"[Avoid] those that are [too theoretical] because the textbook will always tell you how things should work in a perfect world - but IT is not like that so effective [training] requires experienced teaching," he said.

By heeding similar advice, Kleef reduced the length of his Master's degree by half because his MCSE certification is widely acknowledged to be industry-related.

"I was able to tie my Master's degree and the MCSE together because content overlapped as they are both industry-based," he said.

Red Hat veteran Kingsmill said while people are discouraged by courses which are not challenging or lack industry relevance, he was impressed by the Linux certifications.

"Often you do courses and you find yourself saying 'the instructor didn't know much', or 'I could do this at home' or 'that's great but how am I going to use it at work?'", he said. "Red Hat is a knockout on all these fronts [because] when I started with a RHCE, I found myself saying 'oh great I can use this tomorrow!'."