Certification Do's and Dont's

You often have a hard time deciding which certification is right for you. The answer really depends on the stage of your career, the certifications you already have and your chosen technology area. However, there are some in demand certifications that can substantially improve your salary or career prospects. This might be because there is a big gap between supply/demand or they are difficult to achieve.

Just a few years ago, the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification promised large salary jumps for IT professionals. It is still the most popular certification and still in demand. However, so many people have the certification that it's become more of an entry-level requirement.
Most of these are top-end certifications that require a few years of job experience in addition to training. Also, because of their level of difficulty, these certifications can increase your salary by 20% to 30%.

Do's:

• Target a set of employers or check with your own on whether they value a particular top-level certification. This is imperative before you invest time and money in it. Otherwise, you may find yourself relocating to get that big salary jump.
  
• Plan on recertifying. You may have to take recertification tests every two to three years or attend a certain number of classroom hours, trade shows or seminars over a several-year period.
  
• Mix and match certifications. A large advance in salary is when you get certified in multiple disciplines, like both Cisco and Microsoft. You could be a certified database administrator and a certified project manager both at the same time.

Don'ts

• Don't choose a certification on its salary potential alone. Make sure you like that technology area and can be good at it. If you're not good at it or don't like it, don't do it.
  
• Don't blindly fall for claims of huge salary leaps. Typically, obtaining a certification is beneficial to a person's salary but not nearly as much as some sources would have you believe. The certification holder must be able to actually perform the duties associated with the certification to be valuable in any way.

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