Hi,
    I'm still in school and I passed the Base SAS certification exam recently. I'm now thinking of looking at attaining the Advanced SAS certification too. I really want to circumvent around the generic idea of going to a consultancy. I wish someone could enlighten me on how to go about getting a direct job with SAS. Unfortunately I don't have any experience so far.
In the end, if I'm unable to get a direct job and end up going to a consultancy would I be placed earlier since I already have the certifications? Also, would an Advanced certification help get a better rate. I would be obliged if somebody could shed some more light onto my dilemma.

Dear Dave,
              
               Congratulation for passing the exam and obtaining the certificate and also my best wishes for whatever you want to pursue in life. Yes  getting an  certificate is a plus but that does not necessarily land you the job. What you need is an experience. Try to get hold of internship. It's extremely difficult for recent graduates to find jobs since these consultancies have manipulated the system. Your resume would be compared with a pool of candidate who have masters degree and 2-3 years of experience and who do you think the companies will hire? Such is the situation these day's. As the media hypes the theory of country heading towards recession it is likely that these qualified candidates(who going to be layed off or are likely to be layed off)  would hang on to 45k jobs, which are for recent graduates of course. For these people something is better then nothing and most of them have kids and families. Lot of the middle  managers and people who are barely hanging to their jobs just because there are non to fill it  are going to be layed off this year. Just heard today that 4000 sprint nextel employees would be layed off. Such is the situation. Your best bet is to land in a internship and impress the company and prove that you would be a valuable asset to the company.


Good luck,
Yeklo_Yatri

I graduate in May 09 so I hope by then the US will have pulled out of the recession. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll direct my energies towards that.