On Sat, 11 Nov 2006, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> 1. Microsoft certifications, Cisco certifications and Red Hat certifications 
> should be the model. One of these says you are *competent* to perform certain 
> tasks. I refuse to listen to whining from people who *don't* have them about 
> how meaningless they are. Were I hiring people who required these skills, I 
> would clearly state in the job posting that applications/resumes from 
> uncertified people would not be considered. That's legal and fair.

I have several IBM certifications on AIX and related products.  Given the 
complexity of some of the products, I think it's not an unreasonable thing 
to ask for.  The certifications aren't a gaurantee, but it is something I 
can point to, particularly when talking to recruiters.  I want to get Red 
Hat certifications, but they're expensive enough that I haven't wanted to 
spend the money out of my own pocket.

> 2. If I were hiring a *programmer*, I would look for an applicable college 
> degree from an accredited institution, not a certificate based on a pass/fail 
> set of courses. Again, if a degree is required, there's no point in the 
> weasel words "or equivalent experience". That's legal and that's fair. With 
> hundreds of applicants for a single position, employers can afford to be 
> picky.

I'm not so sure about that.  Computer Science degrees often don't teach 
software development and are sometimes intended to just be a stepping 
stone to advanced degrees.  And they really don't teach the things that 
are covered in "Ship It!" from the Pragmatic Programmers.

Hiring a programmer without at least a simple coding test is probably a 
really bad idea.

> If there were a "Ruby vendor" I might answer differently. But there is no 
> Microsoft, Cisco or Red Hat for Ruby -- there isn't even a Sun/Java-like 
> standard. Ruby is a language built and used by a community, not a 
> corporation.
>
> Now there *are* fine people -- on this list -- who run excellent Ruby and 
> Rails programming courses. If some university wants to attempt to compete 
> with them, fine, but if I were hiring Ruby or Rails programmers, I'd hire 
> competent programmers with the right attitudes and a background in the 
> application domain and send them off to the fine Ruby/Rails training that 
> already exists.

Knowing about and beleiving in things like source code control, automated 
build environments and, most importantly, peer review are probably the top 
things I would look for.


-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts. 
It's what I can remember in time to use.