 Tom here from Orange Systems. We're going to talk about IT certifications, college degree, and well, let's get this right off the rip and out of the way because this question comes up quite a bit. I want to have this video as my go-to reply for what are your thoughts on these things. First, my thoughts are I don't have them. I do not have a college degree. I do not have IT certifications. So if that's enough to make you stop watching this video because you shouldn't listen to some guy who doesn't have certifications to talk about certifications, that's perfectly fine. That's why I like to disclose things up front and maybe you've stopped watching there. If you still are watching a video, let's talk a little bit about this because as a business owner, one, you don't need, at least here in the US, any type of certification in the business. So that is just something that doesn't come up, even though I've had a tech company and I've worked in technology since 1995, it is not required that I have certifications to do what I do. There are specific exceptions where there are licenses that you may need or certifications that have to be vetted by state agencies to be very specific in certain areas and cabling and wiring is one of those areas, but Michigan where we are located is actually an exception to that, but some other states do require certifications that you have to get for that, but that's a little different than the IT certification. So at least I'll mention because we do cabling and wiring and people ask, well, what search do you need to get started? In Michigan, the answer is not. Back to the actual topic. One of the problems is a lot of people are they see these headlines and they drive me nuts, you know, and I could sit here and be all high and mighty about it going, I'm successful in tech and I'm all about the acquisition of knowledge, not the validation of institution, but that doesn't really help anyone in their IT career. That's just a click-baity headline to say that someone dropped out of college and built some big company and it's some article you'll read and there'll be this implementation that you can do it to just because they did it. The reality is you're probably going to need some certifications to get into IT. What certifications is going to vary greatly based on where you're going and the cybersecurity world and especially some of the application pen testing world is some of the crazy side where there's certainly a lot of people without certifications to get in there, but there are skill levels or where they prove it. And one of the ways, especially when a cybersecurity side, especially if you go into application pen testing and just collecting bug bounties, well, there's no certifications. You just have to be good enough to do it. That's the bar of entry. Can you do it? Can you dive into that and go in that market? But if you're looking for a regular, I want to work at a company with a job, it's important to have certifications. They are what make you marketable. They are what make the prospecting employer, when they're going around, going through places to go, oh, person's got a few certifications. And then like the college degrees as well. Those are things that are looked at as qualifiers to kind of filter out and it's how HR departments will make some of those certifications or terminations. Now, there is another video I'll link to kind of talking about getting started in cybersecurity where a couple of people who are experts in cybersecurity that I had on my channel discuss that. I'll leave a link below and it's Xavier and Chris Roberts. And they talk about hacking, getting into there, maybe even how to get around HR and things like that. Soft skills are where I have always worked at and that's what's helped my career more than anything else. I've had the skills by reading books. I've done lots of hands-on labs. I've been working in tech for 25 years. The other side of that is I know a lot of people in tech and it's because, well, I've been social in that realm. I take an interest in what they do. I've been someone who's worked on a lot of this myself and having a lot of friends in the industry is what gets me a lot of the connections and you're probably thinking, well, I don't know a lot of people. There's a time in my life I didn't either. I don't come from anyone in my family who does any type of tech, but I will tell you those type of soft skills and going to conferences or online forums is actually where I meet a lot of people too. Over the years, I'm talking like from the earliest days, I was, I met people in the BBS dial-up days where we dial in a Baltimore systems and have discussions with people about networking and it's been ongoing. Those conversations then it moved to IRC. Now it's moved to me hanging out and everything from Discord to Slack channels randomly that dive deep into those technology topics, but having those circles of friends and technology is another part of your career path. It's kind of a conglomeration of everything together. Pick your passion, decide what you may need to get certified in, whether you're going to the network engineering side, whether or not you're going into some of the Microsoft certifications which of course are extremely popular and Microsoft and Cisco collectively represent a massive part of our industry. Those are still going to be popular, relevant certifications. Now I'm not going to really send you down a path of which one because I don't know what you want to do, but I will say that they're relevant. Now the final thing I'll answer because this is part of the question that comes at me is do you have certifications? What do you certify it in or what's your college degree, which like I said was none, but do I require that of my staff and wouldn't that be kind of hypocritical and not really? I don't require it right now as a hiring mandate, but I've also only hired mostly my friends and people I knew. So it hasn't really been a bunch of random people that have come in here. I've had a few that have come in that I didn't really know, but yeah, I did some Q&A and being that I am technical, I'm able to see through people who don't really understand what they're doing, but put it on the resume that they did. That's not as easy for your average HR person to do, but the vetting process I go through and it's not something I require. Now it is something that I think is important in any of my staff that want to go and pursue certifications relevant to their career in here. I cover that. I do provide training. IT Pro TV is one of the things I have an affiliate link down below, but we actually use it internally. They'll take the tests. I've bought books for them. These are all things that are not a problem. Now, the final thoughts are certifications. Do I think they're any good? This is a real fuzzy thing because I will admit they were really bad in the beginning and they really have changed a lot now. So I will say that my opinion, if you were to find some old comments that I had left somewhere where you don't need certifications and they're not really relevant and all they do is regressions information versus how I look at it today, I think they're a pretty important part of the industry. Our industry probably needs more of that because we have a lot of things that are not done properly and making sure that these certifications and people that are qualified to do the jobs are the ones doing the jobs. It's going to be an important part of the maturation and how we get IT more organized and a little bit better and more secure is it's going to be through some organization like that and putting together proper certifications and proper understandings of the parameters needed in order to make sure that people know what they're doing when we sit them down in front of the keyboard or whether they know what they're doing while you're up a cabling, whether or not they put things together in a secure manner when they're building an application. So that's my thoughts on it for here in 2020 and I'll leave a link below to the Chris Roberts video with Xavier and diving in a cybersecurity topic because that's an interesting one all together that they are experts in. Thanks. 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