We get it. Your life is busy. You work hard. You have other obligations. Maybe it’s family. Maybe it’s continuing education. Maybe it’s community service. Maybe it’s plugging into an audiobook or podcast and running for a couple of hours at the end of the day just to clear your head. Maybe you waited until the end of the year to use up your stockpile of vacation days and the plane to Dubai leaves tomorrow.

If you’re reading these words, however, then there’s an excellent chance that you have at least one current IT certification. And if you have at least one current IT certification, then we really need your help. If you haven’t already taken the 2019 Salary Survey, then now is the time to do so. And if you have already taken it — thanks for that, by the way — then we need you to get all of your certified friends to do the same thing.

We started early this year, so there’s still time: You have until noon on Monday, Nov. 26 to take the survey.

We’ve already had a strong response. Quite a few certified professionals have already done what we’re asking you to do. We want our data to be as representative as possible, however, of the worldwide IT certification population. So we need participation from as many people as we can beg, borrow, arm-twist, or cajole into answering a few questions. So take our survey, please!

Or maybe enjoy the following Top 10 list of Reasons to Take the Salary Survey and then go take it. Without further ado:

10) Everyone else is doing it. Yeah, we know what your mom said about “everyone else” and the things that they do. Would you invest in an online bookstore named after a river in South America just because everyone else is doing it? Wait — what now? See what you did, Mom? Sometimes everyone does something because it’s the right thing to do.

9) Get a free one-year subscription to the digital edition of Certification Magazine. Because who doesn’t like free stuff? And who doesn’t like certification? Just take the survey all the way to the end, and a free one-year digital subscription is yours for the taking.

8) It’s what Tom Cruise would do. Like, maybe he would. He’d probably take the survey if we told him, “Look, Tom, the world is going to end unless you take the survey, it ends in 45 seconds, which we will time for you on this big read digital readout, and you have to run six blocks and leap across an alley from the roof of a tall building before you can do it.”

7) Get 40 percent off the regular cost of a one-year print subscription to Certification Magazine. It’s like we’re giving this thing away, right? We won’t even make you choose between getting 40 percent off the cost of a print subscription and getting the digital edition for free. Take the survey and you can have them both!

6) Do it for Crutchy. That’s a sports thing, right? Or is it a pseudo-historical Christian Bale Disney movie musical thing? Either way, certification is sort of like a sport, and a lot of like a musical. You have to train in order to excel, you get recognition for your success, Bill Pullman is rooting for you, and Robert Duvall hates it when you outsmart him. See? They’re all the same.  Now don’t let us down.

5) You can get the Salary Survey skin on Fortnite after you’re done. You’re going to destroy other players with this thing. It’s got some dollar signs, and it unleashes the power of data and statistics, and it’s spookier than Skull Trooper, but also more mysterious than Dark Voyager and Battle Hound. Also, it’s completely made up and not a for-reals real game skin. Or maybe it isn’t — there’s only one way to find out …

4) Do you like $50 Amazon gift cards? Because we have some of those. It’s an ALL-NEW Salary Survey incentive this year. Complete the survey and you could wind up with enough Amazon moola to get, like, three bags of two-inch giant gumballs.

3) There are two little words that will open any door. Please take the survey. See? It’s almost like you can’t not do it, because we asked nicely. Also, thank you for taking the survey. (Bam! You’re totally locked into this thing now.)

2) [REASON TO TAKE SURVEY GOES HERE] Note to self: Don’t forget to come back and finish this one.

1) The world could end tomorrow. On the bright side, none of us would ever have to be stuck in traffic, or shovel snow in winter, ever again. Ask yourself, though, do you really want to go to your grave with the knowledge that you could have taken the Salary Survey and didn’t do it? You gotta live life while you can!

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