Certification question

[CommonSense]

It's possible that I may qualify for federally funded training, since I've been out of work so long.  (Depends on whether I can convince the state I need it in order to get a job.)  I'm thinking of perhaps an RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) course.

Do any of you know anything about the job prospects for RHCEs?  I know a decent amount of system admin, mainly on FreeBSD, but to a fair amount on Linux also.  The course and exam, and resulting certification, would be to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and "formalize" it all.

Any insights?

[voidmain]

I hear it's a good program although I have not gone through it. I've never seen it on anyone's resume and I'm not one that puts much weight on certifications when looking at resumes, but I don't know if I am in the minority or majority.

Being more technically oriented and have done a lot of hiring I know that certifications don't really mean that much. It seems to me that I see a larger percentage of people with certs who are technically challenged than those without certs. But like I said, if you are doing it to sharpen your skills I've heard it's one of the best cert programs going. And having the cert certainly can't hurt on a resume.

Also in the UNIX world I haven't seen a large percentage of job listings looking for Linux admin/engineers specifically. Usually companies are looking for Solaris/HPUX/AIX etc but I believe having Linux on the resume is a big plus and I assume that most *NIX shops do.

There was one job that I really wanted that was specifically Linux. And as much experience as I have with Linux (10 years) I didn't have enough qualifications to even get me to the technical interview. That was on a Linux super computer with 1,028 P3 CPUs. Depressing....

The market is tight right now all the way around for sure but I am seeing signs that it may be ready to open up again. Sorry I couldn't give you a first hand review of the RHCE program.

[iancom]

I did the RHCE a few months ago.

I can't go into specifics about the content as such for obvious reasons - it would devalue the certification if everyone knew exactly what was contained in the exams!

What I can say, however, is that I found it to be an incredibly challenging full day of exams. It's almost entirely experience-based and working on real machines. It encompasses most areas that you would expect - problem-solving, installation and configuration, security etc.

I cannot yet say how the job market has reacted to my having RHCE on my CV, since I haven't actually put out any CV's with it on... I have a reasonably stable job at the moment, and doing the certification is more of a 'just in case' thing. I would imagine that the RHCE is at the moment mostly recognised and appreciated only by employers who are really knowledgeable about IT and the market. However, I see this as a good thing since they're the sort of employers I would prefer to work with anyway.

Basically, I would highly recommend it. Make absolutely sure you are completely comfortable with pretty much all aspects of Red Hat Linux - I found what worked for me was working through one of the many huge books (like Red Hat Linux 7.2 Unleashed) whilst going over everything on my computers at the same time, and doing it as many times as it took so that I was sure I understood it!

Good Luck!

[sporkme]

diversify your resume.

wether or not RHCP alone means dick, a long and impressive list of certifications will make you attractive to any employer.

even ms certs.
combine that with webmaster of ms-eradication.org oughta throw a wrench into their sprockets with ms certs tho!  weeeeeeeeee