Certification- A ticket to employment vis-à-vis demanding higher rates or real value?

[novinosrin]

Certification- A ticket to employment vis-à-vis demanding higher rates or real value?Request for opinions

Dear All, Happy new yet again to the ones I haven't wished yet. Three months to go before I graduate, contemplating thought strikes my mind whether to consider advance certification. However, taking into account with experiences as a SAS user for over 5 years in industry and academia has made me wary of its value. Nonetheless, having noticed several( i  REALLY mean TOO MANY folks whom I personally know) have got it all using leaked questions floating around and achieving by successful deception as many job advertisements still has a mention - "advance certification must/preferred". This makes me wonder  to acknowledge as it seems all normal in all walks of life in the obvious imperfect world we live in.

Of course,  while I am confident I can accomplish the certification with the knowledge I possess, it hurts my ego and feelings to learn we compete with the ones who bluff and get by a lot of times. Therefore I had refrained from the so called certification by a long shot for a long time. Hmm! Nevertheless, the industry seems to want it as many advertisement suggests as mentioned above.

So, what's on your mind now, should we really, genuinely certify to stay relevant and be considered on par with bluffers or not let go of ego? I would appreciate your opinions with heart and soul. Best regards! & Thank you!

PS

Not claiming that I am a super person of integrity as I had my own naughty childhood 🙂  but never felt the need to ever resort to those means at least in professional capacity for a tangible gain, perhaps because being lucky to be the only child of reasonably comfortable folks who made sure I always had a roof over my head and a  meal on my plate to say the least to ever feel the desperation. Kindly excuse me and thank you!

[SASKiwi]

Interesting question. Where I live, most employers would not be aware of SAS certification and most SAS users don't have certification. Of far greater importance is your SAS skill set and your experience in applying that skill set on the job. You will get better money if you have a good track record of applying your SAS knowledge to the successful delivery of projects for various employers.

I would say the best-paid SAS practitioners have a happy combination of excellent SAS knowledge and skill combined with in-depth knowledge of the industry they work in and a great track record of successful delivery of SAS projects / work in their chosen field. SAS certification really only proves your level of SAS knowledge, not your successful application of that knowledge.

I still think SAS certification has value, but more as a means of training SAS professionals, not for justifying higher pay rates with employers. Only job experience will do that.

[novinosrin]

Thank you @SASKiwi aka Boolean genius who taught me boolean expressions  for your time, sensible, mature, reasonable and real opinion. Makes perfect sense! 

[SASKiwi]

@novinosrin - thank you for the kind words. I admire your passion and enthusiasm for SAS and I wish you all the best in furthering your career. I should have mentioned that my response was simply my own opinions based on where I live. Other SAS users spread around the globe may have different perspectives.

[novinosrin]

Thank you and Yes of course, I agree those are opinions. However, anybody who has read your response would think that was wholesome and clear. That's where perhaps experience and maturity comes in. As a matter of fact, When I left Bank of America(my employer) for higher education, the words uttered by my boss rings the bell as I recall that being akin to your opinion although the context was slightly different. Long story short, he said "Don't do data analytics. Do Business analytics with SAS if you can. Nonetheless, SAS addiction is healthier than Xbox or Playstation"

Best regards

PS Thank you for extending your time in helping me understand a concept  every time I asked for help/clarification. Have been following your posts for long.  Cheers!

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@SASKiwi wrote:

@novinosrin - thank you for the kind words. I admire your passion and enthusiasm for SAS and I wish you all the best in furthering your career. I should have mentioned that my response was simply my own opinions based on where I live. Other SAS users spread around the globe may have different perspectives.

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[PaigeMiller]

Let me start off with some examples. I work with people who have programmed in SAS for less than two years, but are certified. Then there's some guy in my department named Paige Miller who has worked with SAS since 1981, but isn't certified.

Now, I don't mean to imply anything bad about any of these examples, they're just two different people. The certification indicates that a person has studied SAS and passed a test. 

So that's really all I see from certification. It shows you have a certain level of skill, and nothing more.

If you take two people with identical credentials, two years of SAS programming, exact same college degree from the exact same university, but one has the certification and the other doesn't, I'd be willing to be the certified programmer gets more job offers. But if you change the example, so one person has 5 years experience in SAS but not certified, and the other person has two years and certified, I'm thinking the person with the 5 years of experience gets more job offers. At some point, experience (and successful performance on previous jobs) becomes more important than certification in the minds of most hiring managers.

[novinosrin]

Very clear Sir and thank you for your time. But how do you trust the knowledge and skill behind the credential. 

" The certification indicates that a person has studied SAS and passed a test. So that's really all I see from certification. It shows you have a certain level of skill, and nothing more."

Even a person like you who has got decades of experience wouldn't have the time to test as the screening in most organisation isn't rigorous. Isn't that true? The very reason prompted me to question the true value and open up with thread here. I beg your pardon & I reiterate not saying all, but again it's not just a handful. When this very bloke(me) personally knows nearly a 100 odd of that kind, So  wouldn't it be unfair to the 2 year without certification not getting a chance just because he/she was more a person of integrity?

Personally, I lack in emotional- quotient/skills no matter how good my technical skills can grow. Overall, would you say that's where we need get lucky or accept that as a sad fact of human society. 

[PaigeMiller]

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@novinosrin wrote:

But how do you trust the knowledge and skill behind the credential. 

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Some people will lie on a job interview. And some truly certified individuals will have more SAS and related knowledge than other truly certified individuals. It becomes the responsibility of the hiring manager to ask the right questions and make the right decision. Furthermore, no one hires simply on SAS knowledge. There are many other factors to take into account, including (as far as you can tell in a job interview) the person's integrity. 

But there's no process of evaluating job applicants that guarantees the right decision will be made 100% of the time. That's why Tom Brady wasn't drafted until the 6th round.

I worked with a person who eventually was fired because, among other things, my managers found out he didn't have the degree that he claimed he had. I point out that individuals with low integrity may bluff their way through a job interview and get hired, but eventually it will catch up with them. 

[ballardw]

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@novinosrin wrote:

Very clear Sir and thank you for your time. But how do you trust the knowledge and skill behind the credential. 

" The certification indicates that a person has studied SAS and passed a test. So that's really all I see from certification. It shows you have a certain level of skill, and nothing more."

Even a person like you who has got decades of experience wouldn't have the time to test as the screening in most organisation isn't rigorous. Isn't that true? The very reason prompted me to question the true value and open up with thread here. I beg your pardon & I reiterate not saying all, but again it's not just a handful. When this very bloke(me) personally knows nearly a 100 odd of that kind, So  wouldn't it be unfair to the 2 year without certification not getting a chance just because he/she was more a person of integrity?

Personally, I lack in emotional- quotient/skills no matter how good my technical skills can grow. Overall, would you say that's where we need get lucky or accept that as a sad fact of human society. 

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What I see where the certificate may make a major difference is 1) with hiring agents/firms that know it exists, 2) place that in the job search criteria and 3) rely too much on automated response readers (or what ever they call the rules that go through the applications and removes them before a human ever sees the application). Organizations in this category may be relying on a "certified XXX" from another organization to develop the search terms and translates that other to a SAS certification search.

Retention after hire is another thing entirely though.

I haven't worked with SAS as long as @PaigeMiller; only since 1987. One of the jobs I got using SAS was because I knew FORTRAN and had to work with modelers developing code in that language. Another job offer was at least partially because I had worked in the data collection side of a major project that used SAS for analysis though knowledge of SAS probably helped as well. Certification was never an issue in any of the job postings.

[novinosrin]

Point taken. Thank you Sir for your time and valuable inputs. Much appreciate it!

[cosmid]

I don't see any disadvantages in obtaining a certification other than spending $$ for taking the exam.

Advantages of been certified:

1. Giving hire managers a false impression.  I have a certification in both SAS Base and Advance but I would rate my SAS programming skills 2/10. That's why I signed up here, practice by trying to solve other people's problems.

2. Like Paige said, it brings you the advantage over people with same background, degree, experience, etc.

3. Proof of you actually knowing the material.

4. SAS Institute makes money.

Been certified is like having a better resume, it doesn't make you a better programmer, it just makes you a better candidate. It's like Person A is better programmer but a bad resume writer while Person B is a better resume writer but a bad programmer, provided they have same education and experience, guess who will get hired.

[novinosrin]

@cosmid  Neat, Brilliant and Spot on!!!  and can't agree more. 🙂  Thank you for participating in the thread. Appreciate it!

Yo hiring managers out there!!!,  Be wary of profiles that has a header/summary begins with   "Advance certified SAS programmer/professional with expertise in high performance computing "  

And to which some of them might be muttering like, Yeah right mr novinosrin , that's exactly  what we did exactly  to screw others anyway. hehehe 

[beccagre]

Hello,

As the moderator for the SAS Certification Community, I’ve been watching the posts to the board and have been interested to see what people have been saying about the value of earning a SAS certification. Now, I’d like to offer a slightly more formal response from SAS Global Certification for consideration.

First, choosing to pursue earning a SAS certification or any certification for that matter, is a personal and professional choice. The reasons someone chooses to become SAS certified are as varied as the individuals who choose to get certified. Within the IT certification industry, it is a widely held belief that people choose to get certified to help them get a job, keep a job or get a better job. 

At SAS, because we are in the analytics business, naturally, we have data that speaks to the overall value of earning one of our certifications. (Do SAS Big Data credentials equal big professional value?) Does it mean that a hiring manager is going to hire you simply because you are SAS certified?  Of course not.  Does it potentially give you a slight edge over a non-certified individual?  Perhaps.  

As a company, SAS believes in the value of certification, otherwise we wouldn’t be offering them. We continually refresh our programs so they remain relevant to our certified base of people and to those companies who are seeking to recruit them.

It’s our sincere hope that in the coming years more people (for whatever reason) will choose to become SAS certified and join the 97,000 individuals who have already decided that SAS certification has value.