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Why Train for Linux Certification?
// Learn Linux | Linux.com
IT pros consider certification an investment in their career, with the potential to help them land jobs, earn more money and develop more career options. But they want to know that the time and money they put into certification are good investments.
It and other training firms have been working to expand the Linux talent pool – the foundation this summer paired with Harvard and MIT to offer a free online course through edX -- yet Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation executive director told GeekWire those efforts aren't working quickly enough to meet demand. And analysts agree.
"Linux skills are showing a lot of growth in value, which you wouldn't expect because it's been around for a long time," said David Foote, CEO of analyst firm Foote Partners. "But Linux is everywhere these days."
Seventy-seven percent of hiring managers in a Linux Foundation/Dice poll ranked hiring Linux talent among their priorities for 2014, up from 70 percent a year ago.
Dice reports that on any given day, it has more than 11,000 job postings for Linux talent on its site. They cover an array of companies and industries including CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research; the University of Chicago; Match.com; UnitedHealth Group; the National Association of Realtors, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Home Depot.
Growth for Linux
Foote Partners predicts continued strong growth in pay premiums for Linux skills as a non-certified skill – meaning employers aren't necessarily looking for a specific vendor certification.
So if employers are willing to pay extra for Linux skills without a certification, that begs the question: Why be certified?
IT pros consider certification an investment in their career, with the potential to help them land jobs, earn more money and develop more career options. But they want to know that the time and money they put into certification are good investments.
All things being equal, employers will choose experience over certification. But the IT labor market right now is so tight – at just 3 percent IT unemployment – employers can't afford to limit their search to just certified or experienced talent, explains John Reed, senior executive director for staffing firm Robert Half Technology. Certification can be a way to set yourself apart from other applicants.
"Is [certification] helpful? Absolutely. Is there demand for Linux pros? Absolutely. It's beneficial because it shows you have some very specialized training. That you have a keen interest in that discipline. If I need a Linux person and they chose to get certification, that tells me that they're passionate about Linux, they've got the training and that appeals to me," he said.
Making more money
Foote Partners' quarterly IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index (He asked that we use the report title.) notes a five-quarter uptick in the value of certifications overall, after a seven-year slump. Reed, too, noted increased employer interest in certifications.
Linux Professional Institute certifications, CompTIA Linux+ and RedHat Certified Technician were among the skills making the biggest gains in market value during Q2.
Foote Partners tracks pay premiums – the extra cash companies offer beyond base salary for specific skills – for more than 700 certified and non-certified skills. Bonuses for LPIC-Level 2 have grown 33 percent in the past three months, with LPIC-Level 3 up 25 percent in the past year and CompTIA Linux+ up 20 percent in the past six months, Foote said. Pay for Red Hat Certified Technicians has shown more volatility.
The value of other Linux certs –IBM's AIX, for instance – hasn't changed over the past year, he said.
That underscores the need for IT pros to be clear about their reasons for choosing a particular certification path. In planning for career advancement, it's wise to research the needs of your current or prospective company, the technology, the path to your desired position – and your ability to keep up the skills you learned for certification.
Getting ahead
Hiring managers responding to the Linux Foundation/Dice poll said the skills they're most aggressively seeking include systems administration, 58 percent; Linux application development, 45 percent; and system architecture/engineering, 45 percent.
Linux experts, in turn, earned raises over the previous year that exceeded the average for technology professionals by more than 2 percentage points. They also received bonuses averaging $10,336, up 12 percent from the previous year.
The more than 4,000 Linux staffers polled indicated their jobs' biggest plus was "getting to work on interesting projects." "Working on the most cutting-edge technology challenges" ranked second and "more job opportunities" came in third.
Among those promoted in the first year after their most recent certification, about half believed certification played a role.
Certification might not be for everyone, depending on the job role and IT workers' career plans, but analysts and recruiters have shown it can provide a career boost in the current market.
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