Cris Cohen: Careful with Your Cert Numbers
Be careful what companies you give your certification numbers to.
We recently had a case where a partner company was decertified for multiple violations of the partner agreement. They attempted to dodge this disciplinary action by re-registering under a different name. Some of the key tools that made that possible were the CCIE numbers of two part-time employees. Since it appeared that those employees were willing participants, we banned them and put a block on their certifications.
Further investigation revealed that the part-time employees were just pawns, innocent bystanders who did not know their certification numbers were being used to intentionally violate the Cisco Partner Agreement. The block on their profiles has since been lifted, but only after weeks of nervous anticipation, as they waited to see if they would be banned for life from any and all Cisco certifications.
Lesson 1 from this incident is to vet potential employers you will be giving your cert number to as best as possible. As with anything of value, your cert number is not something you want to hand over to just anyone. And while you won’t always be able to predict that an employer will become unscrupulous down the road, due diligence on your part may help weed out some companies and will at least send a message to others that you do not hand over your cert number lightly.
Lesson 2 is that, when you leave a company, you make sure to take your cert number with you. Update your information in the candidate database just as you would a new email or postal address, being very clear about when you moved on and when the old company should have stopped using your number.
Posted by Cris Cohen, From Cisco Learning Network.
Robin Lee :: Sep.03.2008 :: Articles And Tutorials :: No Comments »