Lately I've been thinking about getting a Java Certification, but I've heard some opinions of people saying that a certification does not give an extra value to the person that has it, so I started thinking about it and it seems that some companies actually react when they see in your resume that you have certifications.
To get some more opinions, I posted a question in LinkedIn, I asked this:
For a Java programmer, do you think it really makes a difference to have a Java certification when looking for a new job?
I am interested in knowing if a certification is actually considered when evaluating candidates or if the employers only care about their own evaluations and candidate's past experience.
It was interesting because I got a lot of different opinions from people who are Java developers and from people who recruit.
Most of the answers agreed in one thing, a certification can't hurt no one, so in most of the cases companies would check your experience, your ability to solve problems and some other skills before actually caring about the certification. However, if they are interviewing two people and both of them have the same qualifications, but one has a certification they would probably hire the one with the certification because it is a plus, it means that this person studied Java to pass the test.
In my opinion, I don't think a certification would actually make a big different when your applying for a job if you don't have any experience. However, one of the biggest advantage of getting a certification is that you have to sit and study all the Java items required to pass this test and that gives you a big knowledge of the language because you are learning the theory and that is very important, since there are a lot of developers that can make things work but they don't know what is actually happening or how it is happening, they just know it works.
If you want to check all the answers go to my question in LinkedIn
I was shocked when we interviewed a candidate recently who had a Java certification but basically didn't know much Java.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't know things like "name one of the Collection classes in Java" or how to manipulate or use them; he didn't know about pass-by-value rather than pass-by-reference; etc.
What is the use of a certification if you can get it without actually knowing how to use the language? Perhaps this person passed the theory part of the exam, but I'm not sure how practical it was.
This experience has made me basically ignore any supposed certification, and just ask questions when interviewing.
"one of the biggest advantage of getting a certification is that you have to sit and study all the Java items required to pass this test and that gives you a big knowledge of the language"
ReplyDeleteI agree with that, I studied for those certificati"one of the biggest advantage of getting a certification is that you have to sit and study all the Java items required to pass this test and that gives you a big knowledge of the language"
I agree, I was studying for those certifications, but at the final by economical reasons I couldn't take the exams, but the knowledge that I got was the most important thing,ons, at the final for economical reason I couldn't take the exams, but the knowlegde was the most important thing,