I’ve never been that into the various certifications that we IT folk can get. I think learning is very important, but it’s never really seemed worth the time, effort, and expense to earn an acronym that I could list on a resume, and fortunately my employers have so far all agreed.

In my current work, I’m knee-deep in VMWare everyday and they’ve just introduced a new certification level—VCA (VMWare Certified Associate)—a sort of Junior Cadet level to the traditional VCP (VMWare Certified Professional). The exams are cheaper than the VCP and there’s no paid class requirement—just some free online classes. In this intro period the fee for the exam is 50% off, so $60, but they’re also being very liberal with codes for free exams, it seems. GlobalKnowledge, for example, is offering the code VCA13GKN which lets you take all three exams for free through January 31, 2014.

I just took all three without going through the study materials (but I’ve been working with VMWare for years) and passed them, so I now have certification in:

• VCA-Cloud
• VCA-Data Center Virtualization
• VCA-Workforce Mobility

Pretty fancy, huh? Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, you nerd, go study up for a couple of hours and then get yourself some letters on your resume.