IT Certification and Experience: Which comes first.

When i earned my first cert as an MCP, i expected to be a hot cake opening doors like i owned the city. How wrong i was! It later dawned on me that i was a newbie who had the right credentials but lacked experience.

Certifications are a way of demonstrating the knowledge and experience that one has already accumulated. They hardly give you a direct path to that dream job or make you an exception. In many cases HR departments will focus on finding experienced and certified individuals. Infact having a couple of certifications without having any experience raises red flags and makes prospective employers suspicious. Having experience is what speaks loudest.

Too often many of this certification available in the IT industry are all paper based..read the study guides and you have all you need to pass the certification exam. After all there are certified chaps who have passed tests, but who when required on the job, cannot perform the simplest if IT tasks.
It is always advised that one acquires the experience; and no...you don't have to have paid experience. you can volunteer to help fix computers and set-up basic networks in small and medium enterprises.

In my own humble opinion, you shouldn't be able to get a certification without proof of related hands on experience. A certification without any experience is like shooting yourself in the foot. The correct path for professional certification is acquire the knowledge and experience and then earn the certification.