I have two certificates by Comptia and one Microsoft. I would like to know is it a good and safe idea to post a link to the Digital PDF certificates online for sites like Indeed, Mosnster, Careerbuilder. I'm afraid of forgery. How does an employer validate?

I have been certified for many years and have never heard of a market for "certification identity theft". If you do have concerns, it may be better not to post the information and simply reference that you are certifiied in your resume. You can always provide the credentials if requested by your potential employer. While certificaiton is still a great tool in your toolbox, I don't beleive that employers value that as high as they used to ten years ago. The problem is that there are alot of people able to pass their certification exams without the practical experience. A solid resume should have both, experience and the certifications to show your employer that you have done the job and have the knowledge to go with it. just my two cents... Visit anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base. Follow me on Facebook.

Anon, I am not sure you are looking at the problem the right way, not sure where you are going with 3rd party certs. If you are wanting to publish digitally signed PDF's from your site and have them "valid" and trusted, then you need to have a public CA, and have that availible for client browsers to install signed from you. Based on if I read your post right, here are some links on digital certs and source code certs. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd361898.aspx http://pdw.weinstein.org/work/presentations/apacheconeu06/pca/index.html http://www.thawte.com/resources/ssl-information-center/ssl-beyond-ecommerce/code-signing-faq/ http://www.verisign.com/code-signing/ Microsoft, Thawte, Verisign all have large information bases on how-to's, why and when digital certs meet your needs. If you are wanting to copy the cert from say microsoft and have it stored on your machine where clients can access the cert to install, I would advise against that, makes more headaache for you to manage, the clients should pull and install certs from the relative CA authorities like MS. That way they feel safe in knowing they are not possibly accepting a false cert.

Okay thanks a lot for the info [JM]. I just never knew how it worked. I have the cards & paper as well. I was just trying to grab the attention more by linking the certs for my profiles to increase the traffic. Some valid points to think about. Also thank you Jason for taking the time to show me my options with links and giving me some insight. Thanks guys.

Now that I see clearly you are refering to training certs and resumes... doh... guess my head was in the tech clouds, I thought you were dealing with digital certs like from an HR application standpoint retireving and posting information from a job site... If you passed your cert, then just slap you happy logo on the resume. That should do it. Guess since I'm approaching old timer quickly, I can't remeber when anyone asked me ever for my certification ID's. Though I have interview tons of "factory made" cert folks whi take tests well, but have never touched the hardware in a real world setting.

That's interesting...I have interviewed several as well over the years and have yet to hire someone with certification credentials. They usually can't pass the technical interviews... I have been certified since the NT 4.0 days and also taught for many years so I do beleive in the certification process and do beleive its a great "add-on" to experience. However, I think many in the industry try to bypass the hardwork and just depend on the certification. That worked well for many during the 2000-2003 period. However, not sure that's going to work any longer, at least not for a technical IT position. In any case...good luck Anonymous7x7 and I hope you find something soon. Visit anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base. Follow me on Facebook.

I don't want my statement to be seen as a blanket "certification is a waste, kicking over tables and so forth" I worked my rear off for my first ones, with no money, no resources and it was a mother. I support and strive to get more training where ever I am at. I think they are a good foundation, that is a major assist with real world working. I don't support or merit how a lot of exams have become a free-for-all, there are a lot of "shady" companies that just focus a curriculum based on exam answers, no actual background of why something works, or how to do it hands on, or companies that "pay you to exam" in exchange for working for them (see that alot in local forums). Saddest interview I had was a guy out of college with an MSCE, never had even installed his own computer OS and took his PC to a mega store for repairs, never even seen a server in a rack or held a disk in his hands. On the flip side of things, I was aggressivly studying (a large non-ms business package), from an admin role, the architecture of servers and so forth to support scalable MS environments to host them. I was dismayed when I looked at the certification path, not as open with their knowledge and software, with the money it would take to make a full scale working lab with legitimate software, I could buy a nice lake house and a lexus to park in the driveway. As for Anon's gerneral statement, go forth get certs! put the logo's on your resume, be proud of the work it took to get them.