Linux Certification: What’s The Value?

By my count, there are four Linux certification programs. These are Sair Linux and GNU Certification’s Linux Certified Professional(LCP); Linux Professional Institute (LPI); Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE); and CompTIA’s Linux+. It’s too bad that so few jobs require Linux certification.

Oh, there are Linux jobs out there; it’s just that they’re much more likely to call for a bachelors in computer science than a Linux certification. In my analysis of 500 Linux job postings on Monster.com, the Washington Post job section, HotLinuxJobs, and HotJobs, only 1% of Linux jobs asked for any certification and when they did the most popular was the RHCE.

Instead of certifications, what employers want are people with four year computer science degrees and three years and up experience in Linux.

What are certifications for? Well, according to Evan Leibovitch, president of the Linux Professional Institute, in a recent article in Certification Magazine, have a “single specific purpose. They are intended to separate the people who ‘know their stuff’ from those who don’t.”

Most employers think of all certifications, with the exception of Cisco’s, as being little more than minimal standards. The most common attitude seems to be, “We still have to train them no matter how many pieces of paper they have.”

The LPI also takes a strictly vendor-neutral approach to their certification efforts. The other non-Red Hat certifications also take this approach, but the LPI takes this much more seriously.

Historically, though, that’s not been the most successful route. The important certifications in the job market, like the Microsoft Certified Software Engineer (MCSE), Certified Novell Engineer (CNE) and the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE), have been vendor driven. Indeed, one major reason these certifications have become so popular is that partnership relationships with each company often required that a reseller or integrator have a certain number of certified staffers on board. Given this, it should come as no surprise that what interest employers do show so far in Linux certification is in the RHCE.

Another problem seems to be that while those in the Linux community tend to know about Linux certification, potential employers don’t know them. In a recent CRN survey solution providers are clearly getting the idea that Linux is the next coming thing, but they still see certification as a “key sticking point.” And, they also think that, despite the track record, vendor-neutral certification is still the way to go.

With all this, should you still bother to get certified? If you plan to be employed in Linux in the long run, it’s probably worth it. Some companies, like IBM are strongly encouraging their partners to get either LPIs or RHCEs. Indeed, IBM will pay its middleware partners up to $3,000 for their Linux certification costs. With companies like Dell, HP, and Oracle also lining up behind Linux, it’s likely that they too will eventually support certification and with this support, Linux certification, in turn, will become important for job-seekers.

Walking The Linux Walk

In the short run, for both potential employees and employers, a Linux certification shows that someone is serious about Linux. Lots of people can talk the Linux talk, but can barely walk around a KDE desktop. With a Linux certification, you can at least be sure that the holder is trying to master Linux rather than play with it.

Another current reason to get a RHCE is that, according to a December 2001 salary survey by Certification Magazine is that at shops that do recognize this certification, RHCE holders make 9.6% more salary per year. Now if only more employers paid attention to Linux certifications, there’d be no question about the need to get one.