After an outpouring of comments in response to our recertification announcement this week, we thought it best to let you hear the responses directly from the horse’s mouth. In this podcast, I discussed some of the more pointed comments with Terry Erdle (our VP of Certs) and allowed him to address them directly.
Download and listen to the podcast here: http://www.comptia.org/media/CompTIA_certification_discussion.mp3
Links to more information about our recent changes:
FAQs
Certification Policy
See How Your Certification Is Affected
Email Customer Service
As always, you can leave comments here or call CompTIA customer service at: 630-678-8300
Update 6/23/2010: With recent changes to our Web site, several of the above links are obsolete. The latest information on this subject is posted at http://www.comptia.org/renewal. Please direct questions to http://support.comptia.org.
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I bet this post will get filtered out, but in case it gets past the censors…
1. Sell any and all of your Comptia books (amazon.com or ebay) to some other sucker, and DO NOT give any more money to Comptia.
2. Dis-enroll in any Comptia courses that you are taking, and ask for a full refund of your money and enroll into some other course, such as MS or Cisco. Then the schools will no longer offer Comptia courses.
3. Discourage any newbie’s from taking Comptia certifications. Post blogs in any study forum you go to and suggest all of the above. I will no longer recommend Comptia certs to anyone anymore!
Comptia is basically saying “Let them eat cake”. They expect everyone to just take this laying down. They need us more than we need them, I assure you. When the money dries up, where do you think Comptia will be?
>>Why no emails? You have everyone’s contact information but no has been directly contacted. Are you to ashamed?<<
Excellent question, Holly. You may also ask: why no wikipedia entry (I tried but my entry got whitewashed)? Why no coverage from major tech news sites? How many CompTIA cert holders are even aware of CompTIA's sneaky changes? Is CompTIA trying to avoid a major backlash, or even lawsuits?
How can this change possibly be a good thing CompTIA, because of this incredibly dumb decision your now looking at – angry people blogging all over your website and every other tech board on the net, an immediate loss of prestige and integrity, people forming boycott groubs on the web and on Facebook, people looking to get a class action lawsuit going, and an upcoming unprecidented drop off in your revenue – your employees are probably freaking out.
No other response to this by CompTIA other than a little podcast loaded with BS, you owe us more than that. We are the people that helped you grow and become what you are today, we are also the same people that can bring you back down to mediocrity.
CHANGE THIS DECISION, MAKE THE CERTS LIFETIME AND LEAVE IT ALONE!
If it aint broke, dont fix it!
As I am reading this topic currently. What is saw on my address bar is “http://blog.comptia.org/2010/01/14/addressing-certification-concerns/comment-page-2/#comment-209″
Meaning there are over 200 comments and why we only get to see 53 of them? comptia is indeed censoring. comptia needs to come out with a new certification “integrity+” and passed it first before backing out any contracts.
i agree with the boycott comptia – i’m currently studying for my A+ and N+ certs and then, cisco – if i have to renew after 3 years comptia can forget about it. i will stick to cisco and comptia can shove it up there arse if they don’t like it!!!
MAKE THE CERTS LIFE TIME AND STOP BEING SELF FISH – WE WORK HARD FOR THOSE CERTS AND ITS A BIT OF A SLAP IN THE FACE TO FIND THAT IN 2012 I WOULD HAVE RE-CERT TO PROVE MYSELF
You dare have the audacity to post an article titled “The Power of Predictability” on the same blog where you try to slip past this policy change!
GRANDFATHER US IN!
walterbyrd-
I’m well aware that CompTIA lied, and I’m just as pissed about it as everyone else in this thread. That being said, I stand by the fact that a lifetime certification loses its value rapidly; it’s purely a depreciating asset. If you get A+ certified in 2010, and put it on your resume in 2015, that employer is going to wonder why you still feel that it’s a relevant accomplishment. Not only will the technology that you’re certified on be completely obsolete, it shows that you think having passed an entry level exam five years ago is worth showing off.
I don’t understand why anyone with a (minimum) of MCSA, or CCNA, would feel the need to keep an A+ or Net+ active, let alone keep it on their resume. That’d be like putting a college degree on your resume along with your High School diploma. It stands to reason that if you have one, you know the material from the other.
Additionally, what happens when you use S+ towards an MCSE? When it expires, does Microsoft revoke your MCSE? (Hint: NOPE!) Would an employer ever turn away an MCSE candidate because they don’t have an active CompTIA cert? (Hint: HECK NO!)
A+ should never need to be recertified. Networking and Security change pretty often, so I could see the benefit in staying current with that, but again, it’s a bit like saying “Look at me, I’m a working professional and I passed this years’ easy test!” You get a cookie and a gold star and your employer starts wondering when you’re going to start on your Masters.
I for one do not intend to recertify CompTIA ever, and won’t lose any sleep come January 2013. Anyone who does is either a sucker or needs to hit the books more often than the bottle.
COMPTIA has cheapened the value of A+ certification by treating A+ education and certs as a commodity with a limited shelf-life and expiration date. Welcome to the COMPTIA gravytrain that feeds education and testing businesses such as Provue and Prometric, but misleads A+ certified IT pros with useless requirements for re-testing. I predict recent COMPTIA actions forcing IT professionals to re-certifiy will reduce IT worker interest in A+ exams by COMPTIA limiting the time-value of A+ certifications.
As an experienced computer support pro with 20+ years in the IT indiustry, I consider the COMPTIA re-certification requirements to be useless and insulting. Once again, COMPTIA has failed its members by abruptly changing lifetime certification standards and forcing IT professionals who passed their certifications to recertify every 3 years or take CEUs every year to satisfy a new artificial standard with no real value imposed on IT workers.
I have MCSE, Novell CNA, and A+ certs that have literally cost me thousands of dollars in education fees and countless hours of studying and will cost me thousands more to maintain to keep up-to-date. A+ certs are good for “introduction to IT” testing of new IT workers, but re-certification does not open any new doors for experienced IT pros who are well-advanced beyond basic IT testing. There is no real value to getting re-certified for A+ when some many other vendors like Microsoft require expensive re-certifications and cover many of the same topics covered in A+ courses.
COMPTIA recertification requirements forced upon past successful test-takers seem to benefit only companies that administer certification testing.
I, for one, will not be taking a Comptia exam of any sort in the future. My A+ was of marginal value to me to begin with. Now it has zero value. Thanks for nothing, Comptia.
I don’t care how you guys want to try to spin this, the bald fact is that you’re screwing people over. Yes, ANSI/ISO certification is terrific and all, but that’s not what I signed up for. When I took the A+, it certified that an individual had six months of experience as a technician, and it was good for a lifetime. This made sense — even if I don’t keep up to date on current technologies, I’m not going to lose the experience I already have, or lose the ability to troubleshoot problems.
I agree with Linda C. If you want to bring this Ansi/ISO accreditation to the table, make entirely new certifications. Don’t renege on the agreements you’ve already made with your customers.
I had just started to study for the Network+, but I won’t be taking that test now. Nor will I renew my A+ or take any other Comptia exams, unless an employer explicitly requires me to do so and there is no way I can squirm out of it. Furthermore, if I catch wind of a class action lawsuit over this issue, you can bet I’ll be jumping on the bandwagon.
Goodbye, Comptia. Have a nice day.
What a surprise, the post where I stated that once you have an MCSA or CCNA your CompTIA A+ and N+ are irrelevant got deleted. There’s no point in getting your high school diploma every three years when you could get a BS or Masters. And there’s no need to re-certify A/N/S+ when you have an MCSA/E or CCNA (or better). End of story. Re-certification fees are for suckers and slow learners.
Seems to me like people just want a piece of paper. I’d prefer my cert actually mean something other than I passed a test however long ago, but that it is current and I know what I’m doing at any given time. I list all past certs even if they’re expired, we really should just name our Certs by the year.
I have only just heard of this change from a post by my online tutor. I was sold the course after the change was decided and received no notification of this untill now. I believe I have had a course mis-sold to me. I will seek legal advice on the matter, purely out of principal. I borrowed finances from family to better my work prospects in the current climate and now find out the 2 year course is only valid for three years after. The extremely over priced for what you get course just seems an almost complete waste of time and finances and has really lowered my confidence and drive to continue but i cannot afford not to finish now my hard work and finances will become obsolete in such a short period after completion. I won’t be wasting any more of my time and finances with comptia after completion of my current course. I have just read the news of the comptia changes and am not sure which direction I will be taking after the A+, it is to early to know yet. The only thing I am sure of is that it will under no circumstances be a comptia course. really annoyed that I have been swindled by the comptia banditos.
i think its ok that comptia are doing this cause technology changes so thats why they are doing this
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