A new report from Dice.com indicates the best IT certifications to help you get a job.

In its 2012 Salary Survey, IT job board Dice.com asked "Which IT certification has helped you earn a new position?" Over 18,000 employed IT professionals and technology executives responded - below are the top eight IT certifications that helped them stand out from the crowd and get hired. Also included are average salaries, experience level and noteworthy hiring trends for each credential.

Here are the top 8 IT certifications most likely to land you a new job in 2012:

Are you a new or established IT pro looking for work? Like me, do you wonder about the corporate culture and employee perks at Silicon Valley tech giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? What about hot startups like Eventbrite, Gaia and Tagged?

Silicon Valley's best and brightest believe that enhanced convenience and a better quality of life for employees has a significant positive impact on productivity, time spent at work, and the all mighty bottom-line. Perks include in-house spas & fitness centers, catered gourmet meals and happy hour, world-class pension and vacation packages, guest lectures from renowned experts and more.

View "Employee Perks in Silicon Valley" Infographic

Check out this infographic for a stunning visual representation of employee perks at some of the best and brightest tech organizations and up-and-coming social media startups in the Valley.

Infographic courtesy of ResumeBear.

In a tough job market, it pays to be strategic, and to look for positions in industries with the best opportunities for career growth and upward mobility. ITCareerFinder examined tech job growth rates from the leading unbiased employment sources, including the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, to identify the fastest growing IT careers for 2012 and beyond.

Here are the top five fastest growing IT career paths:

Education vs. Experience: Many people find that their career reaches a plateau and that employers place greater value on workers with a higher level of education or a degree more relevant to the modern workplace. Anyone that has ever been passed over for promotion only to find a college graduate in the post will know how frustrating this can be. An online degree offers the perfect solution.

In Part 1 of this post - Personal Branding Part 1: How to Define Yours - we told you why it’s important to have a personal brand, and how you can define your own. This week, we are going to talk about marketing your brand. There are a lot of ways to promote your personal brand, all of which fall into two categories: Online and Off.

Establishing a personal brand is now a crucial part of a successful job search. Since we think it’s such an important tool for job seekers to understand, and because the experts we spoke to had such good advice, we decided to divide our personal branding post into two parts. Read this then check out Personal Branding Part 2: Marketing Yourself.

Used strategically, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for online job search. It is however very common for job seekers to ignore the value of LinkedIn, and focus their efforts on the massive job search engines like CareerBuilder and Monster. The big boards should still be part of your online job search strategy, but at times like these you need to use every weapon at your disposal; LinkedIn is the strongest job search tool you never used - or at least never used to its full extent.