College Classroom CERTIFICATES

Evaluating the Merits of IT Certifications When Recruiting CS/MIS Students

- NAVEED SALEEM, GOKHAN GERCEK, FAIZA ZALILA, JIAN LIN, AND MICAHEL WU

Higher education academic programs emphasize equipping their graduates with some practical experience in their field of study through projects, internships, practicums, and so forth, to better prepare them for the job market. Computer Science (CS) and Management Information Systems (MIS) programs, however, have also been increasingly incorporating IT professional certifications into the course and program curricula in order to provide some edge to their graduates in securing internships and employment.

An IT certification is considered an external, objective evidence of one's knowledge and practical experience in a specific technology or domain. A student, however, may possess only nominal practical experience, if any at all. Consequently, this raises the question of how one should interpret an IT certification earned by a student.

This paper presents a case study that should help an interviewer/recruiter better interpret the relevance and merits of an IT certification held by a newly minted graduate whose academic background is in a Computer Science or Management Information Systems field of study.

Introduction

The Computer Science and Management Information Systems departments at institutions of higher education employ varied strategies to ensure that their graduates possess readily marketable IT knowledge and skills upon entering the job market (Husinger and Smith, 2008; Rajendran, 2011).

Typically, these strategies include: 1) equipping students with high-demand IT skills (Yew, 2008; Wittman, 2010); and 2) enhancing students’ practical IT knowledge and skills through internships, industry projects, on-campus work projects, or simulated projects (Yew, 2008; Coes and Schotanus, 2009; Janz and Nichols, 2010; Tan and Venables, 2010; Wittman, 2010).