Posted by Rodney Sellers

I have worked in the IT field for almost 10 years. One of the most controversial topics among most of the people I have worked with is whether or not certifications should expire. I have heard many arguments for and against this. Mostly, the argument of "We need our employees to keep up with new technology and not just rest on what they know." As many of you know, those of us in the IT field have strong opinions and don’t change them easily.

For a number of years, I worked at a very large company that required continuing education of their IT staff. This meant the entire IT team was required to get or renew at least one certification every 2 years, regardless if they needed to be or not. I was not in that part of the company so I was not required to do this. The upper management thought this was a great idea because it kept all the IT team up on current technology. To the IT team, it meant retaking the A+ certification. The reason why they kept taking the A+ certification is that it was the cheapest and easiest certification to retake, so that’s what they did. The ones that have Windows certifications didn’t renew them because they were too expensive and the company would not pay for them unless they where under a certain amount. Many of the IT team members believed staying up with technology was a good idea, but they did not believe forcing employees to retake certification tests over was the way to go about it. They tried to force employees to start taking only new certifications, but that didn’t last because they realized very quickly that the test starting to go up after the A+ and Networking + certifications.

In my opinion, there is no need for certifications to expire because you must keep up with technology. If you don’t, you will not be able to keep your job as an IT professional for very long. If you are afraid your employees are not keeping up with the changes in technology, then talk to them. You will see that they are probably way ahead of you. Any IT team will be looking into different/new ways of making their job easier.

About the Author: Rodney Is A Staff Writter for iEntry