By Sheryl Silver
High Tech Careers Editor
Special Advertising Recruitment Supplement to The Washington Post
Sunday, March 15, 1998

Wondering how to boost your marketability?

In a robust job market like the one the metro area is currently experiencing, it may seem odd to address the subject of increasing one's employability. It probably seems particularly unnecessary to raise the issue with information technology (IT) professionals, who are often choosing from multiple job offers and in many cases, compensation packages that include signing bonuses and other lucrative incentives.

Not all IT professionals, however, are commanding the highest offers. Some candidates, say recruiters, definitely have more leverage and negotiating power than others, and several factors can make the difference.

One of those factors is vendor certification. According to Bill Joyce, a principal with the IT recruiting firm The Guild Corporation in McLean, Va., "Although nothing beats hands-on experience with a technology, certification is definitely a plus. Without a doubt, when my people look at resumes where people have certifications by a vendor, it always carries weight."

Joyce says there are a couple of reasons why certification enhances someone's employability. "For starters," he notes, "firms engaged in IT consulting enjoy a competitive advantage in pursuing business if they are capable of staffing projects with certified professionals." Certification also provides hiring managers added confidence, says Joyce. "When people make decisions about hiring people, they're always concerned about whether they're making a right decision, about whether someone has the capabilities they claim to have," he explains. "Certification implies expertise. If someone is certified by the vendor as being qualified in the technology, psychologically, it can carry weight with the hiring manager."

Joyce admits not all certifications have equal value in the marketplace. "What determines how valuable a particular certification is," he notes, "is the strength of demand for that technology and how saturated the market is with people already trained in the technology. In the case of the Certified Cisco Internetworking Engineer (CCIE) certification, for example, I've seen it boost someone's earning power 50 percent."

Other certifications, explains Joyce, may add only 10-20 percent to someone's earning power. Still others, he says, don't add to earning power but merely help maintain someone's marketability. With the Certified Novell Engineer (CNE) credential, for example, because so many people have the certification, Joyce says, "It's really now a requirement for people who want to be involved with Novell networks."

At the moment, the vendor certifications Joyce sees as contributing both to enhanced earning power and marketability are the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, (MCSE), the Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD), the Certified Powerbuilder Developer, as well as the Cisco certification mentioned earlier. Joyce also said people certified in various database products -- such as the Oracle Masters or Certified Sybase Administrator -- "have high placeability."

"Training certificates in SAP and PeopleSoft are also very big right now," adds Joyce, "although with those technologies, I personally would value one or two implementations more than certification."

Although it can be tempting to pursue a particular certification because of its market value, Joyce cautions IT professionals against obtaining a certification simply because of the leverage it may offer. "I don't recommend someone get certified in something they have no interest in, because if you don't have passion or interest in something," he says, "I find that comes across at interviews."

And although it may seem like common sense, Joyce also reminds those considering certification to be sure to pick a growing rather than a maturing area of technology. "Certification in Banyon, for example, would not be particularly beneficial at this point in time," he notes. "In any career planning, you want to get into an emerging area."

In fact, among the individuals Joyce sees as being able to benefit from certification are those trying to shift directions from a more mature technology to a newer, growing technology. "Certification wouldn't particularly facilitate a dramatic shift in directions," says Joyce, "but it could make it easier to transition to an allied technology. If, for example, someone wants to get out of working with Foxpro or Paradox and move to Visual Basic, they could get the Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) certification and be able to make the change more easily and potentially without taking a step down in income."

Lee Thomas, president of the Bethesda, Md.-based IT recruiting firm Lee Thomas Technical Careers, agrees with Joyce that certification can be particularly useful for someone seeking to transition from another allied technology or even, from another field. "Take someone, for example, who as part of their work as a scientist is doing a lot of software simulation and enjoys it enough to decide they want to pursue a computer career," says Thomas. "Such an individual might get certified in a technology with which they already have some experience and gain quicker credibility and marketability as a result."

Thomas also says non-degreed IT professionals can add to their credibility and market leverage by getting certified. Referring to programmers, for example, Thomas says, "I find certification isn't as consequential for someone with a computer science degree and programming experience as it is for someone without a degree." Using the MCSE certification to further illustrate his point, Thomas says for a non-degreed IT professional, "Certification gives that person an area in which they're considered somewhat expert."

Clearances Count Too

As is true in so many aspects of the technology job market today, employers looking for IT professionals with clearances are competing for a tight pool of talent. "There's really a lot of bidding that goes on between prospective employers as well as current employers who don't want to lose these people because they know theyÕre hard to replace," says Thomas.

In fact, people with the most desirable clearances are so scarce, notes Thomas, "that the acceptability of people with lower clearances or even no clearances has become far greater among defense contractors." Up to a year ago, says Thomas, "Top Secret SSBI was the lowest level clearance acceptable to my clients. Now, even people with a plain top secret or secret level clearance or even no clearance are being considered, provided they have the IT skills those organizations need."

Which IT skills are in sufficiently high demand to gain a non-cleared person consideration? According to Thomas, the list includes such languages as C, C++, Java and Visual Basic, database management systems such as Oracle, Sybase, and Access, and experience with Unix and Windows NT environments as well as with GUI builders such as Visual Basic and Visual C++.

The demand for these skills is so great right now, says Thomas, it's an ideal time for someone who wants a clearance to pursue a job with an organization that can help them obtain one. "There are some positions and organizations -- a minority -- where clearances will always be essential to get hired," says Thomas. "A growing number of companies today, however, will accept candidates without clearances," then initiate the process to get those individuals cleared after they're hired.