NYCPHP Meetup

[Alan T. Miller]

>  Certifications are for developers who don't have
> any reference sites or apps to show, and/or doesn't have education
background related to the field
> at all.

This is not true. I worked for a  major company that would not even consider
you for an interview unless you had passed the Brainbench PHP certification
test at the master level. In fact they hired directly off of this test. They
needed three developers, and surprise the three developers they hired just
happen to have the top three scores on this test for the state. To this
hiring manager, nothing else mattered but the score on this particular test.
Luckily for me, I was one of those top three in my state. But this is beside
the point, I did have plenty of work to show, both online and submitted to
them, it simply did not matter without a "Master" level score on this test,
they refused to even interview me until I took the test even after seeing
very high quality code, which leads me to your next point.

> If you're talented and know how to express yourself, guy sitting accross
the table on an
> inverview will going to notice your talent. If they can't notice your
capabilities, you don't even
> need to show a certification :-))

This is all fine and dandy as long as you know how to get to the right
person (you have inside connections etc., you have done an exceptional job
at networking and on and on) and you actually get to sit down across the
table from them. The problem though, is that much like the above example,
you never get to sit down across the table from the guy that matters. Every
job that I have made it that far, I have been given an offer. The problem is
getting to the right person and getting that opportunity to sit across the
table.

All too often resumes are screened out because they do not have a particular
certification etc., and then you never get that chance to actually impress a
person with what matters, yourself. This in my mind is the real issue
concerning certifications. It has nothing to do with wether you know a
particular technology, it is just an unfortunate thing you have to deal with
to get passed the ignorance that so often plagues the human resources dept.

Just my 2 cents.

Alan




> I suggest recruitters to look for the ones with pet projects instead of
certification.
>
> PS: I don't have pet project(I can't even call it pet project)
>
> Best
>
>
> Kayra Otaner
>
>
> --- Jon Baer <jonbaer at jonbaer.net> wrote:
> > max goldberg wrote:
> >
> > >I think to truly be qualified you need to understand many things beyond
> > >syntax, which most people don't get. It seems no one even writes code
> > >for high performance and low resource usage any more. Everyone needs
> > >their hand held through the most basic of exercises. I'm not sure if
> > >it's just my opinion and current situation, it just seems like a lot
> > >
> > >
> > Ive noticed these comments to come from people in their mid-50, early
> > 60's who have spent more than 20 years on C/C++ and have absolutely no
> > faith in high level languages :-)  Just an observation.
> >
> > But I think you are right, the very LAST thing people ever ask when
> > designing a web app today is what kind of resources in terms of memory
> > requirements, scalability, etc ... I think its just a case of the market
> > place that has turned from taking ur time to secure an app to come in,
> > deploy tomorrow, fix bugs later if we need you.  I don't think its a
> > case of not knowing what u are doing because today (vs. yesterday) there
> > are several ways to accomplish one thing, no matter if you are a junior
> > developer or senior architect.  There are things that look pretty and
> > things that were a late night hack to make it work, but who is to
> > decide?  I dont think much has changed, in fact I got an assignment on
> > Saturday for a PHP-based quiz for a site launching on Monday, Id like to
> > think my options were to figure out how well their php.ini was tweeked
> > or how they are setup but its something accomplished last nite for
> > peanuts.  Id like to think something like a PHP+ certificate would help
> > get more work.
> >
> > Thanks for the link, I found it very informative, and enjoy the
> > discussion.
> >
> > - Jon
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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