Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 09:20:47 -0400 From: "Lanny Baron" <lnb@cybertouch.org> To: webmaster@freebsdmall.com, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, core@FreeBSD.ORG, Nik Clayton <nik@nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Tekmetrics tests and FreeBSD Certification Message-ID: <199906161320.JAA26609@freedom.cybertouch.org> In-Reply-To: <3766ED56.3DE1B63@softweyr.com>
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> Most of the employers who are looking for some sort of certification > are doing so because they have no capability of evaluating employees > on their own. Offer them practically anything and they'll probably > bite, because they don't know better. > Well I can confidently say, that after sending out more than 100 resume's that the only thing received back was "thank you, your resume will be kept on file for 6 months". On the other hand, I personally know a few junior sys admins in financial companies that went to career training centers that got their jobs from those schools. > I was the one who called for advocates to visit the tekmetrics site, > because I wanted to get a feeling for how the rest of the group felt > about their tests in general. I didn't post my concerns because I > did not want to taint the opinions of the rest of the group, but since > we've now gone a week or so, I'll state my piece and shut up. > > 1) The Tekmetrics tests are NOT very comprehensive. They are not > really intended to be. They aspire to be the equivalent of a > screening test an employer might throw up to sort out 1,000 applicants > for a sysadmin job down to 10 or 20 that *might* be qualified. > You are talking about one place that I know nothing about. I am talking about a training school that gives a diploma, and gets you ready (assuming you work your butt off) for msce and oracle (networking) certification. The major employers go to Universities and these higher level private institutions for hiring. As a good friend of mine who is one of the top people in IBM's firewall division told me, that he would only hire a university grad or a person with a lot of experience. Today with so many people who claim they are experts, employers are smart to demand some sort of qualification. I know of some people on the net that have an icredible amount of unix knowledge that can't get jobs in IT. If you were a person who does the hiring for companies (human resources) and knew sweet f.a. about computers, who would you hire? The person that says I ran an ISP for 5 years (with no degree or certification) or a person that presents a degree from a university or certification from recognized companies (i.e. Oracle and hopefully FreeBSD)? > 2) The test methodology is easily broken. It would be simple to record > the questions given in a particular test, and I suspect you could > record a large subset of the total questions in any test in just a > few tries. > > 3) Yes, a certification program might be a "good" thing to have as > an assurance to stuffed suits that FreeBSD is a real operating system, > with real people using it. Let's face it, the entire tech school > industry (in the USA at least) is a pacifier for suits who don't know > any better, and churn out thousands of certified, know-nothing and > do-nothing boneheads every year, but corporations and especially the > gov't departments of welfare-as-we-will-come-to-know-it have swallowed > their bait hook, line, and sinker. The whole business has enough stench > attached to it we may not want to associate ourselves with it. Eventually > the suits are going to wise up to the quality of people turned out by > the CNE/MCSE/etc programs and start blaming everyone remotely associated > with them for their own failures. > You talk about welfare. How about if I tell you that here in Ontario, if you go to our gov't for a student loan, to get that certificate, to be able to get a job. That the welfare department will cut you off instantly claiming, the loan for the school is classified as "income" and therefore disentitles you to any welfare benefits. In as much as "bone-heads" are concerned, I agree. It was only a month ago when I approached the "system administrator" at my chartered accountants office (in the U.S. they call it a certified public accountant) and showed the person how much they could save with a FreeBSD/Samba box. I let him use webmin on my box via the net and Swat (samba's web admin program). The person said it was "very cool" but after checking with the company that works with (the person still calls himself the system admin) company that does the tech stuff on the NT system they use, did not know FreeBSD and Samba, and never heard of either. I said to him, "I thought you are the system admin" he replied "I am, but this company fixes things when they go wrong." I should have asked how he got that "system admin" job. Lanny > OK, I'm done raining on the FreeBSD-Advocacy parade. Please return to > our usual mutterings. > > -- > "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" > > Wes Peters Softweyr LLC > http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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