I'm a recent college graduate (2003) and have been been working roughly now for 2 years or so and am looking to take that next step in my career. I've been working with Linux/UNIX now for 5 years or so (development, admin, etc). I've done several Linux installations/configurations on my personal computer over the years, all of my previous jobs including my current have been in a UNIX/Linux environment, and my first job even entailed quite a bit of UNIX system administration tasks. I am currently doing development work in a Linux environment, but have decided now I want to get back into UNIX/Linux Systems Administration and make that my career. Now to my question, do you guys feel the certifications such as RHCE are worth it? Do they really help when it comes to getting a job? Since I only have some experience with UNIX/Linux administration, would being a RHCE make up for my lack of experience? I can never seem to find an entry level sys admin job.

Thanks.

A certification does help for sure. RH certifictions are the best ones because they focus on practice, but I think that they are quite expensive as well. An LPI certification is also good and far cheaper.

But any certification is better than none.

I have a Linux+ which has far less credit than RHCE and it certainly helped me find a good job as a UNIX/Linux Admin. The best credential that I have is my college education and my years of experience; but my entry level cert has helped me find a job. Certs do but experience is the best credential. That's why it makes it a lot easier to pass certs once you have experience. I'm also planning to take RHCE soon. I wish you good luck and "thanks" - we need more participants.

I think some LPI exam question is useless. For an example you have to know or familiar all kind of the option for rpm(just an example). As a system administrator, I don't think you have to familiar all kind of the options.

RHCE is totally different. It's based on lab.

For me, I still prefer RHCE.

The initial question was whether a certification is useful in getting a job. Both LPIC and RHCE are useful in that respect, trust me, even if you may consider LPIC to be less useful in real life. Job recruitment and real life are 2 different things.

There are many folds to a certification in career.
It helps you get sortlisted for a interview calls.

My RHCE certainly helped me get a new job, Many companies require it to even be considered for an interview. It's not the only thing that matters, but it does open doors.
Without it, I would never have been considered for the position I now hold.

One is not suppose to think about the worth of the exam in general. Only financial benefits are not the thing one should look for. Once you clear such a tough exam like RHCE, morally you will be pumped up, you will get the confedence to kick any hurdel get in your way. Right?