John O'Conner's Blog

What's the value of Sun Certification?

Last month the article Getting Sun Certified on the Java Platform appeared on the Java developer site. That article made me start thinking...when's the last time you saw a job ad that asked for a specific certification?

When I peruse job ads (it's sort of a hobby of mine), I notice the frequent request for a particular university degree (a BS in CS or maybe a MS in CS). However, I don't think I saw one ad last year that asked for candidates with "Sun Certified Web Component Developer" certification. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing requests for any Sun certification. Why is that?

In my particular way of thinking, practical skills trump theoretical or academic skills for the vast majority of development/programmer jobs. Assuming similar experience levels, I might favor the applicant with the Enterprise Architect certification over the one with the MS in CS. However, I never see that. I see requests for school degrees, not professional certifications.

Are professional certifications valued in our industry? Do they have more or less weight than a graduate degree? If you hire programmers, developers, or architects, do you value certifications?

Comments

• Depend on the kind of certification:

  Memory recall: like SCJP or others that relies heavly on memory are less valuable and very popular ones :)
  Code: SCEA or Developer certifications can show the confident and matureness level on the candidate..

  Usually, companies uses the certification of their employees to justify higher prices.. it is nothing to do with knowledge itself, is more about business arguments...
  

  Posted by: felipegaucho on January 09, 2007 at 02:31 AM

• I've wondered about this for a while. I'm a young guy fresh out of university in a fairly small city in Australia. I did get a job quite easily, but here the only significant oppertunities are in the Defence industry, which unfortunately here is commited to Microsoft technologies, so I'm stuck doing C# despite my enthusiasm for Java. One day I'd like to end up working overseas, perhaps in the US where there are better oppertunities, but I worry about how difficult it would be to break in to the industry, especially being young with relatively little professional experience, and given that my degree is actually Electrical Engineering! So since all my Java skills come from my own learning, getting certified sounds like a good idea for me if I want any hope of ever being noticed at all! But is it enough?

  Posted by: benloud on January 09, 2007 at 06:12 AM

• I personally am mixed on this. Being someone with college degrees I can say that the loss of theoretical/academic skills in people I work with is sometimes very evident with how they approach things and sometimes the very limited knowledge base, though specialized to some degree usually, they have to pull from is harmful because they don’t generally think as openly due to the lacking exposure gained from a good college. I've seen/meet folks who claim to have double digit years of experience and are "senior level" development folks at their respective places of work who, for example, haven't a single clue about threading or concurrency uses and refuse to even think with that mindset because its not something they actively know or have ever really bothered to learn about and more importantly don’t feel its worth learning... It's been my experience that while a college grad might not have years of experience under them, they generally have a much greater breadth, and sometimes a more generalized depth, of knowledge to pull from on the job. What they do lack, usually, is extremely specialized experience, but then again, that itself can be a very detrimental thing in some ways and not really a loss on their part.

  As for professional cert's, I know when we higher someone we look at certs & degree's because of what that can potentially bring to the table and expand our collective knowledge base. Right now on my team I have someone with a BS in Business Information Systems, MBA & BS in EE, BS in Comp. Sci., an Associates degree, and no degree. None of the team has a professional cert, but everyone wants to do that at some point, it just comes down to a time issue. The varying degree of skills/knowledge we have on our team is staggering at times and each person brings an extremely different set of skills & perspectives to the job environment every.

  A friend of mine told me that one reason his companies look for degree's with experience over most other combo (with exceptions of course) is that it shows to them the ability of the person to stick through years of something that takes a lot of dedication & commitment without quitting or giving. And to them, that means more then someone who has a few years more of experience & no degree regardless of cert's because while certs show your willing to go for short term gains, it doesn't, in general, show your commitment to extremely long term goals & the commitment involved to reach them.

  That’s just my limited take on the subject, for what its worth.
  

  Posted by: olsonje on January 09, 2007 at 07:30 AM

• I mostly agree with olsonje.
  Here in Italy I' ve never seen a job offer which required any java ceritifcation, but a degree is most often required for the 'stick through years of something that takes a lot of dedication' factor mentioned by olsonje I think.
  As for the open mindedness I' ve seen person with a degree which had a narrower mind than ones who didn't have it, so I don't think it is necessarily the main point.
  In these months I am thinking about getting a certification (although I already have a CS degree) in the perspective of going on the market on my own as a consultant; the motivation is 'to justify higher prices' like felipe wrote, meaning that given the same price one client may rather choose me because I'm certified.

  Posted by: riccardocossu on January 09, 2007 at 08:10 AM

• @riccardocossu: Yea, I have at times seen that no matter what the background of the person is. Usually it’s when people quit learning for whatever reason they manifest.

  Posted by: olsonje on January 09, 2007 at 08:18 AM

• Wow, I shouldn't post stuff before coffee kicks in... That or proof read more in the morning.

  Posted by: olsonje on January 09, 2007 at 08:19 AM

• @benloud: you don't know how many Electrical Engineers are in the Java business (me too)... so really don't worry about that ;-)

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on January 09, 2007 at 08:35 AM

• I've seen some jobs asking for certified people, but always in combination with relevant work experience.
  More often though certification may be a foot in the door, a means to get your CV noticed among the masses of others, and little more.
  Worse, some certs are so bad (and especially inexperienced people don't realise this) that companies may decide to exclude people who hold that cert based on that fact alone (I worked for one company who did just that with some certs), especially if there's not a lot of experience to undo the damage.

  Posted by: jwenting on January 10, 2007 at 01:24 AM

• 
  The IT support crew values certification, especially to do with Microsoft.

  I think employers valuing a certification indicates that the certified skills are becoming a commodity. It'd be time to move on.

  We look for three things when we hire someone: Can this candidate get things done? Is this candidate smart? and Are we willing to invest the effort to make this candidate successful?

  Previous experience, especially previous visible experience, shows us the most. I'd much rather see an example of someone's work on an open source project than any certification.
  

  Posted by: dwalend on January 14, 2007 at 08:55 AM

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