I’ve had some good responses to the ongoing discussion about certifications vs. real life work experience, as sparked by a recurring theme in Foote Partners' quarterly surveys that suggest that the difference in skills pay for certified vs. non-certified pros is getting smaller.

Jason wrote asking why it must be one or the other. He said: “The above implies that if you are not certified, you do not have the necessary technical skills and must compensate with other skills. The glut of over-certified individuals vs. those with real world practical skills has been the downfall of the certification ‘industry.’”

He adds: “Far too often (my own experience) we see certified folks who essentially are great at taking tests, or are only doing so to place a few more letters after their name. Businesses want folks that understand their business and can adapt to constant change. Technical certifications do not represent this capacity.”

Jason makes a good point. Let’s put it another way: As more and more individuals become vendor certified and join the workforce, doesn’t it devalue the prestige that certifications are expected to offer? Aren’t salaries being driven down by employers being able to pick from the abundance of candidates able to wave all the necessary letters after their names? OK, this may be an exaggeration – there appears to be a shortage of folks with certain advance certifications, such as CCIE Voice (see this Brad Reese on Cisco blog posting, “Wanted CCIE Voice Experts: $160K to $200K to start”) – but for the other “more common” certifications, isn’t that the case?

The result is that employers seek experience, in addition to certifications, in most cases. Take this recent posting to Networking-forum.com. The poster says he became CCNA and CCNP certified four years ago, through reading books and taking the exams without touching Cisco equipment. He’s now in a job supporting 30 routers and numerous servers. He acknowledges his real world knowledge and experience with Cisco routers is lacking and is asking the forum how he should progress beyond being certified. Among the responses is to buy used Cisco gear and experiment. Is that enough? I guess it’s a start.

But often, it’s not just experience in managing network equipment that employers want. More and more employers want workers who understand the industry they’re in and have experience in specific systems and software. But how do you go about getting that? Is there training for industry knowledge? Perhaps vendors or associations should include some sort of business element to their curriculum and exams to address this lack of business knowledge in some. Perhaps that would help to improve the image vendor certifications among some IT pros.

Jon Brodkin is senior writer at Network World.