Jobs Openings for the Certified
You can picture that shiny new certification on your resume, but are employers looking for it? Yes.
By GoCertify Staff
Although we started out with a plan to update recent certification program totals such as SANS GIAC (24,178), A+ (over 700,000), and Microsoft Certified Professionals (2,354,663 all designations), we really weren't finding much new since our article "How Many Are There," done about this time last year. Thus we found ourselves pondering a different and perhaps more compelling question - do these certifications really help you get a job, or at least an interview?
To explore this question somewhat unscientifically, we went to two well known job boards - Dice.com, which is specific to tech jobs, and monster.com, which includes any and every kind of job, and typed in some certification acronyms to see how many openings came up. Since there are over 400 IT certifications available, obviously we had to pick just a few of the more well known or we'd still be typing our fingers to the bone. Also keep in mind that this isn't the hottest job market (as if we need to tell you that) or time of year to hire, factors that definitely have a role in the number of open job listings. Nonetheless, here is what we found:
| Computer and Technical Job Listings that Specifically Seek Certifications (1/4/09) |
|---|
| Certification | Monster.com | Dice.com |
|---|
| MCSE | 839 | 1050 |
| MCITP | 29 | 27 |
| CISA | 163 | 228 |
| CISM | 71 | 114 |
| CISSP | 496 | 722 |
| CCNA | 566 | 751 |
| CCNP | 372 | 575 |
| CCIE | 203 | 385 |
| Citrix CCA | 45 | 32 |
| CompTIA A+ | 421 | 465 |
| RHCE | 36 | 65 |
| PMP | 572 | 1106 |
| GIAC | 81 | 106 |
Note that this does not mean that there isn't huge demand for a certification just because its acronym doesn't pop up an extensive list of openings, just that it is not listed by name in a job description. For example there are 529 hits on Monster and 877 on Dice.com for "java programmer" but only 2 on Monster for and 11 on Dice.com for SCJP (Sun Certified Java Programmer), even though SCJP would certainly give you a leg up on any of the java programmer jobs.
Bottom line: Certifications are in demand by employers.
Bottom, bottom line: Certification is a capstone to your skill set, not a replacement for skills that you must also have.
