Certification Magazine - December 2007 - (Page 24) certification saved their jobs when the outsourcing bug bit their company. “Certification helps me get more clients that are not referred by clients I already have,” one respondent said. “It creates confidence.” Twenty-eight percent of respondents report being extremely concerned about the future of certification, which might relate to worries over exam validity and the slow but steady rise of performance-based certification tests. Performance-based tests are often thought to be more difficult to pass yet present a more accurate picture of an IT professional’s skill level and ability to execute real-world job tasks, and more certification vendors are replacing traditional test formats with performance-based platforms. Slightly more than 26 percent of survey respondents reported being extremely concerned about employer support for certification, and 24 percent said they were extremely concerned about recertification and maintaining skills. This might mean IT certification holders and seekers will need to come up with clever ways to study more economically for their exams, or they might have to illustrate exactly how and why certification is valuable to their respective organizations to get an affirmative response when they request training funds. 8 – Kellye Whitney, kwhitney@certmag.com This follows the trend of the past few years: IT salaries are becoming less affected by traditional higher education than by technical training. According to the survey, only individuals with a doctorate draw a higher average salary than those with technical training. Those with a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree average around $53,000, whereas someone with technical training independent of a degree program averages $54,000. The monetary difference there isn’t severe, but it is significant, considering the time, money and effort spent on attaining the degree versus just a year or two of technical training. Even so, only about 10 percent of respondents say they have technical training but no college degree, even with its salary ramifications. This leads to questions about age: Is the small percentage of employees with only technical training representative of young people knowing it’s equally profitable to just go through technical training or evidence that many haven’t latched on to the idea of dropping formal education altogether? The study points to the latter as the more likely scenario, in that the older you are, the higher your average IT salary. Individuals 49 and older can expect to make at least 48 percent more than the average salary, but people younger than 25 can expect to make at least 60 percent less. Being that age and experience are often inexorably linked, such disparity in salary makes sense, but it could be indicative of other factors, as well. Many elderly professionals have had to continue working or change careers long after they expected because of longer life expectancy and the rising cost of living. A result of such societal change is older, experienced people earning certifications much later in life than they normally would, thus driving up their value even more. But regardless of salary benefits, it still isn’t that common to jump straight into technical training without some sort of higher education. The CertMag 2007 Salary Survey measured other time factors, as well, including the time spent at your current company and time spent in a certain job. Both factor into your total salary. The Role of Demographics It’s simple, right? Whatever in-demand certifications you hold automatically determine your salary. Not exactly. As we’ve found over the last few years and continue to see with the CertMag Salary Survey, demographics (including education, age and sex) play a huge role in determining your salary and can create earning gaps. Some, such as age, are closing in to nearly even. Others, such as sex, continue to increase. It’s natural to see disparity based on varying factors — everyone isn’t equal, and that’s a fact in negotiating salary for any job, not just IT. In this year’s survey, for example, there was an increase in salary for employees with technical training versus those who went through a degree program, which highlights how the demand for specific certifications relates to other, unrelated academic achievements. 24 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE December 2007
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