MBA > IT Certifications

Background:
Several years ago I was presented the opportunity to pursue my MBA at a significantly reduced tuition rate. Despite the savings through tuition remission provided by my employer, it was still expensive and therefore meant not spending that money on other career pursuits such as IT certifications.

Since that decision, I have self-taught any IT skills that I needed while I pursued my MBA, switched employers, had two daughters and a few other things.

The Problem:
I believe that the combination of IT and MBA is a significant and unique differentiator. Unfortunately, "unique differentiator" is very rarely listed on job postings where a variety of certification acronyms are. Please don't get me wrong, I understand the level of expertise a certification represents and I understand the desire of employers, and specifically the HR departments, to find candidates which fit a profile (usually the profile of someone who just left). Unfortunately (and I realize the irony of the next statement), a few letters appended to the end of your name does not effectively mean anything. This is not necessarily the fault of the potential employee as they've obviously made some amount of effort to obtain the letters, but it doesn't necessarily mean competence, on the job knowledge, or any real ability to solve an IT problem.

As HR (or the automated application matching computer systems) trys to match acronyms on postings with acronyms on resumes, high schools, technical training schools, vocational schools, community colleges, book publishers and training websites have found a potentially huge revenue stream. High school students take classes and are taught to pass the CCNA exams and are considered qualified for jobs despite no practical or on the job knowledge or skills.

A colleague of mine pursuing his CCNA met a young guy at a certification testing center who was testing for one of the highest Cisco exams available. The young man admitted that he had no practical experience, did not feel comfortable with actual equipment and was fearful of failing the lab portion of the exam. He had never managed a network.

Why MBA:
Not wanting to be pigeon-holed into programming, or databases, or networking, I decided to be an IT generalist; a jack of all trades who focuses more on IT's ability to impact the business. The fact of the matter is that their are innumerable resources to help with every conceivable technology problem (forums, books, Google, blogs, etc), but there are very few IT specialists who can analyze a business or a business process, help determine the problems, determine the solutions, construct proformas and executive presentations, plan the project and lead the solutions team.