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Re: Certification

Title:

Not to be too offensive but unless you never watch tv, never read fiction, etc etc you have spare time. You just choose to use it differently.

No offense taken.  My original point was not to say that it is unfair for employers to expect you to put in time(for work) outside of the 9 to 5.  This hearkens back to my chemist days at a small lab.  My supervisor was on salary.  We were a productive lab and got accurate results and made fairly good profits.  The owner of the lab came in one day and told my supervisor "I have decided to send you to these certification classes(you must be certified to run drinking water analyses)."  The classes were at a campus an hour away, lasted two weeks, and met for two hours every night.  When my supervisor protested because we already had someone certified to run the analyses,  the owner threatened to fire him.  It was completely out of line for the owner to   expect   him to go.

Please note that this is my opinion.  If you feel it is worth sacrificing your time, great, go for it.  I have done it myself.  I did it for my own personal excellence, not because I was told or expected to by an employer.

-Jason

Brian Lee wrote:
A good worker in any profession is one who shows integrity, honesty, a good work ethic, and is willing to forth their best while at work.

You are right but a great worker is all of the above plus spending their own time to learn new techs. Which is more attractive to a potential employer.

Not to be too offensive but unless you never watch tv, never read fiction, etc etc you have spare time. You just choose to use it differently. I would prefer to spend time with my child than poring over the latest j2ee acronym, but an employer may not.

Certs aren't that hard, they probably require about 40-80 hours spread out over however long you want and cost about $150-$300 (including study materials etc). If you "don't have time" to get get a cert on your own time then you have serious time management issues as 15 minutes a day for 6 months should be accessible for anyone.

BAL

From: "Jason R. Kretzer" <jason@OpinionOne.com>
To: ajug-members@ajug.org
Subject: Re: Certification
Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 09:47:53 -0500

I  have to disagree with this mentality.  You make it sound like people without the time to learn on their own are not worth hiring.  I have a wife and a new child.  Personally, I have the "desire to learn" but not the "time" to learn.  I learn new technologies at work.  Since work is what the new skills are for, I see no problem in this.  The idea that "we only want people who will not only put in the 9 to 5 but will work for the company on their own time as well.", is not the right way to judge candidates.  I have a great desire for knowledge and extending my skills and I must take issue with anyone who says that I don't show initiative(or have good programming skills) because I won't use my family time for studying for a piece of paper that says I knew how to memorize a book for a day.  A good worker in any profession is one who shows integrity, honesty, a good work ethic, and is willing to forth their best while at work.

Sorry for the rant but I hate it when someone judges those without the time to do stuff on their own time as somehow being lazy(not showing initiative).

-Jason




Curt Smith wrote:


Think about the "desire to learn" part.  I would prefer to hire someone
who has a constant fire in their person to learn new technologies in
their spare time than someone that does just the 8-5 bit.


Dead on.  Too bad, but gone are the days of being a C programmer day
in and day out.  I judge the a candidate on the desire to learn
on their own time and initiative with questions like;  what books
have you read lately.  And by how _many_ certifications they have.

Some folks might be surprised there's a few more java and OO oriented
certs besides SCJP.  :)  Personally I need the carrot to get me through
all the books and study, so collecting certs is one of my hobbies.  ;-(
My credit card shows alot of good books have been bought, read and
an immediate good use put that info (more credit card hits for the
cert tests) and more tears.

I've found it to be almost as expensive as going to GA state.  Isn't
our industry forcing us through this type of re-education pratically
another degree every 2-3 years just to stay current?   BTW, the
JDJ mag / web site has a few comments about current state of complexity
and API breadth needed to be _called_ competent.  Hmmm.

For example, EJB / JMS is pase, now it's UDDI, WSDL, doc. centric etc.

Best of luck to all,

curt




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