October 18, 2009 Comments Off
A few of the Black Ninja’s will be headed down to various conferences this year to build up a bit more training and product knowledge in our core competency areas. Professional development is something we believe very strongly in and conferences are an important component to that. We’re looking to socialize and meet some of the key folks in our online community. Anyone interested in speaking with us, look for the people dressed in Black Ninja t-shirts!
SharePoint Conferences 2009 – October 19-22
We do a fair bit of SharePoint consulting and custom development, so this conference is really important to us. It’ll be an opportunity to get familiar with the next version of SharePoint and to meet and greet with the various MVP’s and SharePoint consultants in the community. Part of any future infrastructure and development planning around the SharePoint platform will require an intimate knowledge of what’s coming, so that we can better prepare for these projects. That’s our ultimate goal.
SQL Pass 2009 – November 2 – 5
As with any good web application development, database design and development is big piece of that puzzle. Our db ninja, @sqlbelle, will be headed down to SQL Pass this year to learn everything she can about the latest and greatest in the database world. This event is the single biggest gathering of sql professionals and she’s bound to pick up a few gems here and there. If you’re wondering where you can find her while down there, just look for the section with all the books.
Pragmatic Studio Mastering Ruby and Rails – December 1 – 4
Ruby on Rails is one of our favourite languages and frameworks to work with and we’re really excited to be able to send our rails ninja down to this conference. Having already attended RailsConf this year, he’s very excited to be able to take his rails development to the next level. Our own internal product development is done entirely on rails, so having a guru on board makes it that much more easier!
October 9, 2009 Comments Off
Certifications seemed to be the “it” thing in the late 90s early 2000. Companies would seek after anyone who had certification for a specific product because the perception at the time was that they were difficult to obtain and anyone with one must be an expert in that area.
Now, however, is a totally different story. Certifications are, for the most part, easier to prepare for and pass. Perceptions about their relevance and trust factor have also changed, which begs the question “are these certifications still valuable”?
Before providing my personal take on it, I’d like to go over some of the general pros and cons of getting certified.
Cons
It costs money.
Most certifications will cost $100 USD upwards. In this economy it is hard to justify spending $500-$800 to take 5 exams that will earn you a single vendor certification. In addition to this, prep guides, classes, books, or practice tests also cost an arm and a leg.
If a university or technical institute’s course costs less, and earns you credits towards a diploma, degree or even post-graduate degree, then going for the academic course could be a more lucrative option.
It takes time to prepare.
Unless you are planning to depend solely on braindumps or actual questions posted in various blogs or forums, it can take a lot of time to prepare for the vendor certifications.
You will most likely need to:
- Get you development environment setup
- Read a few tutorial books to get your concepts all straightened out.
- Read a few certification prep books to make sure you cover all the topics that are relevant to the exam you are taking. Note that general tutorial books are different from certification prep books. Certification prep books focus on topics and terminologies that are most likely going to be in the exam, but it may not necessarily point out all the useful, efficient, practical applications of the technology or product you are studying.
- Practice – at nights, or weekends, or holidays.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.
Expectations of you go up.
Once you get your hard earned certification, and you put that in your resume, expectations of you will go up. If you’re an MCAD, MCSD, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP, people could come up to you and ask you very specific questions related to your certification. And if you cannot answer, you may get the infamous sigh of disappointment.
Or it might discredit you.
Some employers don’t trust vendor certifications anymore. It is very easy to cheat, and get certified in a technology or product you haven’t even worked with. Case in point, we had an experience with an MXXX (fill in your favorite M acronym); this person was supposed to be a certified web applications developer, but had difficultly with very basic programming concepts, and when put in the position of actually producing some real code, was not able to. It is unfortunate, but there are employers who question your knowledge or competence more if you have the certification. Cannot blame them, but it is unfair to those individuals who genuinely prepared for and passed their exams.
Pros
Extra few letters after your name.
Admit it, it’s flattering to have an extra few letters after your name even if they don’t happen to be MBA, MSc or PhD.
Some companies require it. You can still see job postings that require or want someone who has the vendor certification. So as far as marketability of your resume goes, it does help you in some job postings.
If you don’t have experience in the technology, it gets your foot in the door.
If you are getting started on a specific product or technology, preparing for a certification gets you that good introduction and gets you comfortable working with the product.
If you have experience with the technology, it gives you a good refresher, and updates you on new features.
Technologies change. Products get upgraded. That’s already a fact of (techie) life. Preparing for a certification gets you refreshed on some things you may have forgotten, and updates you on what has changed, improved, or removed from the last few versions of the product/technology. It can also broaden your perspective on what this product/technology can do – there might be a feature or tool that lets you do your routine task better and/or faster. Knowing these tools/alternatives exist can help you make better informed decisions at a later time.
You have to be accountable.
I will put this in the pro side, because proving you rightfully earned your certification can be an exhilarating thing.
Getting a certification does not just mean getting the extra few letters after your name. Part of your clients’ trust will stem from that vendor certification you advertise. Getting your certification should not be the end goal. It should be the start of an ongoing journey to learn more about that product, or technology, and anything that is related to it that helps you do your job better, smarter.
A Personal Perspective
Before I started working with computers and databases, I came from a totally – at that time almost computer-less background. Feeling inadequate, I wanted to play catch up with the professionals in my field, and that’s when I started taking some certifications. Though it was a tiring endeavor reading the cert books night by night, I came to appreciate how useful it was for me to go through the exercises and tutorials. It also made me realize how much I enjoyed working with the product.
For me the value of taking the certifications is not the exam nor the actual certification you get, but the exercise of preparing for the exam. The certification I earned is just the frosting on the cake, but nowhere near as valuable as what I’ve learned preparing for it. It is also very interesting to read all the practice exams – especially as these give you some “real world” problems to solve without going through the “real world” project. As a consultant or as a trainer, I can still remember some of these questions from the certification prep guides, and these sometimes still help me answer some of the questions that either clients or students ask me.
In addition to this, I still get a certain high when I go in, and take my exam, and pass my exam. If I were into sports, this would my adrenaline rush after bungee jumping.
Cases for Certification
Brad McGehee wrote an excellent article Professional Certification for DBAs specifically for DBA Certification.
Warren Wyrostek also wrote an interesting article: Now What? A Case for Certifications, where he compares traditional education and these vendor certifications, and gives a a good case for a vendor-neutral body to oversee vendor certifications, rate those certifications, and accredit those who offer the training leading toward certification.
Conclusion
There is still value in getting certified. It may not be a “must have”, but it definitely is a “nice to have”.
Getting certified in a product/technology, does not make you an expert in that product/technology. It gives you permission to say you read up on it, used it, and retained some of the details to get through an exam.
Is it a disadvantageous thing? No, it shouldn’t be. Is it a good thing? Yes it should be, if you genuinely prepared for it, learned from it, and to some extent made you better.
Post your comments and let us know what you think!
