Why the A+ certification is absolutely useless

As silly as the class is and for the most part the test - it’s becoming more and more of an industry standard requirement for job placement in IT. It’s a fairly broad test that covers things that no one really uses - but to a non technical manager who’s doing the hiring - it shows aptitude. I’d disagree that it’s useless.

I like learning things myself. Unfortunately my possible employers value an employee with a certificate more than an employee who knows his stuff without one..

I don’t debate that the certification is necessary at this point to get a job in the IT field. I understand that. My point is that having the certification is really not a good indicator of what a person’s skills really are. Case in point, the lady that I am speaking about. The fact that she is A+ certified should be a testament to the fact that absolutely anyone can get this certification that can prepare for a test. It doesn’t show any aptitude for working in a technical environment or any critical thinking skills whatsoever. It’s a poor excuse for a certification that is supposed to designate someone as a professional.

A+ is useless (and outdated)
I run my own computer repair service. I run my prospective employees through a 1 hour test where I give them two computers that have something random wrong with them.
One has a hardware problem
other has a software problem
I make the problems fairly complicated, and allow more time if they want.
I’ve been 100% happy with everyone I’ve hired. Even though half of them don’t have A+

A+ certification does serve a purpose. Mostly revolving around enabling a larger paycheck.

Ahh, and there we have it. You get an A+ certification to make more money. Why is that necessary? Why do you need to rely on getting a certification to appease someone above you that is not as smart as you and will never be able to do any of the things that you can? Take your knowledge and skills and do something with them yourself that will lead to a better paycheck. Keep reading this blog and you’ll find out how I’m doing that and you can too.

Worthless as it can get for a certification. No one worth anything in IT even looks for A+ if anything they scoff at it.

Totally agree, A+ = nothing.

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I must agree it’s worthless. I run the IT department for a large media company and I will throw away a resume with A+ on it unless it also has something like CCNA or a worthy cert. I’ve never had it myself and at my last job (teaching IT) I taught it. The people taking it just didn’t know a thing, figured it was all they needed. Anyone I’ve seen at Tech Shops that list A+ are worthless unless you get an occasional smart guy who wants a low responsibility job because he doesn’t need much money (wants to game etc, not work) and they’re forced to take it. Sadly IT related people hardly do the hiring so they hear cert and they think they know what’s up with computers. I recently had to fire an MCSE to manage an exchange box (and server 2003 network policies) and he asked me how to do everything (I know the MCSE material but never paid to get the cert, waste of money, I’ll pay when I need it for a new job). Anyhow I just didn’t want to deal with Exchange any longer, everything you need is on the web but I wanted someone to take care of it for me, I hired a friend who knew nothing but has taught himself everything within a month.

No one with A+ deserves more money the same way no one with a degree does. Larger companies “think” they know what you need education wise but it’s the ones who educated themselves (because they love it) that know anything.

BTW you can usually change the resolution by uninstalling the video drivers (easier to hook up the old monitor but sometimes you have no other monitor) and just reinstall them (puts the PC in the basic VGA driver mode. Although I’ve NEVER seen a monitor that wouldn’t work at low resolutions (just look like hell), mainly seen a monitor where the refresh rate is too high.

Most jobs that require an A+ cert are the lower paying help desk or pc tech positions. The IT positions that pay decently are going to require CCNA or higher and they aren’t going to care about A+.

Agree with ding above about your monitor-driver problem. Never heard of a monitor not being able to handle low resolutions.

Resolution too low = No problems
Resolution too high = Problem!
Refresh rate not supported = Problem!

I take it the client was running Windows XP? Windows don’t let you choose a resolution that is not supported. Plug’n'Play will take care of resolution if you boot up the computer with the screen attached and powered on.
You could on the other hand choose a refresh rate that is not supported. I have had users who thougth they were smart (A+ certified? ) crank up the refresh rate on a TFT monitor to 85 Hz from the normal 60 Hz and than call Help Desk complaining about the monitor “gone dead” and how they “didn’t do anything…”

The solution would be either to a) boot up the computer with another monitor supporting the choosen refresh rate (usually a CRT monitor) or b) press F8 during Windows boot-up to enter the windows boot-menu and there choose to boot Windows with VGA-drivers. This means you enter Windows with a resolution of 640×480 and a refresh rate of 60 Hz. From here you choose your resolution and refresh rate and then reboot Windows.

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About certification. The usefulness of a certification varies with time.
I got my first MCP way back in ‘95. Back then it was a fairly useful certificate showing employers and clients that you had proven your skills. Then around ‘99-’00 - because “everybody and their dog” was getting certificates - the usefulness of the thing was growing thinner by the minute.
The test itself wasn’t cleverly enough constructed to weed out those that shouldn’t be able to pass the exams. Microsoft eventually changed the exams, emphasizing experience and routine over the ability to memorize prep-exams…
Still, the employers today remember how they only 6 or 7 years ago could hire MCSE certified people who had actually never, ever, even seen a real, live Windows Server running…

I’d also disagree that the A+ is worthless. Sure to everyone that works in computers it may not mean anything, but clients love it. They may have no idea what it means, but it makes them feel good about spending their money. I’m in webdesign/development, and sometimes clients have a hard time understanding what costs so much for a particular project. If they have people that are A+ certified, they think they are letting the professionals handle their work, not some amateur trying to screw them out of their money. It may be the case that A+ has -nothing- to do with their project (as often it doesn’t), but they don’t know that.

Well, getting a computer to work starting from it with an unsupported resolution isn’t that easy when you can’t see anything. My trick to do so, first of all you will need to know which OS it runs and you will need another computer with the same kind of OS. What I usually do when I mess with the resolution, is just do everything by keyboard. How one does this, to get to the settings of the screen (in Windows), is just to move around your mouse a bit, preferably towards the left screen edge, somewhere in the middle. With a bit of experience you can do this blindfolded Then you press the right mouse key, arrow up (properties) and then it’s just a matter of working tab/arrow keys/enter. This is what you need a working pc for, you just count how many times you have to push the different keys to get the cursor where you want it. On recent computers you are lucky that this setting can be changed without restarting, old windows 9x-versions didn’t let you do that (that was the last time I needed to do such thing).

I admit this fix isn’t rocket science, but most computer fixes don’t need rocket scientists to perform. And that is something you are talking about, when discussing computer certificates. It’s not only a matter of getting a good certificate, as anybody can cram a book or two. What it really takes is knowing how a computer works, being used to work with them on regular basis and working with them at an above-average level. For my fix above, you will need to know that most OSes can be controlled by using not more than your keyboard. Most people don’t ever use it, or even knows it is possible (because of the current trend to use the mouse extensively). That is what it takes, next to a natural interest in computers.

Everything I know about computers, I have taught myself. You can’t teach any random person how a computer works, getting them to use a computer is already hard, but getting them to know the inner workings (how to troubleshoot and how to fix things when somethings goes wrong) is just plain impossible. And the big problem is that most of the people don’t know much about computers, the same in companies, so they will rely on those certificates instead of what you are really capable of. The same can be said about university degrees: some people without a certain degree can do some jobs better than some random person with the proper degree, but companies won’t hire them as they haven’t got that little scrap of paper.

Back in the day I took a A+ cert prep class in my highschool and my teacher was A+ certified but she didnt know anything. I got my certification recently and I can tell you theres 2 diffrent kinds of people who want to get certified : those who arent tech savy but want a quick way to pick up experience and those who are but want some way to prove it. A+ is mostly a job token but passing it dosent mean you know how to fix all common problems. By the way, you can boot windows to “vga mode” in the boot options to get a basic graphics card driver running then change the settings in windows.