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On Wed, 5 Feb 2003, Roger Austin wrote:

>   I have seen the certifications used in some businesses in looking for 
> staff. I personally don't think much of them, but many companies use 
> certifications as part of the winnowing process when they are hiring. 
> They seem to need something to put down as minimum standards and since 
> there are so many of these certificates out there, they are willing to 
> accept them as part of the minimum. So not having the certification can 
> hurt candidates for certain positions even though anecdotal evidence 
> would indicate that they are bullshit.

In one case I know of personally over the last year, a local company 
opened five new technical positions and received literally four hundred 
resumes apiece. Not having time to evaluate all two thousand resumes in 
careful detail, they used possession of what they felt was a relevant 
certification to winnow the resumes down by 90% in the first pass. They 
almost certainly threw out resumes in the eighteen hundred that were 
excellent for the positions, they just didn't have time to review all two 
thousand. 

Steve Burnett
-- 
Steve Burnett    burnett AT pobox.com   http://www.pobox.com/~burnett/
System Administration Technical Documentation Information Retrieval