Would you “Rent” your certification?

I heard about a website that connects people who have certifications with Microsoft and Cisco resellers who need certified people, on the payroll, to achieve a certain level of reseller status.

How this works is - say that I sell Cisco equipment but I want larger discounts from Cisco (so I can make more profit when I sell it). To be a higher level of reseller (Silver, Gold, or whatever), you have to have a certain number of Cisco certified people on the payroll. For example, maybe you need 2 CCNA, 1 CCNP, and 1 CCIE.

Many up-and-coming resellers cannot afford to do this so the idea came that they could pay people who have these certs a flat monthy fee to register their cert # under the reseller’s name. Not a bad idea, I suppose, unless Cisco or Microsoft stop them.

And now an even better idea - www.rentacert.com

This site connects the people who have the cert with the resellers who want to “rent” it. The site makes a profit by taking a commission.

If you work for a company that is NOT a reseller but you have a cert, I suppose it would be nice to make some extra cash off of it and do nothing. It seems that both the renter and rentee would benefit but, I suppose the customer of that reseller looses out because the reseller really doesn’t have as much experience on hand as, perhaps, the other resellers at a similar level.

What do you think?

Would you rent your cert?

David Davis, CCIE

Personal Website: HappyRouter.com - home of Cisco how-to articles & videos
David Recommends:
HappyRouter Cisco CCNA & CCNP Video Training Series
Cirro - Quote Telecom Internet, Voice, and Data T1 circuits from an unbiased source