A Certified Stamp of Approval: How Important Are IT Certifications?

While certifications are desirable—or required—for some hires, CIOs believe their real benefits extend beyond the interview room.

• By David Raths
• 12/01/10

In the world of campus IT hiring, think of certifications as the equivalent of the SATs. They’re just one component of the overall application, along with the interview, past performance, and references. If the candidate is accomplished and well rounded, the SATs—or certifications—can be more of a checklist item. Otherwise, they may make the difference between acceptance and rejection.

The comparison ends there, however. While the SATs are irrelevant outside the college admissions process, many IT professionals believe certification can play a second, key role once the hiring process is over—in developing employee skills, helping employees identify a career path, and allowing them to connect with their peers.

First, though, applicants need to get hired. In a recent survey of 240 executives involved in IT hiring, more than 85 percent of respondents preferred that their next IT employee possess at least one IT certification. The survey, part of a paper by Scott Hunsinger, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Information Systems at Appalachian State University (NC), found that many IT leaders plan to use certification as a criterion even for candidates for managerial positions.

“There’s a common perception that [certifications] are more highly valued for entry-level positions,” says Hunsinger, “but we found they also are often required for midlevel and even management positions.”

Travis Mathna is convinced his certification from InfoComm International helped him land his current job as an audiovisual systems integration and support specialist at Gettysburg College (PA). Mathna, who has worked at Gettysburg for five years, recalls that people involved in the hiring process were familiar with the level of complexity involved in getting the Certified Technology Specialist-Installation (CTS-I) certificate.

“They understood it meant something beyond the associate’s degree I had earned,” says Mathna, who designs, upgrades, and maintains all of the audiovisual equipment related to the enhanced classrooms at Gettysburg. “The school’s classrooms were in pretty rough shape when I got here,” he adds, “and I think the certification helped [Gettysburg leaders] appreciate the potential of what I could contribute.”

Mathna’s boss at Gettysburg, Rodney Tosten, vice president for information technology and a professor of computer science, says certification is becoming a requirement for audiovisual technicians.

“More and more faculty members are using multimedia,” he says. “The A/V field is becoming more complicated, and IT is having more expectations coming our way. People want one-touch controls, multiple devices, high-definition videoconferencing, and high-quality sound. An A/V technician has to be certified nowadays in this field.”

The Shifting Realm of Certification

Not all certifications are created equal, however. As IT trends in higher education shift, some certifications have lost their relevance. This explains why pay and market demand for most IT certifications have been decreasing in recent years, says David Foote, whose company, Foote Partners, publishes a quarterly IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index based on surveys of almost 100,000 IT professionals. “Hiring organizations tell us they want IT people skilled in business intelligence, business process management, and quality management,” explains Foote. “There aren’t any certifications for those skills.”