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Save a Frog! Join the ETA-I.ORG
My quest to get affordable certification tests has met with some natural resistance. I’m getting a number of comments that while the ETA-I.ORG looks great, Human Resource departments (those who do the hiring) don’t know about CST (pdf) or CNST (pdf) much less it’s Certified Web Specialist (CWS) or IT Fiber programs.
Fair enough.
And repeating what was so popular to say in the 1970’s: and still valid today: “If you are not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”. HR will not know what CST or CNST is until we either take the test or roll our A+* or Network+* to ETA-I (and put that on our CV/Resume). and/or ETA-I will be more widespread and well-known.
And my point for this entry is not about ETA-I or CompTIA.
Recently I rejoined a small (yet elite) group. It got me thinking about something I read in 1975 from Robert J. Ringer book Looking out for #1.which was re-issued in 1985 and available at Amazon.com for way under $10. USD.
In this engaging read when the author was at one of his deepest (and not-happy) moments in life, a truism hit him. Now I’m not going to ruin the story for you by repeating it here. And the point was: What are you offering the planet that you cannot get from 999 other people?
I read that in 1975 and it really hit home. It has helped define who I am.
So let’s bring that back to training and certification. I’m really happy to have rejoined the Network Professional Association and enlisted as a Certified Network Professional.
Let me say up front, joining the NPA and getting your CNP is not cheap. I dropped $400 USD. This is the same amount of money Microsoft charges for being an MCT. While the MCT is not exactly a commodity, being a CNP gets a “what’s that?” Nothing the OCR scanners looking at CV/Resumes are going to pick up (today). Personally, I don’t care if nobody knows what a CNP is. I’m getting my $400 USD dollars worth, many times over.
So the logical question becomes “Why would I drop $400 USD?”
The answer is:
It is in your best interests.
Rational:
Assuming you can afford $400 USD; look at what you get each month:
Members get a whole lot of “free” stuff from corporate sponsors. I remember this from when I was a member and Chapter President of Seattle, WA –USA in the 1990’s. Yes, being an NPA member wasn’t cheap. What I got mailed to me each month was an incredible stack of software that was licensed to my test lab. Stuff that otherwise would have cost me thousands of dollars a year, or gone without. So when I heard that the NPA was making a push in this century, it was a no-brainer to get back in the fold.
Call it enlightened self-interest (as R.J. Ringer would have said). Sure the corporate sponsors are getting mindshare. The NPA is getting members. We get stuff we couldn’t afford to play with otherwise. A Win/Win/Win.
Because I have been around since 8KB was the total RAM on a mainframe, I have a “few” acronyms behind my name. Generally I don’t list them unless it is relevant to a class I’m teaching or a book I’m working on.
So when I go teach Network+ in CA next week, I’ll write:
CNP/CNST/CTT/Network+.
All but CTT are directly related to networking. And I’ve been a CTT for just shy of 10 years so you might want to know I known something about training. I’m sure as hell not going to tell them I got a perfect score on the LANtastic certification test. Who would care about LANtastic today? It’s about relevance, not intimidation.
Why put CNP and CNST on the board for a Network+ class? It’s to show them the greatness in small certifications. I could put MCSE too. And what would be the point? It’s not something that is exactly difficult to find a MCSE. So remembering what I learned from Ringer 30 years ago: I’ll take the odd certification as enlightened self interest.
(* ™ or ® of CompTIA.org)
