Hazard: Progressive credentialization

Ever noticed colleagues (or done it yourself) with non-degree initials after their name in e-mails?

Megyn Soandso, B.S., M.S., PMP, ITIL, OCP

This is a form of professional virtue-signaling called credentialization.  If you've never done it, you take some course, either at night, weekends or taking time off from work (not smart unless you get paid to do so), a course you pay lot$ of money to attend, and at the end they give you a test.  If you pass, you get a certificate (the credential), and presumably the right to attach the initials after your name.

Seriously, can anyone believe this is actually going to help you do your job?  The courses, by their very nature, are not "tuned" to your particular workplace.  That means they have to be generalized, and by definition, you then have to do the work to instantiate the entire course to your specific workplace, not a trivial or easy task, in order to actually benefit from the course material.  That'll take even more time out of your life, and will have the yummy benefit of incentivizing you to actually try some of that nonsense at work instead of using your experience and common sense.  You will learn something, I doubt it will be pleasant, and I'm certain it won't help you a bit.

Most people just want the initials after their name.  That's really the only rational way to approach this silly topic.

Mind if I help with that?  Let's pretend you are going for the very common and not particularly prestigious PMP credential. Why don't you Google around to find free and credible resources on the topic?  Narrow down the subject matter to the absolute most common concepts required, and research them so you can write a very simple outline for your own use.  You can even add three simple questions and answers for each one.  

Get sample quizzes from various sources, check out the questions and answers, and again, look for the most commonly asked questions. Add the new stuff to your write-up.  If you did this right, you now have a cheat-sheet for the PMP exam.  You can test your cheat-sheet against a few sample PMP exams you have not yet examined as quality control, make sure you are not fooling yourself.

Total time spent: less than 10 hours, especially if you are focused and hard-nosed about it.

Now Google for an appropriate, online, certifying body that will just barely pass muster with employers, and requires you to just pay a fee for taking their online exam, no coursework required.  This works best if you have about five old exams from that exact certifying body.  Take the exams for practice just before paying to take one.  Check your score.  If you got a passing grade on the practice exams, you are very likely to pass the "real thing".  Do it, print your certification, or have them mail you a pretty version suitable for framing.

Perhaps you have surmised the gist of what I express here.  Let's drag this out into the open: no one has ever gotten rich, or even well to do, merely off of attaining credentials.  They have at most attained one of two things: 1) slightly higher pay, most likely from a new, not an old, employer; 2) somewhat longer interval of time prior to losing their current job.  That's about the most one can expect out of credentials.

The higher you can get paid, the more radioactive you are for future employers.  They don't like paying for highly skilled people.  Ever.  Tattoo that on the back of your hand so you won't forget it.

Somewhere slightly above one standard deviation from the mean for a particular skill set, employers cannot really benefit from paying more for the same skills.  Look at job listings, and count the number of times they specifically ask for 20 years of experience.  They almost never do - about 10 years (mid-career senior employees) is the highest ever requested.

Progressive credentialization is a trap.  You'll waste valuable money and time to get a union card that has close to zero real value.  If you don't believe me, ask people who have already done it.