Skills Rule, Certs (without Skills) Drool

A few weeks ago, I posted a seemingly innocent blog entry - and got a flood of responses. OK, I know that a sample exam question about NAT is not nearly as hot a topic as the value of Cisco certifications for employees of Cisco's customers, but I must admit, I was surprised with how strong the opinions were. The comments were varied, and no consensus was reached (I didn't expect that we would - I was just interested in hearing opinions). Some of the common themes:

• Many people were skeptical that a Cisco cert implied that a person had the related skills, with the possible exception of the CCIE cert.
• Lots of people believed that someone could have a Cisco cert and have almost none of the related skills, but again with this being unlikely for CCIE's.
• While more people seemed to think that certs weren't useful when working for a Cisco customer, some did believe it was helpful for your career, or at least not harmful.
• Skills and experience always trump certs (or as my daughter would say, skills rule, but Certs without skills drool.)

At the risk of raising the temperature again, I thought I'd attack the overall question of the value of certs for Cisco customers again. This time, however, I want to remove the "has cert, no skills" issue by using a few hiring scenarios. Several of you believed that the certs have some value when trying to get a job, even a job working for a Cisco customer, so it seemed like something that could be discussed in blog format.  

Scenario 1: A company is hiring a new network engineer from outside the company. The job focuses on routers and switches. The candidate should have skills somewhere between a CCNP and CCIE R/S. The company narrows it down to 2 candidates, both of which have worked their entire career in networking-related jobs for companies that are Cisco customers. Both candidates are equivalent on every scale with which they can be compared - technical skills, experience, soft skills, cost to hire/move them, they both should fit in well with the staff, and so on - except candidate 1 does not have a CCNP, and candidate 2 does. The question is, does the CCNP candidate get the job because of the cert - or not get the job because of the cert - or does the CCNP have zero impact? I'm particularly interested in what you think would happen where you work right now, assuming you work for a Cisco customer instead of a Cisco partner. Here's the survey:

Scenario 2: This time, the company is hiring for the same job, but this time they are choosing between two internal candidates. The perceptions about the candidates skills etc are the same, and again, candidate 1 does not have a CCNP, but candidate 2 just got his CCNP, in his spare time. Does the CCNP matter in this decision, and if so, which candidate gets the nod? Again, I'm particularly interested in what you think would happen where you work right now, assuming you work for a Cisco customer instead of a Cisco partner. Here's the survey:

It would be interested to here why you chose the way you did as well. Looking forward to sitting back and watching your comments again!