Certification Question

[nick1]

Greetings,

I am considering earning some type of web development certification and was wondering if anyone could recommend a particular program, such as the Certified Web Professional Program or World Organization of Web Masters program. I'm looking for a quality program that is widely known and whose graduates are sought after in industry.

Thanks,

Nick

[piersk]

Zend Certification (http://www.zend.com/education/zend_php_certification)?

[Azala]

graduates are sought after in industry


There is none. Certifications might help you in a job interview if it's you and that other guy who doesn't have them, but I'd say a strong portfoilo and good communication skills (to get yourself the interview in the first place) will take you further :-)

[piersk]

In the UK, it's still a fact that graduates are sought after more in industry. And portfolios aren't always necessary either. As long as you can show in an interview that you know your stuff then you won't have any problem.

[stolzyboy]

interview well... get job, simple as that... the resume and portfolio is trivial to most... your experience and how you convey your experience in the interview will get you in

[Roger Ramjet]

Obviously it varies with the job market and your preferred area of work, but the only certification that I see asked for is MS, Oracle, Cisco, or ITIL. For most of the best paid jobs those are mandatory to even get an interview.

You have to get an interview before you can 'interview well' or 'show you know your stuff'. In a highly competitive job market you absolutely must have a good resume and a part of that are qualifications, experience and a portfolio where it applies.

The other important point which so many people forget is it is much easier to get a job when you already have a job in the same role. So, getting a foot on the ladder is the most important thing for a youngster. Any kind of certification or qualification is worth pursuing if only to demonstrate dedication and perseverance.

In this industry you also have to keep your skills up to date and earning new qualifications is an important part of demonstrating that you have. It also gives you the confidence to apply for new and better jobs. So go ahead and study for whichever you can afford; and in whatever areas turn you on, cos you'll do better at them.

[stolzyboy]

eh.. resumes are a joke... all you can do is show your education and past jobs, there really isn't much more you can or should show at that point, then, the employer picks from that, sure, it's a crapshoot, but that's the way it is...

IF you get picked for an interview, i can't stress enough how you need to do well or you will hang yourself in the interview, the interview is the most important piece of the job acquiring process!!!

sure, if there are requirements for the job, you need those, but as far as a priority, interview, resume is all you really need, interview being most important, but to get that, obviously, you need a resume, but don't spend too much time, they aren't that important, do one in M$ Word and it'll be plenty, anyone can fancy up their resume, employers aren't that dumb...

[Roger Ramjet]

Employers are that dumb, stolzboy. Especially when it is HR and personnel that do the short-listing for interview. They dunno a thing about what we do so they just have to tick boxes - and as soon as you miss one box they dump you.

And you can't win with CVs either. When I came back from OZ in the 90s I had a CV drawn up by Anderson Consulting and it ran to 7 pages: 2 page summary so you could see who I was and 5 pages of detail if you wanted to know more. Here in the UK they were so dumb they could not even realise what they were looking at - 'Too long' they said, 'No one will read that. Summarise it.'??? That was what the front 2 page were for ???

Now I'm back in the job market after 6 years things have changed. They have realised they have been hiring the wrong people from those 2 page resumes. Now a lad I know loves it - he has been filling the same jobs for them every 6-12 months and getting commission again and again. Look good on paper but can't hack it on the job.

(Certification is no help either; I hired in a contractor who was MCPed up to his armpits. Took me 6 hours to realise it was all bull**** and £1000 to get rid of him.)

So now the agencies have all been after me to give them more detail so guess what: I've got a 6 page resume again. But how much can anyone be reading when they allocate 2 mins each?? (100+ applicant for each job is the norm here in the UK now it's all electronic)

Yeah, job hunting is a lottery and all you can do is persevere.

[Elizabeth]

Personally I think that the key to landing a job is not in resumes or really in interviewing, but in referrals from other people. I would hire someone who was recommended by a friend in a heartbeat, based on that recommendation, way before I would hire someone drowning in certifications. As a job seeker, I would spend time networking and asking around before I would spend time getting a certification. I would also take time to be active in the community and get your name out there. If you're currently unemployed, you can take the time to hone your skills, creating some really cool things that people can go see (and better yet, use). Or writing some articles. Or participating on forums or on IRC. You might not get paid much (or anything at all) but what you're doing is effectively marketing yourself and your services to the general PHP public.

I know that many times HR actually does the hiring, but many employers are now googling potential employees to see what comes up before they hire. Imagine their surprise if they google you and see all the articles you've written, or the cool gadgets and code snippets you've contributed to the community. To me, that speaks volumes.

I'd hire weedpacket in a minute and I've never even seen his resume :)

(I'd make him wear that beanie every day though.)

[Weedpacket]

Here's something I heard from an employment consultant; administration, not IT, note, but given the high turnover in IT, the implications are there.

Apparently many employers are looking for older staff these days instead of graduates, because they have been finding that when they hire graduates they only stay around for a few years, getting trained, getting experience, and then either move on to Bigger and Better positions elsewhere or try to move themselves up through the company hierarchy, either way leaving a gap that has to be filled by the company. When an older person gets the job they'll be more likely to stay in that job for the long term.

So when they want "goal-oriented" people they mean they want people who are oriented to whatever the the company's goals are, not their own. And when they say that they are looking for "ambitious" people they're lying.

[Roger Ramjet]

Right on Weed

[Azala]

I recently started studying for the Zend Certified Engineer Certification just for fun, it's not that expensive and it can't hurt to have it.

What i've learned so far, is that wether the certification is great or not, the studying process introduces you to a broad selection of subjects.

As a web developer I tend to get stuck doing the same things over and over (same type of webpages where you re-use old code) and I don't get the time to delve into other areas because I don't know where to start and what would be good for me, since I don't know what i'm looking for in the first place.

Already I feel I know more about various coding techniques and where to use them. I could always pick up a book or 10, but I find these studying guides to be less specific and instead introduce you to as much as possible so you know what to study more later and if/how you can use it in your development.

I'm planning on taking the MySQL developer certification afterwards to cover any holes in my database design since I only work with MySQL at this point. Plus I am pretty sure it will be easy getting certification on other databases once you've gotten one down, since they all build on the SQL-92 standard.

One thing is for sure, it makes you more confident in your own skills, and confidence is good when you get to that interview. Plus i'd imagine in some cases, especially government jobs, you'd get extra payed for certifications, at least that is usually how it works in Norway where they use a type of ladder system for salaries.

[pohopo]

I would say the majority of certificates mean very little beyond the fact you should of learned something getting the certificate, but some can be quite valuable if not almost required. To get the job you need a combination of a good resume (to get you the interview), knowledge (to answer their questions), and a type of personality they are looking for.