Certification is a process, not a piece of paper (Score 1)

Disclaimer: I'm the Certification Manager @ MySQL AB

If all you see in a certification is a piece of paper, then it's pretty obvious why you don't see it as being worth the paper on which it's printed.

Luckily, many people - and most especially those in the HR department and the managers you want to hire you - can see beyond this.

Getting certified is a process you go through: training, studying and gaining experience. Then you go to take the exam and get the paper. You are not a better developer for having a certification exam than the next guy. But if you do go through the certification process, I guarantee you that you are a better developer than before you started the process of getting certified. Even if all you did was to sit down and read through the curriculum, I'll bet that you discovered details about the subject that you were never aware of, or had previously ignored or worked around.

Why do corporations require you to get certified? For much the same reasons that we, as a society, require people to have a driver's license before they get into a car and start roaming the streets. A driver's license is no guarantee that we won't get into an accident, and we all know lousy drivers, and wonder how they ever got their license. But few of us would want to make away with the licensing scheme, simply because we know that, in the overall scheme of things, requiring everyone to have a license will sharply reduce the number of accidents that happen on our roads. Driver's licenses aren't perfect, but it's a simple and effective method to keep down the number of accidents that occur on a yearly basis.

And for much the same reason, managers require certification: A certification does not guarantee that you won't hose the database or that you won't pull the wrong plug while repairing machines in the data center. But they sharply reduce the likelihood of that happening.

There's another reason why you should get certified, and that is to validate the training you get. I can't help wondering why it is that individuals and companies are willing to fork over tons of money to get their staff through training, yet they do not offer the bit extra to get the certifications in place. Really, certification is often the only metric you have available for validating that the money you paid for training yourself or your staff were well spent. From the employer's perspective, adding a requirement of certification to training has the added benefit that the ones taking part in the training will not only stay awake and pay attention during the course; they will also review the materials afterward, giving the most value for the training money.