Certification

Khannie

Considering doing the RedHat certification. Anyone here done it? I'm reasonably competent with Linux at this stage and have some RH specific experience.

Is it ridiculously difficult?

Also, anyone here who does hiring, would you consider it a major plus?

ntlbell

Khannie wrote: »

Considering doing the RedHat certification. Anyone here done it? I'm reasonably competent with Linux at this stage and have some RH specific experience.

Is it ridiculously difficult?

Also, anyone here who does hiring, would you consider it a major plus?

Probably start off with RHCT or have a look at the contents of RHCE and see if it's something you could take on.

The other option might be to go down the LPI route.

The RHCE is pretty damn hard the test is hands on and very tricky

Personally when going through CV's certs might get you added to the give them a call pile but will hold very little weight at interview stage.(that could be just me tho)

Certs like the RHCE do hold a bit more weight as you can't "braindump" them you really _have_ to know your stuff to pass.

Naikon

Khannie wrote: »

Considering doing the RedHat certification. Anyone here done it? I'm reasonably competent with Linux at this stage and have some RH specific experience.

Is it ridiculously difficult?

Also, anyone here who does hiring, would you consider it a major plus?

I have not done it...yet:D, but the redhat cert is king because the test
is very, very practical in nature. Much like the Cisco certs.

IMO, I would not bother with ANY cert that does not include a practical
lab test. Braindump certs are totally useless without experience.

Khannie

ntlbell wrote: »

Probably start off with RHCT or have a look at the contents of RHCE and see if it's something you could take on.

I think I could get the RHCT without any real difficulty. RHCE on the other hand I think would take quite a bit of work but would be useful.

ntlbell wrote: »

The RHCE is pretty damn hard the test is hands on and very tricky

By tricky do you mean sneaky? Like when I figure out what's wrong I'll be all "sneaky bastards"?

Interesting that they wouldn't hold weight at interview stage for you though.

ntlbell

Khannie wrote: »

I think I could get the RHCT without any real difficulty. RHCE on the other hand I think would take quite a bit of work but would be useful.

I would go RHCT to get into the swing then.

Khannie wrote: »

By tricky do you mean sneaky? Like when I figure out what's wrong I'll be all "sneaky bastards"?

Interesting that they wouldn't hold weight at interview stage for you though.

They can be sneaky, not so much to catch you out but to really make sure your know what you're doing.

I guess what I mean by that is once your at the interview stage it's not going to give you much of an advantage with me over someone who hasn't got it but can still answer any technical questions I ask.

I want to hire the best guy for the job, not the one with the most certs.

The vast majority of _really_ good people I've worked with have no degree and no certs I've also worked with some really good people with certs coming out of their bottom and alphabets after their name so the cert or no cert won't sway me

does that make sense?

Khannie

ntlbell wrote: »

does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes sense. I think certification is a useful baseline, once you have faith in the certificate. The first company I worked in out of college wouldn't hire anyone into the Software Engineering section that didn't have a degree. The reasoning (as I understood it) was that they felt a certain level of dedication was required and a minimum level of knowledge attained. Now I didn't agree with that, but, let's take the RHCE for example....you can be pretty certain that someone with one at least isn't ****. You need to rely solely on interview skills for someone without one (assuming the job role is relevant to the certification).

ravydavygravy

Having done the RHCE, I found it good craic - I'm not one for bits of paper, but I use linux on a daily basis and have a good grasp of it, so decided to do the fast-track course + exam a few years ago (5 days - 4 course, + 1 for the exam). Might re-certify soon.

The course is interesting, and the exam is good fun - can't really talk about specifics (NDA is part of the deal), but its totally hands on. Lots of problems on real systems that you need to fix. Bit like a nerd game show.

If you are happy using redhat, I'd say go for it. Just have a look at the course syllabus and make sure you have a grasp of all the sections, not just a few of them - everything and anything is covered in the exam.

Orion

The thing about LPI is that it's not distro specific. This is an advantage and a disadvantage. Some aspects of the syllabus cover both RH and Debian ways of doing things and the exams can ask either so you need to know both. But RH is prevalent in business so doing a one-size-fits-all cert may not be looked on favourably. Ubuntu is making big inroads in business tho.

There's also Suse certification but I don't think that really has a big market share in Ireland.

ravydavygravy

http://www.redhat.com/certification/rhce/prep_guide/

Thats a pretty good summary of what you need to know to pass the exam. But more than know it, you need to have practical experience, and be able to do it relativly quickly (for the exam)

ntlbell

Khannie wrote: »

Yeah, it makes sense. I think certification is a useful baseline, once you have faith in the certificate. The first company I worked in out of college wouldn't hire anyone into the Software Engineering section that didn't have a degree. The reasoning (as I understood it) was that they felt a certain level of dedication was required and a minimum level of knowledge attained. Now I didn't agree with that, but, let's take the RHCE for example....you can be pretty certain that someone with one at least isn't ****. You need to rely solely on interview skills for someone without one (assuming the job role is relevant to the certification).

Well you can only assume they're ok with the OS itself, they might be **** at everything else ;D

but I understand your point.

There is some certs you can take as a good baseline CCNP/RHCE/ anything that involves more than wrote learning and recall.

and that's why it'll get me to pick up the phone. but nothing else.

ntlbell

ravydavygravy wrote: »

but its totally hands on. Lots of problems on real systems that you need to fix. Bit like a nerd game show.

heh, I wonder if there would be a market for this show

Blowfish

Running through it at the minute with this book. I've found it fine so far, but I'm not far enough through the syllabus it to get a complete feel for it. It's the type of exam I love anyway, I always score far better in practical exams than essay/braindump types.

Might be worth a shot going for the full RHCE as even if you your grade isn't good enough for it, if it's in any way decent they'll give you a RHCT instead. Next exam in Ireland is listed as end of December anyway, so you've a decent amount of time to decide whether you are up for it.

Khannie

Blowfish wrote: »

Might be worth a shot going for the full RHCE as even if you your grade isn't good enough for it, if it's in any way decent they'll give you a RHCT instead.

Think I'll give this a lash alright.

Blowfish wrote: »

Next exam in Ireland is listed as end of December anyway, so you've a decent amount of time to decide whether you are up for it.

Do you have that page bookmarked perchance? (I'm just being lazy)

Blowfish

Khannie wrote: »

Think I'll give this a lash alright.



Do you have that page bookmarked perchance? (I'm just being lazy)

Here. Seems I was a bit off through and it's the start rather than the end of Dec. RH302 is the exam itself.

Khannie

Thanks for that.

Fup me. 800 euro. Not cheap. Also not very many of them per-year.

Is 4 months a resonable time?

Blowfish

Khannie wrote: »

Is 4 months a resonable time?

Depends on where you are stating from I suppose. If you've been toying around with Linux as a server for a while, it'll be more about building on that with far more depth (i.e. more tweaking) rather than introducing lots of 'new' concepts.

Khannie

Well....I'm not a server admin, though I have done quite a bit of fluting around. I ditched windows about 2 or 3 years ago so I'm very comfortable with linux at this stage. I've done some stuff that's in the exam (like LVM) myself but I wouldn't have a clue when it comes to mail servers and the like. I've just never had to do that.

I suppose I should just dig into it more. 4 months is a lot of time, but my spare time is fairly limited. It would be ideal to get it complete before January (we have a baby on the way) but I don't want to absolutely break my bollix doing it either - I wouldn't want to put in more than 8 hours a week of reading / practice.

micko45

A new verison comptia Linux+ exam is available to do for €78 with prometric. It is noramlly over €200.

I am looking for a RHCE cert myself but as this is so cheap I booked it.

http://www.comptia.org/certifications/listed/linux/2009beta.aspx

BTW they did 400 free exams but they seem to be used up.