. These are skills that go way beyond just the technical aspects of the job. For more information on SCANS, see my article here.

Take advantage of these writing assignments by looking at these assignments as a way to gain experience, and especially as a way to get an early start at showcasing your ability to solve problems and communicate. Your instructors want you to do more than regurgitate a few well chosen articles and book paragraphs onto a research paper, in which you simply parrot what you have read. Take the initiative and take this a step further. When you are researching a topic, ask the tough and critical questions. What questions does the information you are reading about bring to mind? Can you identify a particular problem that has surfaced? Does this lend itself well to turning into a case study? All of these things can lead you in a direction that will help you not only research a particular technology, but identify problems, and allow you to come up with your own solutions. Your solutions may be right or wrong. It doesn’t matter. The main point is that you are starting to bring out your ability to use critical thought processes and solve problems. In doing so, not only are you meeting an academic requirement, but you are creating something that can be used in your portfolio of experience as well. Besides, if you find yourself applying for a position that requires a lot of writing, you will be asked to provide samples of your writing. As you progress through your studies, you will further develop your writing skills, and the papers you produce will be of higher and higher quality. This will all culminate in a well developed portfolio of your own work that you can use to prove your experiences and abilities.

To give you an example why this is important: Back when I was teaching networking and computing technologies, the various employers on our academic advisory committee would tell us that teaching students the technical aspects of the job should only be secondary to teaching them how to be “people” and how to think critically. In other words, they were asking us to teach them the foundations of the technology, and then heap on lots of exposure to critical problem solving, communication, and teamwork. If the tech school (or college) could take care of that part, then the employer would take care of getting them up to speed in the current and more advanced technologies through on the job and other training.

Employers:

OK, employers, time to pick on you again. What is it that you are looking for? Are you looking for candidates who can successfully answer a battery of technical questions? Or are you looking for people who can immediately contribute to your organization? If they answer all of the technical questions to your satisfaction, then you have an idea that they at least know something about the technology. If you do as I recommended in Part 1 of this series and ask questions that are based on certification objectives, then you have an idea that they have a good foundation of knowledge about the technology. Either that or they are fresh out of the exam and still have the important stuff memorized. Anyway, lets go ahead and give folks the benefit of the doubt, and just assume that they really do know their stuff, and move on to find out more about their ability to solve abstract problems.

You are now at the point in the interview process where you want to move past foundational knowledge and find out about their critical thinking and communications skills. I read a very interesting article recently about ways for employers to ask one very valuable interview question, and how to assess the candidate’s ability to research a real problem and come back with a solution. In an article on his company’s web site, human resources and technical recruiting expert James Gifford advises calling interview candidates ahead of time, giving them an opportunity to research the company and explain how they will contribute to the organization. I would add here that you can additionally (or alternatively) ask them to solve a problem, either a real one that the company is experiencing, one that was solved in the past, or even a plausible fictitious problem that you anticipate could happen to your organization. Tell the candidates to come to the interview ready to explain how they would approach and solve the problem, and make an immediate contribution to the company. They do that, Mr. Gifford explains, by researching company literature, speaking with selected employees, and gaining a feel for the organization - just as if it were their first day on the job. Mr. Gifford further mentions that a number of candidates will be eliminated immediately because many will not even want to expend the effort to research the problem and come up with a solution. Those that make the effort, however, may or may not come up with the exactly correct solution, but this will give you an idea of their ability to think critically, understand your specific environment, and present possible solutions.

Job Candidates:

If you are faced with the type of interview mentioned above, then this is your opportunity to sink your teeth into a real-life situation and offer ways to sell yourself to the company. If not offered this opportunity, then you can turn the tables a bit and take this as a challenge yourself. When invited to an interview, take a few moments to ask if they would be willing to briefly share with you a particular challenge or situation towards which they are hoping the new hire will be able to contribute. Even if they won’t share this with you, you can still research the company, read their literature, and become familiar with the environment. Do you know anyone who works for this company? Ask them some questions and gather some insight as to what kinds of technical challenges they are facing. Research industry best-practices dealing with that particular technology or industry segment, and then be prepared to discuss how you can apply these best practices to their company.

Be prepared to talk about more than just your memorization of computing technology facts and figures. You will usually be given opportunities to ask questions about their organization. Take some initiative and ask about what they feel are the most pressing technical challenges they face, and then use your recent research into best-practices and industry solutions to sell them on how you can contribute to their company. Will you have to think on your feet to make this a successful interview? Most certainly! But then again, being an IT professional is all about thinking on your feet and being able to quickly articulate a problem, and the solutions, every day. Additionally, the interview process is just as much an opportunity for you to shop for a potential employer as it is for them to shop for an employee. By taking some initiative and doing your homework, you will build up your own experience in tackling problems, as well as finding out if the potential employer is even a good fit for you.

If you didn’t get the job, follow up and ask what you could have done better to win the offer of employment. Ask about how they felt you were able to articulate your understanding of the questions and offer answers. What did you do well? What did you need to improve upon? Use this as a learning experience to do better at the next interview. Who knows, you may be back for a future interview with that very company.

Wrapping It All Up:

Part 3 of this series was all about preparation. Preparation early on in your academic career leads to experience that you can use towards proving yourself on the job. As we used to say in my teaching days: “This isn’t practice, this is real life!” This preparation starts, or at least SHOULD start, before you even walk into the first classroom when you start college. Find an academic setting that will let you roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. In my opinion, if you can configure a network router in a classroom and make it communicate with a network, then that is just the same as if you configured that same router in the telecommunications department of a real company. If you fix a complex computer problem in a lab, it is the same as if you fixed it in someone’s cube in an office. Same equipment, same issues, it is just that now you are getting paid to do it. So why not document this activity and use it as a way to show that you have in fact put your hands on this equipment? If you shopped for a school with a good reputation for academic excellence, then there is no reason why you shouldn’t expect to be actually working with the technologies instead of just reading about them.

Use that academic environment to build up your problem solving and communications skills as well. Don’t just cruise through with the expectation of turning in mediocre work just to pass a course. You are paying for the course to get something out of it. Why not use the opportunity to give yourself something that you can be proud to put into a portfolio of your work? I have seen many instances where my former students have actually taken this portfolio with them and offered selected works as evidence of their ability to do the job. I designed my courses to require this kind of effort, and many of my fellow instructors did the same.

Employers have the opportunity to really shop for a highly effective employee by designing their interviews to make candidates do a little work. Candidates can use this type of interview to their own benefit to showcase their problem solving skills and gain further experience applying solutions to a real-life situation. The mediocre candidates won’t want to do the work. The ambitious ones will. Employers, focus more on these ambitious candidates, and offer a willingness to train them in the specific technical areas once they are hired. I have heard many a hiring manager say that they valued the soft skills (communications, ambition, critical thinking) over the hard technical skills. If they found someone who really “had it going on” in the soft skills department, then they knew that training them in the technical areas would be a piece of cake.

Many ways to gain experience – most of which described here are considered non-traditional or perhaps unconventional. It is high time, in my opinion, that people be given credit for actual experience that they gain in a meaningful training setting. I feel that when people fresh out of school sit for certification exams, provided they made the most of that academic time, they will be calling on that experience to pass the exams and will have no need for memorizing brain dumps. Employers will be getting a much better rounded entry level employee as well.

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