To become certified or not to become certified ?
I am a developer that has been using VB.net, and the other .net products from Microsoft for the past couple of years.
I even sunk a chunk of money into training classes for .net.
Now I am haing a real tough time trying to find a job here in the Southern USA
that matches my work experience.
It seems that there must be a better way than using the contract companies.
They seem to want unrealistic qualifications but their clients are only willing to
pay megar wages. And the work experience requirements these haven't changed since I graduated from college. I believe that there are some techniques and best practices sort of things that are gained via experience.
But when you consider all variables involved in a software project such as the type of hardware and how it's configured, the network configuration, the
database design and then on top of all this getting the user requirements right. I can see why OOPs with it's code reuse ability comes in handy.
I am now thinks about getting some sort of certification to at least prove that I know the theory at least. Is this worth the time and money. Especially the time investment in learning all the minutia.
What's your opiinion ?
Thanks
# 1 Re: To become certified or not to become certified ?
These are my thoughts about certification in general, based on my personal experience (that can be very different for other people)
If you are self employed and work as contractor, I do not think having a certification will work. When we hire contractors (I work for a mid-size company, ~700 employers) for a job we do not have time/resource to spare, we do not care about certification: we hire the person that is able to do the job in less time possible and in the best way, that is someone who has experience in that field.
Unless you are hired by a someone that does not have a clue if you are good or not, and in that case the certification can be a ticket to get the job.
When we hire someome for a full time position, we care only that he/she is smart. And again, we don't care about certification. A smart person, even with no experience, can keep up very fast with minimal training. The last two people we hired had almost no qualification for the job we posted, but we liked them, we hired them, and after years we are very happy with them.
Marco
mstraf at 2007-11-12 0:18:34 >
# 2 Re: To become certified or not to become certified ?
I completely agree with Marco. Certification doesn't work miracles, not even small ones. Most employers simply want to get the job done. Nothing, I repeat: nothing can compensate for the lack of experience, or put differently: if you're experienced, you don't need anything else. The real question is therefore: how does one acquire the necessary experience? Certification is probably not the answer. In most cases you will see that experience is gained by hard work, preferably in diverse platforms, programming langages and tools. The more you expose yourself to new technologies, the easier it will be to master new ones.
That said, I do believe that a real degree i.e., B.Sc certainly wouldn't hurt, especially if it's from a respected academic institute. Don't be tempted to waste money on online degrees and other useless trifles. If you can afford to dedicate a few years to study hard, it may be the best investment you've made. If not, then the best way is still to gain experience by practicing, reading books and learning from gurus.
Danny at 2007-11-12 0:19:44 >
