So much wrong in one little statement

Posted by Jeremy Miller on August 15, 2007

I’m completely blocked from personal email at work, but I can see the headers come across.  I just got one with this message:



Start earning the salary you deserve by obtaining the proper credentials!


A.)  “Earning the salary you deserve” – Damn, I don’t want to take a paycut


B.)  What certification is really that important or useful?  Once you’re pass the entry level, what good does it really do?  I know they’ve gotten better, but the last certification test I took from MS was pure memorization of API’s.


C.)  You don’t want to work anywhere where they use certifications to make judgements about employees.  I think that that implies that they don’t look too carefully at each individual.  I’ll buy it as part of a developer’s “personal growth” plan, but not otherwise.

About Jeremy Miller

Jeremy is the Chief Software Architect at Dovetail Software, the coolest ISV in Austin. Jeremy began his IT career writing "Shadow IT" applications to automate his engineering documentation, then wandered into software development because it looked like more fun. Jeremy is the author of the open source StructureMap tool for Dependency Injection with .Net, StoryTeller for supercharged acceptance testing in .Net, and one of the principal developers behind FubuMVC. Jeremy's thoughts on all things software can be found at The Shade Tree Developer at http://codebetter.com/jeremymiller.
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  • http://graysmatter.codivation.com Justice~!

    I agree, but what about those businesses that look for certifiactions because they need a certain number of people to be ceritified in order to get the benefits of being a Microsoft partner?

    http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2007/07/30/114282.aspx

    I’m not saying that people evaluating on the basis of certs are places you want to go, but that might be part of the motivation, and thus the problem?

  • Ed

    We’ve just gone through the interview process and I definitely agree that certifications should not be used as part of the hiring decision. However, I realized that HR firms definitely look for certifications. I think it’s because these HR consultants have no work experience in IT, so they have to filter on something. It’s a shame. In the end, the ability to describe the details of prior project work provides a better picture than reciting from memory what you know about APIs.

    I know that I wouldn’t want to work in an environment that only looks at certs. Communication and great personality coupled with solid foundation in basics is better in my opinion.

  • http://www.benmonro.com Ben Monro

    I find in giving interviews, the candidates who flaunt the certs, often have the least amount of real world experience and understanding of the universe. They’re quick on the gun to explain the ins and outs of the api’s as you say, but when faced w/ more real world types of scenarios, they typically stumble….

    which is when I crush their dreams and send them back to cert school… ;) excellent smithers.

  • http://www.adronbhall.name Adron

    Jeez, every time I turn around you seem to post something that makes you think that you and I share some wierd connection in event scheduling.

  • http://dotnet.kapenilattex.com Jon Limjap

    A colleague of mine took an Microsoft cert exam and passed it and inadvertently discovered that the questions in the exam and those in Braindumps are verbatim.

    He’s been seeing those in Braindumps for years and Microsoft, and other have been telling the local MS offices about it, so they could’ve and would’ve known about this, but still did nothing about it.

  • Battaile Fauber

    Most people that i know don’t bother with them unless their company foots the bill, which makes them even less meaningful in my opinion.

  • http://blog.donnfelker.com/ Donn Felker

    I agree that hiring should not be made on the fact the the developer has a certification or not. I also agree that it is great for personal growth plan, but nothing else. My certs never got me a job, but they did give me the confidence to personally display that i know what i say I know.

    The worst part about the cert process is that they can be circumvented by 3rd party sites like TestKing.com. They’re a complete rip off and ruin certifications for real test takers who have actually studied hard to pass.

    Its a shame, but its reality.

  • tom

    Amen Jereymy!