Pat,
In your message you said:
'I will place much more stock in someone with an advanced degree than someone with a string of letters after their name. Formal education, regardless of major, is the real differentiator. Yes, some relevance in major field is nice, but getting that degree is the important thing. This said by a guy who took almost 20 years to complete his Master's. That lack of completion likely cost me some jobs along the way.'
You know I so admire you and value your opinion and mostly agree with you. But in this case I have to say that formal education only gets you so far. You need certifications in addition the formal education as well as practical experience.
I have an MLS and an MS in IM and am looking to start my doctoral studies here in the very near future. I have a six year old so things got put on hold. Yes, I am a die-hard academic that got an early start and am still pressing on in my continuous learning and am finally teaching to give something back from all that I have learned. But I have friends that are professors and have some great ideas, but couldn’t deploy a project successfully to save their lives because they have no practical experience because they stayed in a University for most of their career.
But, the formal training only got me a part of the way. The CRM changed the way that I take tests and made me push myself to become better at everything from my methodologies to my management style and to also gain the respect of my peers who saw that I took the time to make the commitment to the field. Now the PMP was helpful in streamlining process and putting a practical business approach to everything that I do in general - time, budget and scope - that's all that matters in business. The CDIA+ helped me figure out how the RM process integrates with technology and that was important, especially how to calculate all of the storage requirements and scanning components. Becoming a certified coach and trainer helped me be a better consultant by understanding how people work and how I can help them achieve their goals.
But it doesn't stop here. As you Pat also add more certifications under your belt, each one of us as a records professional needs to look at what there is beyond the CRM and now CIP in other fields. It's not to just have more commas after our names, because for some of us we have more than enough, but it's to really see what we can learn and apply and help advance the RIM profession. I strongly believe that there are some of us out there that can and should be teaching others regularly, especially the new comers in the field, how to get better at RIM and evolve our profession to where we will have common C-Level roles that are clearly defined and appreciated by an organization. What can we share as practicing professionals that we have learned that we wished that we knew 10 years ago to help make someone's life a lot easier and better? We as advanced practitioners need to be writing formal articles, hosting workshops and teaching. But at the same time continuously certifying in relevant fields to make sure that we can incorporate innovative new best practices from other disciplines into RIM.
Although I am swamped now with the new international role, I hope to complete the CIPP in 2012 to have a better look at privacy and security. I'd like to consider the ACEDS for eDiscovery since it's important to see what attorneys and their paralegals are being taught so that I can protect my clients. I’d like to find a good certification in workflows so that I can build on enhancing business processes (there is a good program in Luxemburg). And of course, I always have a focus on business continuity planning and disaster recovery, just haven’t decided on a certification yet. All of this I hope to combine with teaching so that others don’t have to go through all of these classes and can hopefully just read the key highlights from me.
And yes, I'd like to do the CA. Don't knock the CAs Pat. Maybe some parts of the CA are dated, but there are certain components such as using diplomatics to verify electronic documents that are awesome concepts. There are also some wonderful standards on how electronic records should be preserved that we can learn a lot from as RMs, especially as our world is becoming more digital and all of the things printed on acid based paper are falling apart and need to be digitized. Are some other certifications more relevant, yes probably to some, but it doesn't hurt to learn about what to do with all this 'stuff' on back up disk if we really need to keep it. This is an area that I think will need significant expertise and there aren't many RMs without the CA background that I think can do this well (without relying on a vendor). Let me know who you are though if you have a strong digital preservation background and don’t have a CA or are a vendor!
And at the end of the day despite certifications, degrees, courses - nothing beats practical hands on experience. If you haven't done it, it's all just theory, something that I don't want to hear when I'm in crisis mode trying to recover documents or make major strategic decisions. It's a hybrid approach. Learn how to do a good presentation, make a great public speech and write well - those things will get you in the door no matter what certification or educational background you have. And have a great personality. If people like you, they will want to work with you and train you on the job at that.
As always, Pat thank you for your comments and your insights. Let me know if you want a guest spot in my class -ink
Ilona N. Koti
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MLS, MS IM, CRM, PMP, CPC, CDIA+……
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Cunningham" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, 20 December, 2011 07:03:18 GMT +01:00 Amsterdam / Berlin / Bern / Rome / Stockholm / Vienna
Subject: Re: Records Managers value/possess what certifications besides CRM and CA?
If anyone is interested in my thoughts vis a vis the CRM and the CIP, I refer you to my blog at http://cunninghamabovetherim.blogspot.com/
The CIP is still too fresh out of the oven to pass full critical judgement and the CRM has had some stale moments, although it appears to be on the right track to be refreshed. The exams have entirely different approaches. One is broad and the other deep. One has prerequisites; the other requires your credit card.
A lot here depends upon what your role calls for. The CIPP (double P) is highly recommended for people dealing in large part with privacy. PMP is a very rigorous examination, but you need passion for project management. The CA really limits you to archives. The certification in e-discovery is suspect in my mind because it is not run by a legal professional organization or any other known professional organization. Nonetheless, each has its own set of benefits and limitations. Each will assist the holder to have a leg up on competition from time to time, but often it is simply to get past the automated resume readers when a certification is a requirement. Certification guarantees nothing. It says that you met the qualifications, passed a set of questions in your professional field, and paid your money.
And lets not mix in certificates here. I've seen reference to the plethora of certificates that AIIM throws around. That leads to all sorts of alphabet soup after someone's name. It might be nice to have those things, but as a hiring manager, I'm going to want to cut through the alphabet and see what the person really knows from actual experience and practice. Most senior hiring managers are not easily impressed by a long list of certificates and certifications that have marginal relevance to the job being offered. I will ask a candidate who paid for the string of letters. I'm much more impressed when the candidate says that they took all those exams on their own dime and time.
At the end of the day, you need to look at the certification offerings across the profession and even into other related professions to determine what your best mix is. In my role, I'm leaning more towards the place that Angie Fares is, although that is one seriously crazy person to go for all those security, audit and risk certifications. I have several people in my organization with CISM and CISSP and CRISC and I doubt that I could pass any of those yet, much less CISA. But as someone who is new to the information security and risk management role, at some point, I may need to show some sort of certification in that field to demonstrate that I have both experience and certified basic knowledge in the profession. And sometimes that is what the alphabet soup is all about -- you're showing a basic professional competency and interest in your field as a professional and not simply as a journeyman.
To join a little debate about the CA, as a fallen-away archivist (although I have often played one in my day job), I find little value to the CA. Most archives jobs require a MLS and specific archival coursework. since there is a generally accepted body of coursework, the CA seems redundant. Furthermore, because few organizations will hire a MA with a CA over an ALA-accredited MLS, it seems worthless to this lowly MA in Public History. But that is a separate debate. Besides, records management pays better and we have cookies. (But yes, every records manager should have grounding in archival appraisal because every records manager, sooner or later, will have to make decisions about the historical value of some record.)
All that said, I would further throw into the mix one more thing -- education. I will place much more stock in someone with an advanced degree than someone with a string of letters after their name. Formal education, regardless of major, is the real differentiator. Yes, some relevance in major field is nice, but getting that degree is the important thing. This said by a guy who took almost 20 years to complete his Master's. That lack of completion likely cost me some jobs along the way.
Patrick Cunningham, CRM, FAI (and yes, also a CIP)
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