About Me
This is the (mostly) professional blog of Bear Giles. I have worked extensively in Java, C and C++ and have an interest in cryptography and security in general. I am a hardcore geek who studied physics and math in college plus computer science in grad school.
I am “beargiles” at Linked-In, Twitter and Facebook (although I’m rarely on the last two). I’m fairly sure “beargiles” at GMail is me but have absolutely no idea what my password is. sigh.
I am also not Bear Gryllis. I was an eagle scout but I don’t get more exciting than trail runs and day hikes these days.
My philosophy on certifications
This topic comes up fairly frequently so I’ll mention it here. I see two reasons to get a professional certification:
- To get past HR.
- To have reasonable personal confidence that I have a broad view of the subject.
N.B., it’s always a huge red flag if somebody says that we should do something his way just because he’s certified. If it’s a good idea it can stand on its own and doesn’t need someone making an argument by authority.
What do I mean by getting past HR? First, I want to make it clear that I’m not dissing HR. They have an impossible job since they are inundated with resumes from unqualified people who know all of the buzz words. Working with recruiters and placement firms helps but that just means the average candidate won’t freak out when asked to write a loop that counts from 1 to 10. How does HR know who to forward to the tech team?
I believe the burden is on us to help HR, esp. in emerging areas like DevOps. My resume itself shows the Java history so it’s covered. For the ops side I can discuss rebuilding Debian packages and setting up a Kerberos sandbox during the technical interviews. HR can’t tell Kerberos from the three-headed dog – but it can see that an LPIC cert means that someone will vouch for basic sysadmin/operational skills.
TaoSecurity
