Is Cisco Certification Necessary?

If you're a system administrator, network administrator, or even a desktop analyst, you'll hear this phrase:

"So when are you getting Cisco certification?"

It's a question that will inevitably come up, and it's a good (if infuriating) one. Are you getting Cisco certification? Do you need it? The training courses, equipment, and tests are can be prohibitively expensive; is it worth it to get that coveted CCNA (or CCNP or CCIE)?

The answer depends but the short version is Go for It! (especially, if you can get it reimbursed by your place of employment or through other means).

The brutal truth of the matter is this: in this day and age, having Cisco certification vastly improves your attractiveness, both to potential employers and to your current employer. Cisco has become very popular everywhere, from small business to large corporations, and it's very difficult to get hired somewhere without proof that you understand the hardware and software that you're working with.

It's true that this isn't always the case: everyone has the stories about how they didn't need it, or they had a friend who was hired without it. There's also the matter of experience too; 20 years of experience in the field, for example, would most likely take precedence over any certifications the candidate might have. For the vast majority of us, however, having that CCNA at the end of our name is going to make the difference between getting an interview or just getting thrown to the bottom of the resume list, especially in today's economy.

There are other advantages to Cisco certification as well: studying for the test and taking it gives you a very, very solid knowledge of the Cisco IOS as well as other minute aspects of networking. All of your experience with Cisco equipment before you take your CCNA might, for example, have been completely hands-on, but there were certain scenarios and avenues that you simply had not had occasion to take. Taking the Cisco CCNA exam exposes you to a multitude of different tips, tricks, and configuration examples that you may not have been exposed to before it. It's true that a good network admin should be able to adapt to a situation he's never seen before, but taking the certification test gives you a solid background to resolve these issues more quickly when they occur simply because you've encountered them before and have the knowledge to resolve them more quickly and efficiently!

At any rate, in closing: it's certainly not entirely necessary to have Cisco certification. That's not the question posed here, however; the question is whether Cisco certification is worth it. Based on current hiring practices and just simple network admin knowledge, I would have to say that getting Cisco certification is entirely worth it (even if it's just to be able to answer "yes" to those people who keep asking you about your Cisco certification)!